November 9, 2010 by lonbud

This is How the Terrorists Won, Pt.2

I was speaking not long ago with a former law school classmate and we were ruminating on how the most sacrosanct constitutional right had come to be not the right to privacy — only the most naive among us ever believed that one — nor the right to Life (certainly not in the last remaining First World nation to still execute its prisoners), but the right, or freedom, to travel.

Interestingly enough, the Supreme Court didn’t enshrine it so out of beneficent respect for any freedom of the individual but rather as a vehicle for upholding the state’s authority to regulate (read: promote) interstate commerce.

Be that as it may, the eventual resolution of the ACLU’s lawsuit on behalf of 17 U.S. citizens and legal residents challenging their placement on the U.S. government’s No-Fly List and the failure of the government to give them a chance to defend themselves ought to be pretty interesting.

Read this sad tale to understand just one more reason why you ought to have little confidence an any assertion that says your constitutional rights have not diminished in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

And don’t think it couldn’t happen to you.

#civil rights#terrorism#war