The 4th Amendment and General Warrants

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
— 4th Amendment, United States Constitution


Property to be seized:
All physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793,2071, or 1519, including the following:
> a. Any physical documents with classification markings, along with any containers/boxes (including any other contents) in which such documents are located, as well as any other containers/boxes that are collectively stored or found together with the aforementioned documents and containers/boxes;
> b. Information, including communications in any form, regarding the retrieval, storage, or transmission of national defense information or classified material;
> c. Any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20.2017, and January 20, 2021; or
> d. Any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction, or concealment of any government and/or Presidential Records, or of any documents with classification markings
— Search warrant for Mar-A-Lago, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida

The 4th Amendment was largely a reaction to the British government’s practice of issuing “General Warrants” which allowed the authorities to search a subject’s premises for any evidence of anything that they wanted to seize or could use to prosecute the subject. British soldiers would show up at your door, present the warrant (or not, if they didn’t want to) and then turn your house upside down, looking any any “evidence” that could be used against you.

All physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793,2071, or 1519.”

Read that carefully and look at the commas. The warrant was for “evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items…”

Did the Justice Department issue a “General Warrant” to go through Trump’s home looking for anything they could use against him? You tell me. They did it to Donald Trump, a billionaire, a former President and political opponent of the current administration. They can certainly do it to you. The difference is, no one will be hearing about it on Fox News or anywhere else when they come to your door.

Insurrection

[NOTE: With everything that’s going on, I’m sure some wonder why they haven’t heard anything out of me for a while. It’s a special kind of writer’s block. When I sit down to write something, instead I start to write everything. I’m trying (again) to overcome it with this post.]

The January 6 Commission is supposedly investigating an “insurrection” that was staged (they really hope to prove–one way or the other) by Donald Trump to prevent the “orderly transfer of power” after the stolen 2020 election. The fact is, there is an insurrection in progress in this country, but that ain’t it.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

–The United States Declaration of Independence

Has our government now become “destructive” to the ends of securing our rights? I’m not going to try to make that case now (see introductory NOTE above) but I do want to point out that there is nothing wrong with our form of government. The United States was born as a constitutional republic, ruled by law (the Constitution) and not by the whims of men: not a king, not an autocracy nor even the ever-changing wishes of the majority (the mob).

The problem is that we are no longer governed by our constituted form of government. We are now governed (ruled) by an autocracy made up of individuals that, although they each swear an oath to “uphold and defend” the United States Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, do not intend to be restrained by the words that are the foundation of our properly constituted government. They themselves are, in fact, the most dire enemy that our Constitution has ever faced.

What has happened is indeed an insurrection. It took place over decades and happened so slowly that few noticed it, but we are no longer a constitutional republic, a nation governed by law and not by men. Donald Trump and those who support him are not the insurrectionists. The insurrectionists are those who are using the vast powers of an out-of-control government to harass, persecute and destroy him (and when it seems expedient to them) anyone around him. Why? Because he and those who support him seek to return to our nation’s foundation as a republic and overthrow their corrupt unconstitutional autocracy that has enriched and empowered them.