That flushing sound is your Bill of Rights

There is an interesting tug of war going on in Washington that is bringing some normal opposing and politically strange bedfellows together. Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is normally an advocate for the left has cut a deal with Republican Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina to pass the National Defense Authorization Act. This is the act that will allow the military to lock up American citizens for an indeterminate length of time without trial. Hello Guantanamo? Book me my suite.

Civil libertarians from both ends of the horseshoe are up in arms about this further abridgment of our civil liberties. Senators' Feinstein and Leahy, two passionate advocates for civil liberty in the past, were both in opposition. The act has also been opposed by the Obama Administration, but not because our constitutional scholar in chief is worried about the Bill of Rights, but instead because he feels that it will intrude on his executive authority and tie his hands and force him to move some terrorism cases out of civilian and into military courts. The bill invests a lot of authority on who to haul in with the executive office. I hope that the "great compromiser" has the balls to follow through with his intended veto.

I have written about this issue ad nauseum and will spare you the full blown exposé. But I do have several thoughts that I would like to share. I think that the case resonates with the public and breaks us down into two simple camps; those that trust their government and those that do not. Excuse me, but I fit into the latter camp.

Delayed Notice Warrants - 2006-2009

Once a right is surrendered, it rarely ever can fit back into the genie's bottle. The Patriot Act has been used, not to fight terrorism in the last ten years but more often than not in petty, low level drug indictments and local criminal prosecutions. It's delayed notice "sneak-and-peak" warrants were issued only 15 times in terrorism investigations, but a whopping 1,618 times in drug cases in the period of 2006 through 2009.

It is quite a nice recipe for martial law, after an event like 9/11 you simply declare war against an undetermined enemy, named terrorism, and keep your citizens in constitutional lockdown for an indeterminate period, in this case ten years and counting. Suspend constitutional liberties in an act like this one with no sunset provisions. Poof goes a whole laundry list of protective amendments and protections that we have long held dear. Politicians, governmental types and dictators thrive on this sort of power. Dog help us.