DC REALLY DOES MEAN...
DISTRICT OF CRIMINALS

By: Nathanael

The following is a challenge to any and all attorneys, any and all publicly elected officials – federal/state/local, any and all military men – non-commissioned and commissioned officers or any and all law enforcement officers. All of the people in these categories take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution as a required first act in accepting that job or office. The oath taken to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution applies to all enemies foreign and domestic.

Whether the Constitution is in force or if it even exists arises again in the October 22, 2007 Washington Post article titled “Immunity for Telecoms May Set Bad Precedent, Legal Scholars Say - Retroactive Protection Could Create Problems in the Future”. It can be read here.  

The challenge or question to all of the above-mentioned “oath-takers” and the esteemed legal scholars at the Washington Post is … how is any bill passed by Congress and signed by the President legal and enforceable if it includes conditions or clauses that are retroactive? Any retroactive or ex post facto law irrefutably violates Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Constitution. Wherein it states: 

No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

With further emphasis by Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison (1803) 

"All laws repugnant to the Constitution are void of law.”

Any law, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 for example, passed with retroactive features only has the color of law and in fact is not law. Anything that can be retroactively changed from illegal to legal will be changed by those in power. Being able to pass a law after the fact empties the rule of law. 

Take a moment and watch Jack Cafferty of CNN explain how GWBush has attempted to retroactively pardon/immunize himself from war crimes indictments with the passing of the Military Commission Act of 2006. Watch it here - WHAT HAVE WE BECOME?  The indictment of GWBush and his administration cabal for war crimes is not simply a hypothetical risk. Donald Rumsfeld while in Paris, France has been charged with war crimes on October 27, 2007 and reportedly had to flee that country to avoid being arrested. Read about it here and here.  

The current considerations by Congress to meet the demands of GWBush and modify the FISA court, thus attempting to make legal warrantless searches/wiretaps and provide retroactive immunity for Telecom companies are not "Bad Legal Precedent". They are clear and publicly admitted crimes. The numerous Bill of Rights violations by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the proposed changes to the FISA court (itself constitutionally dubious since it is a secret court and not a public one) are wholly detached from the rule of law. LEX REX is the rule and not REX LEX. 

“….in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is Law, so in free Countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.” Thomas Paine, Common Sense 57 (Philadelphia 1776)  

This proposed FISA bill and the MCA of 2006 are in effect direct assaults on the value and utility of language. Does “no” mean “no”? Is there any single word more important than “no”?

A brief Constitutional review on the value of the word “no” is instructive. Please read the first ten amendments to the Constitution, aka the Bill of Rights, found here. Every one of the ten, except the Sixth, which acknowledges universal and undeniable trial rights, uses crucial words of negation (no-nor-not-never) to define the character, function and prohibition against the rights of the people being violated. The First Amendment famously starts off, “Congress shall make no law ...” These rights enumerated in the first ten amendments are not licenses or privileges granted by government but are held inherently by the people.  

Some of the specific criminal violations by members of Congress and the President in passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and with the proposed FISA changes can be found in the US Code as follows: 

§ 242. Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law 

§ 241. Conspiracy Against Rights 

§ 2383. Rebellion or Insurrection (A form of Treason) 

§ 2384. Seditious Conspiracy 

§ 371. Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud United States 

All of the above violations are serious felonies. All of the people involved are subject to prosecution. The government, all its officers and agents are subject to the law and not above it. Especially the President, since he is the nation’s chief law enforcement officer with the Department of Justice and Attorney General being part of the Executive Branch.  

§ 2. Principals 

(a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.

(b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.  

"Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws . . . ." Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). Justice Tom Clarke  

"(N)o man is above the law; that every man, irrespective of station in life, or position presently occupied, is subject along with all others to the same laws and the same considerations to our courts." Grobholz v. Merdel Mortgage Inv. Co., 170 A. R. 815, 817 ( Ct. App. N.J. 1934). Justice Perskie 

"It violates the cardinal precept...that this shall be a government of laws--because to the precise extent that the mere will of an official or an official body is permitted to take the place of allowable official discretion or to supplant the standing law as a rule of human conduct, the government ceases to be one of laws and becomes an autocracy." Jones v. Securities and Exch. Com., 298 U.S. 1, 23-24 (1936). Justice Sutherland 

“Under our system the people, who are there (in England) called subjects, are the sovereign. Their rights, whether collective or individual, are not bound to give way to a sentiment of loyalty to the person of the monarch. The citizen here knows no person, however near to those in power, or however powerful himself, to whom he need yield the rights which the law secures to him when it is well administered.  

No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives.” US v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196 (1882) 

Rightly applying the historic words of Chief Justice John Marshall, the Military Commission Act of 2006 for many reasons is void of law, regardless of the Congress passing it and the President signing it. 

One might ask … But what if a Congressional Act is passed unanimously by the House and Senate and signed by the President, would that be a legal modification of the Constitution? No. In order for any ex post facto law to be legal the Constitution must first be modified with a successful Article V procedure that removes the ex post facto prohibition before any retroactive bill or act could be passed lawfully by Congress. 

Article V 

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.  

At the national level only the House and the Senate by a two-thirds majority – with no input from the President - can propose an amendment to the Constitution. Two-thirds of the state legislatures or conventions can also propose amendments to the Constitution. In order for a proposed amendment to validly pass, it requires three-fourths of the state legislatures or conventions to pass the unaltered and originally proposed amendment. Any and all branches of the Federal Government have no Constitutional authority to make any changes to the Constitution, neither by Executive Order or signing statement from the President nor a bill passed unanimously by Congress nor judicial legislation via case rulings from the Supreme Court.