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If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard [the Constitution] they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.”

Our Founding Principles in a Nutshell

The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which … concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

These enumerated powers concern: Military defense, international commerce & relations; Control of immigration and naturalization of new citizens; Creation of a uniform commercial system: Weights & measures, patents & copyrights, money based on gold & silver, bankruptcy laws, mail delivery & some road building; and With some of the Amendments, protect certain civil rights and voting rights (for blacks, women, citizens who don’t pay taxes, and citizens 18 years and older).

It is to secure our rights to life and liberty by:

It is to secure our property rights by:

It is to secure our right to liberty by:

The fourth Founding Principle in our Declaration is this: When government takes away our God given rights, We have the Right & the Duty to alter, abolish, or throw off such government. Nullification is thus a natural right of self-defense:

1. As we have just seen, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton saw nullification of unconstitutional acts of the federal government as a “natural right” – not a “constitutional right”. And since Rights come from God, there is no such thing as a “constitutional right”!

Madison’s Report on the Virginia Resolutions (1799-1800)

Madison explains that if, when the federal government usurps power, the States cannot act so as to stop the usurpation, and thereby preserve the Constitution as well as the safety of The States; there would be no relief from usurped power. 

Madison answers the objection “that the judicial authority is to be regarded as the sole expositor of the Constitution, in the last resort”.

When WE THE PEOPLE ratified our Constitution, and thereby created the federal government, WE did not delegate to our “creature” power to control our medical care, restrict guns and ammunition, dictate what is done in the public schools, dictate how we use our lands, and all the thousands of things they do WE never gave them authority in our Constitution to do.

NUMBER FOUR: "The Fourteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States are hereby repealed.   All Federal agencies, programs, laws, rules, regulations, and/or orders created, passed, or handed down as a direct or indirect result of the Fourteenth, Sixteenth, and/or Seventeenth Amendments are hereby stricken from Law, declared null and void, and have no force of effect."

NUMBER SEVEN:   "Section One:   The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States shall be interpreted to mean the FUNDAMENTAL right of individual citizens and/or groups of citizens to keep and bear arms; in their homes and/or other properties, in public and private, and on their persons. Section Two:    Non-citizens and persons convicted of a violent felony by a jury of their peers do not have this right."

Congress should take its lead from the people, who have already made it very clear in both red and blue states that a constitutional amendment is needed, and that campaign finance reform is only scratching the surface. Such an amendment has already been introduced in Congress by Representative Rick Nolan (DFL-Minn.) in February of 2013. Udall and his co-sponsors should take their cues from HJR-29, or the “We the People Amendment,” if they’re serious about representing the people’s interests. Anything else is an election-year bone not to be taken seriously.

As the Fourth Amendment is not absolute in its terms, our task is to examine and balance the basic values at stake in this case: the duty of Government 315*315 to protect the domestic security, and the potential danger posed by unreasonable surveillance to individual privacy and free expression. If the legitimate need of Government to safeguard domestic security requires the use of electronic surveillance, the question is whether the needs of citizens for privacy and free expression may not be better protected by requiring a warrant before such surveillance is undertaken. We must also ask whether a warrant requirement would unduly frustrate the efforts of Government to protect itself from acts of subversion and overthrow directed against it. Though the Fourth Amendment speaks broadly of "unreasonable searches and seizures," the definition of "reasonableness" turns, at least in part, on the more specific commands of the warrant clause. Some have argued that "[t]he relevant test is not whether it is reasonable to procure a search warrant, but whether the search was reasonable," United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56, 66 (1950).[16] This view, however, overlooks the second clause of the Amendment. The warrant clause of the Fourth Amendment is not dead language. Rather, it has been

"a valued part of our constitutional law for decades, and it has determined the result in scores and scores of cases in courts all over this country. It is not an inconvenience to be somehow `weighed' against the claims of police efficiency. It is, or should 316*316 be, an important working part of our machinery of government, operating as a matter of course to check the `well-intentioned but mistakenly overzealous executive officers' who are a part of any system of law enforcement." Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S., at 481. See also United States v. Rabinowitz, supra, at 68 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting); Davis v. United States, 328 U. S. 582, 604 (1946) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Over two centuries ago, Lord Mansfield held that common-law principles prohibited warrants that ordered the arrest of unnamed individuals who the officer might conclude were guilty of seditious libel. "It is not fit," said Mansfield, "that the receiving or judging of the information should be left to the discretion of the officer. The magistrate ought to judge; and should give certain directions to the officer." Leach v. Three of the King's Messengers, 19 How. St. Tr. 1001, 1027 (1765).

Lord Mansfield's formulation touches the very heart of the Fourth Amendment directive: that, where practical, a governmental search and seizure should represent both the efforts of the officer to gather evidence of wrongful acts and the judgment of the magistrate that the collected evidence is sufficient to justify invasion of a citizen's private premises or conversation. Inherent in the concept of a warrant is its issuance by a "neutral and detached magistrate." Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, at 453; Katz v. United States, supra, at 356. The further requirement of "probable cause" instructs the magistrate that baseless searches shall not proceed. These Fourth Amendment freedoms cannot properly be guaranteed if domestic security surveillances may be conducted solely within the discretion of the Executive 317*317 Branch. The Fourth Amendment does not contemplate the executive officers of Government as neutral and disinterested magistrates. Their duty and responsibility are to enforce the laws, to investigate, and to prosecute. Katz v. United States, supra, at 359-360 (DOUGLAS, J., concurring). But those charged with this investigative and prosecutorial duty should not be the sole judges of when to utilize constitutionally sensitive means in pursuing their tasks. The historical judgment, which the Fourth Amendment accepts, is that unreviewed executive discretion may yield too readily to pressures to obtain incriminating evidence and overlook potential invasions of privacy and protected speech.[17]

It may well be that, in the instant case, the Government's surveillance of Plamondon's conversations was a reasonable one which readily would have gained prior judicial approval. But this Court "has never sustained a search upon the sole ground that officers reasonably expected to find evidence of a particular crime and voluntarily confined their activities to the least intrusive means consistent with that end." Katz, supra, at 356-357. The Fourth Amendment contemplates a prior judicial judgment,[18] not the risk that executive discretion may be reasonably exercised. This judicial role accords with our basic constitutional doctrine that individual freedoms will best be preserved through a separation of powers and division of functions among the different branches and levels of Government. Harlan, Thoughts at a Dedication: Keeping the Judicial Function in Balance, 49 A. B. A. J. 943-944 (1963). The independent check upon executive discretion is not 318*318 satisfied, as the Government argues, by "extremely limited" post-surveillance judicial review.[19] Indeed, post-surveillance review would never reach the surveillances which failed to result in prosecutions. Prior review by a neutral and detached magistrate is the time-tested means of effectuating Fourth Amendment rights. Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89, 96 (1964).

But we do not think a case has been made for the requested departure from Fourth Amendment standards. The circumstances described do not justify complete exemption of domestic security surveillance from prior judicial scrutiny. Official surveillance, whether its purpose be criminal investigation or ongoing intelligence gathering, risks infringement of constitutionally protected privacy of speech. Security surveillances are especially sensitive because of the inherent vagueness of the domestic security concept, the necessarily broad and continuing nature of intelligence gathering, and the temptation to utilize such surveillances to oversee political dissent. We recognize, as we have before, the constitutional basis of the President's domestic security role, but we think it must be exercised in a manner compatible with the Fourth Amendment. In this case we hold that this requires an appropriate prior warrant procedure. We cannot accept the Government's argument that internal security matters are too subtle and complex for judicial evaluation. Courts regularly deal with the most difficult issues of our society. There is no reason to believe that federal judges will be insensitive to or uncomprehending of the issues involved in domestic security cases. Certainly courts can recognize that domestic security surveillance involves different considerations from the surveillance of "ordinary crime." If the threat is too subtle or complex for our senior law enforcement officers to convey its significance to a court, one may question whether there is probable cause for surveillance.

Nor do we believe prior judicial approval will fracture the secrecy essential to official intelligence gathering. The investigation of criminal activity has long 321*321 involved imparting sensitive information to judicial officers who have respected the confidentialities involved. Judges may be counted upon to be especially conscious of security requirements in national security cases. Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act already has imposed this responsibility on the judiciary in connection with such crimes as espionage, sabotage, and treason, §§ 2516 (1) (a) and (c), each of which may involve domestic as well as foreign security threats. Moreover, a warrant application involves no public or adversary proceedings: it is an ex parte request before a magistrate or judge. Whatever security dangers clerical and secretarial personnel may pose can be minimized by proper administrative measures, possibly to the point of allowing the Government itself to provide the necessary clerical assistance.

Thus, we conclude that the Government's concerns do not justify departure in this case from the customary Fourth Amendment requirement of judicial approval prior to initiation of a search or surveillance. Although some added burden will be imposed upon the Attorney General, this inconvenience is justified in a free society to protect constitutional values. Nor do we think the Government's domestic surveillance powers will be impaired to any significant degree. A prior warrant establishes presumptive validity of the surveillance and will minimize the burden of justification in post-surveillance judicial review. By no means of least importance will be the reassurance of the public generally that indiscriminate wiretapping and bugging of law-abiding citizens cannot occur.

As the surveillance of Plamondon's conversations was unlawful, because conducted without prior judicial approval, the courts below correctly held that Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165 (1969), is controlling and that it requires disclosure to the accused of his own impermissibly intercepted conversations. As stated in Alderman, "the trial court can and should, where appropriate, place a defendant and his counsel under enforceable orders against unwarranted disclosure of the materials which they may be entitled to inspect." 394 U. S., at 185.[21]

Civil liberties and privacy groups are particularly alarmed that the FBI is seeking such a huge step up in its capabilities through such an apparently backdoor route. Soghoian said of next week’s meeting: “This should not be the first public forum for discussion of an issue of this magnitude.” Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford center for internet and society, said that “this is an investigative technique that we haven’t seen before and we haven’t thrashed out the implications. It absolutely should not be done through a rule change – it has to be fully debated publicly, and Congress must be involved.” Ghappour has also highlighted the potential fall-out internationally were the amendment to be approved. Under current rules, there are no fourth amendment restrictions to US government surveillance activities in other countries as the US constitution only applies to domestic territory.

Another insight into the expansive thrust of US government thinking in terms of its cyber ambitions was gleaned recently in the prosecution of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged founder of the billion-dollar drug site the Silk Road. Experts suspect that the FBI hacked into the Silk Road server, that was located in Reykjavik, Iceland, though the agency denies that. In recent legal argument, US prosecutors claimed that even if they had hacked into the server without a warrant, it would have been justified as “a search of foreign property known to contain criminal evidence, for which a warrant was not necessary”.

While most journalists have been too intimidated to report details, and media have largely been put under State control, it has transpired that police has dispersed non-violent protests throughout the country. In some cases police used disproportionate violence and water cannons. “The heads of 100 nongovernmental organizations wanted to come and make statements here (in front of the parliament). But now you see, parliament is under blockade, the roads are closed, there is a TOMA (a water cannon vehicle). We are under siege,” said Aykut Erdogdu, a lawmaker of the Republican people’s Party – CHP. He added: “It is very wrong to block parliament on the eve of such an important constitutional change that will be discussed in parliament.” Erdogdu stressed that the CHP’s parliamentary group will attempt to prolong and if possible stall the “constitutional reform” by issuing proposals and non-confidence motions in order to emphasize their opposition. CHP Deputy Group Chair Özgür Özel, for his part, told the press: “We think that the longer this process is going to be, the more useful it will be, the more likely these mistakes will be realized, and the constitutional proposal will be completely withdrawn.” He added that the discussions which prolonged the process in the parliamentary commission were fruitful in that they created awareness about the importance of the amendment. “We will give speeches on the entire constitutional amendment and then on each item. In addition, we may also propose that the material be removed from the text because it is contrary to the constitution,” Özel added. The governing, Islamist AKP Group’s Deputy Chairperson Mustafa Elitaş, for his part, criticized the CHP’s plan to suggest it would appeal the amendments on the grounds that they are anti-constitutional. He noted that: “The parliamentary spokesperson should not issue that contradiction to the constitution proposal because after the constitution has changed, it will become the material of the constitution”.

Semih Yalçın, the MHP deputy leader, also opposed the CHP’s criticism that the amendment would pave the way for a federal system and ultimately the division of the country. Yalçın noted in a written statement that with the efforts of the MHP, the unitary character of the country had been protected and that all the possibilities that would lead to a regime change or division had been eliminated. The AKP and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) block is making a special effort to prevent any defections from their parties in an effort to reach the 330 votes needed to bring the constitution to the referendum. The total number of votes of the two parties reaches 355, but seven lawmakers from the MHP have already publicly declared their opposition to the package. On Monday Filiz Kerestecioğlu, the Peoples Democracy Party (HDP) Group’s Deputy Chairperson, stressed that the HDP would say “no” to the constitution, adding that the HDP would try to make sure that the lawmakers vote in a secret ballot, despite pressures from the ruling party. He added: “We believe that some lawmakers who have the possibility to say ‘no’ will be pressured by other lawmakers; the government will use man-to-man marking.” The HDP now decided to boycott the vote.