Big Brother Tracks Your Cell Phone
Technology can be a wonderful thing. Over the years, it has given us the automobile, the airplane, the personal computer, and the cellular phone, perhaps the most versatile device each of us uses today. Cellular technology has advanced so much that, in emergencies, we can simply dial 911, whereupon the emergency dispatcher can locate us and direct emergency services right to us. But now, as it is wont to do, government has found yet another way to intrude in our lives, further eroding our constitutionally protected right to privacy. (more…)
The Travesty of Amendment XIV
In drafting the Constitution of the United States, its framers understood that the fledgling republic they created would grow and mature and that, as it did so, the Constitution might require amendment to accommodate the changes that came about as a result. To that end, Article V spelled out the requirements for amending it:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
Today, we know that the Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times. Each amendment served to right a problem of the day. That is, generally, the issue a particular amendment sought to address was current; it was not intended to correct for a situation that might occur fifty years down the road. For example, the first ten, the Bill of Rights, were included because many of the anti-Federalists were not convinced that the Constitution itself was enough to protect what they considered essential liberties, nor were they convinced that the newly-created federal government would forever constrain itself to the Constitution’s boundaries. If it had not been clear from the outset that the Constitution created a small federal government of limited powers, these amendments–the tenth in particular–made it so. Subsequent amendments addressed the issues of their day, such as the thirteenth, which abolished slavery, and the twenty-second, which set presidential term limits. (more…)
