Wanted: A Man For All Seasons

from Freedom Watch: 'Government, Companies Sued for $23B in NSA Scandal' - Larry Klayman 

From: info@list2.freedomwatchusa.org

Subject: Government, Companies Sued for $23B in NSA Scandal

Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 16:46:19 -0400

Government, Companies Sued for $23B in NSA Scandal

MONEY with Melissa Francis

Fox Business

June 17, 2013

Freedom Watch founder Larry Klayman on the two lawsuits against the government and companies involved in the NSA’s surveillance programs; video of appearance w/Melissa.

(My comment, July 1:)

Good.  Sock it to'em, Larry.  But keep hammering away at the essential point: that the federal government must have probable cause to monitor our communications; that it can't just use a vacuum cleaner, rendering us all guilty before being proven innocent; that anybody arguing for a wholesale surveillance state is arguing to eliminate the Constitution - and that argument MUST NOT STAND.  That makes them part of the bad guys; not our saviors, but our keepers - precisely what Big Brother wants to be.

Hammer it home, Larry, over and over: this is about essential liberty over the 'safety' of the gulag.  And I'll take Benjamin Franklin's comment on this sort of thing over any NSA overzealous apologist's any day.   

Stan Stanfield       

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Two things.  1)  Benjamin Franklin's comment:

"Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

2) I am appalled at the number of 'upstanding' people, on both sides of the political aisle, who have come out arguing for the 'safety' that has been purchased by these unconstitutionally draconian measures instituted by the NSA, and whoever else is snooping into our lives with a free rein.  Basically, the argument - that has come down to us 'courtesy' of the Bush the Younger's push for the so-called PATRIOT Act; the first in the stealthy steps since - is coming down to the proposal that we must eliminate the Constitution, because otherwise the gad guys are gonna get us.  Guess what?  If the Constitution is cut down to get to the bad guys, the bad guys will have won.

l am reminded of one of the better films that I have seen:

'A Man for All Seasons' - on Thomas More,  Chancellor of England, who got on the wrong side of the king, Henry VIII  / Robert Bolt,  playwright and screenplay (the film made in 1966; starring Paul Scofield in a memorably understated performance):

from Wikipedia:

Although it is the law that eventually forces More's execution, the play also makes several powerful statements in support of the rule of law. At one point More's future son-in-law, Roper, urges him to arrest Richard Rich, whose perjury will eventually lead to More's execution. More answers that Rich has broken no law, "And go he should if he were the Devil himself until he broke the law!" Roper is appalled at the idea of granting the Devil the benefit of law, but More is adamant.

"What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ... And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down…do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!"

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But then, we don't have such giants in politics today as the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas More.  We have political, and moral, pygmies.  (See, e.g., the number of Congresspersons who have come out against the purloining of the American presidency by a non-natural born citizen.  Profiles of Courage, anyone??  No???  Going.  Going...)  So I suppose I should cut them some slack.

After all, they can't help being who and what they are.  

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