House Speaker Boehner's Newslwtter

Open email to House Speaker Boehner:

Dear Speaker Boehner,
    I have read your newsletter.
    The headline says, "Republicans Vote to Lift President's Offshore Energy Ban, Make Paying for College Easier, & More.
    The sub headline says, "In this week’s Speaker Alert, we’re highlighting new legislation that will help create jobs by stopping the president’s “war” on offshore energy; Senate Democrats left Washington without passing legislation to prevent a spike in student loan interest rates; the investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attack continues; and more.
    I have already commented on these matters, and will make it short and direct.
    Yes. Stop the President's war on offshore [oil] energy, and you now can include coal. We need more energy. It makes jobs.
    "No" on student loan rates. The Democrats have the right idea in opposing continued low subsidized loan rates, even though they have the wrong reason. First, government should not be in the education business. That's a matter for private enterprise alone. Using taxpayer money to subsidize low loan rates for people to attend college is also a fraud and deception. The market is already flooded with college graduates who can't find jobs, and we don't need to subsidize the generation of more. In addition, you are encouraging students to take loans on which they will have great difficulty in paying off. You are selling snake oil.
    Keep up the Benghazi interrogations, as well as IRS and anything else that puts the Obama administration on the defense.

Immigration Bill II

Open email to Sen. Cornyn (Texas):

Dear Sen. Cornyn,
    I read your newsletter.
    In spite of your opposition to the Immigration Bill, your Senate associates passed It.
    Congratulations for your effort. But, perhaps you can push your associates harder. Please keep in lockstep with Sen. Cruz on this matter.

Immigration Bill

     The Washington Times says the immigration bill has cleared the Senate but faces an uncertain future in the House.
    Passage in the Senate was accomplished by a number of Republicans acceding to political persuasion, presumably on the threat of being voted out of office, rather than what is correct for the country.
    However, we need to congratulate our two Texas Senators, Cornyn and Cruz, who were lockstep in opposing the bill.
    Both voted against an amendment to double the number of border agents from 20,000 to 40,000 and add 700 miles of fencing at a cost of roughly $38 billion. It's too expensive and not necessary.
Sen. Cruz said, “All of the concerns that have been repeatedly raised about this bill remain. It repeats the mistakes of the 1986 immigration bill. It grants amnesty first. It won’t secure the border. And, it doesn’t fix our broken legal immigration system.”
The good news is the statement that the immigration bill faces an uncertain future in the House. House leaders have said that they are taking a completely different approach to the immigration problem. In that case, it is likely that many of Sen. Cruz's objections may be of significant value.

US and the Syrian Civil War

Open email to Sen. Cornyn (Texas):

Dear Sen. Cornyn,
    I originally wrote you concerning my opposition to US involvement in the Syrian Civil War and gave various reasons for same.
    You kindly replied with a form letter containing your opinions, most of which are at distinct odds with mine. While I am strongly opposed to US involvement in the Syrian conflict, you are strongly in favor of it. For that reason, I am considering whether to classify you as a warmonger, in the same category as Sen. McCain.
    Rather than deal in generalities and classifications, perhaps we ought to look at some of the details where we have basic differences of opinion. I will use excerpts from your form letter to control the context of the discussion. For those who wish to view the full text of your form letter, I am sure they can obtain it through your website.

    In the first paragraph of your form letter, you said: On March 18, 2011, the Syrian people commenced widespread and peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad and his regime. Subsequently, President Assad and his government forces launched a violent response.

    My comment: You are stating that the Syrian government responded to peaceful protests with violence. How do you know that? Do you know who fired the first shot or who threw the first Molotov cocktail? Let's assume that the sources of violence is untraceable, but that in fact violence is being used by both sides. As a member of the US government, would you anticipate using violence against a violent rebel attack or would you immediately capitulate?
    You said : According to the United Nations, as of April 2013, the death toll in Syria is likely over 93,000.  The violent oppression by the Assad regime continues unabated, with the regime failing to deliver promised reforms and instead utilizing overwhelming force against the protestors.
    My comment: 93,000 people is a lot of people to die. One of the objectives of war is to kill people. In our own Civil War, we had a tremendous number of deaths. Was there justification for the US Civil War? Was one side more justified than the other? Did one side commit atrocities, while the other did not? Would you say that in the US Civil War there was violent oppression by the Union? What promised reforms has Assad failed to deliver? I we really talking about a new form of liberty in Syria or are we talking about another form of dictatorial government?

     In your second paragraph, you said: Pres. Obama has called for Syrian president Assad's resignation.

    My comment: What right does Pres. Obama have to make this request? Pres. Obama was elected President of the United States, not the world's policeman. Syria is none of his business.

    You said: Pres. Obama drew a line in the sand indicating that he would become involved in Syria if chemical weapons were used, and you want that backed up with force, since there appears to be positive use of chemical weapons.
    My comment: Pres. Obama should never have made such a statement. There's basically no difference between killing people with rifle shots, bombs chemicals, starvation, disease and the other forms traditionally used in war. The nature of war is to kill people. The most effective ways possible should be used. However in this case I see no justification for the US war. The Syrian Civil War is none of our business.

    In your third paragraph, you said: You want the US government to stop purchasing helicopters from Rosoboronexport, a Russian arms broker, for US gifts to the Afghanistan military.
    My comment: You're on the right track but for the wrong reason. We should not be in an Afghanistan war, nor should we be supplying military equipment to Afghanistan anymore than we should be supplying military equipment to Syria.
    You say: The Russian arms broker facilitates arms transfers to Syria, for which reason we should be boycotting doing business with the same Russian arms broker.
    My comment: What's wrong with a Russian arms broker sending military equipment to Syria? That's it's business. Are you surprised that arms brokers sell military equipment, or it is just that you want to be the one to decide who they sell to?
    You also say: The Assad regime is murdering its own people.
    My comment: Could you not also say that the rebels are murdering government employees?

    In your fourth paragraph, You said: You were successful in prohibiting the use of funding for the US government to enter into any further contracts or business agreements with Rosoboronexport.
    My comment: I checked the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. You are correct. H.R. 4310—15
Sec. 1277 prohibits use of funds to enter into contracts or agreements with Rosoboronexport. Are you now pleased that you are restricting world trade and denying our military the right to purchase on a worldwide basis the equipment which it feels is most suitable for its use?

 

    Your fifth paragraph says: That despite this law, reports indicate that the Army has entered into a new contract with Rosoboronexport to procure additional helicopters.
    My comment: While I have an initial feeling of satisfaction that your attempted restriction has been unsuccessful, I agree with your implication that "the law is the law". Even a bad law must be followed, until such time as it can be changed. I encourage you to continue pressing this matter with Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense. It is either his responsibility to follow the law or come to some other agreement with Congress on the matter. Perhaps a quick modification of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 to eliminate Section 1277 would be appropriate.

 

    Your last paragraph says: The people of Syria have demonstrated a hunger for freedom, and the United States has a solemn duty to support their human rights and democratic aspirations.
    My comment: Hogwash! You don't have the faintest idea of what the people of Syria want or need, nor do you have any idea who the rebels are. The US been embarked for many years on nation building programs which have failed in every case, with the possible exception of Israel even that one continues to causes difficulty
    I do not believe in an isolation policy for the US, but I am also much opposed to trying to reestablish foreign governments in our image, when we not even sure what that image is.
    Perhaps you were involved in reestablishing the Egyptian government. I heard on the news this morning that there is now such confusion and disorganization in that society that is likely they may be headed for famine conditions. How are you going to feel when you are at least partially responsible for the starvation of 82 million people, who previously had enough to eat albeit without a possibility of voting for new dictator?

Racial Slurs

    Over the past few days I saw on TV news several repeats of a middle-aged woman crying and very emotionally apologizing to the general public for all of the mistakes she's made. My first reaction was to ignore it, but my curiosity was aroused, and I ran an Internet search.
    I learned that the crying middle-aged woman was Paula Deen, apparently a well-known cook on a TV cooking show. In addition to her TV cooking show, she apparently owns a Savannah restaurant with her brother. Last year, a presumably black ex-employee filed a discrimination suit against the restaurant charging sexual harassment, and working in a hostile environment rife with innuendo and racial slurs. Paula Deen was called upon to give a deposition involving the suit, and she did so on May 17 of this year.
    During the deposition, prosecution asked Ms. Deen numerous questions concerning her racial attitude, presumably as related to her position as an employer. In particular, she was asked whether she ever used the word "nigger". She said that she had, but a long time ago. No indication of when that was or the context in which the word was used.
    From that point on, it is not clear how the matter escalated. It may have been picked up by news reporters, who subsequently pressed Ms. Dean for further details. It is unclear to me, how Ms. Deen could have developed into such an emotional collapse by having at one time called a black person a "nigger". I personally don't see this is a high social crime. I have probably used the word "nigger" myself over many years but likely more in the context of conversation rather than as a derogatory insult, which is not my nature. However, I can understand that other people are of somewhat different temperament and will use derogatory slurs out of anger and many times for the justification of raising themselves to a higher apparent status of desirability. I consider those reactions antisocial, and I have little respect for people who perform them on a regular basis. For an occasional lapse, I am inclined to overlook it, but it still decreases my respect for the character of the person who issued it. A converse racial slur for whites is "honkie", but we hear little about it in the news.
    With all that said, I am not much concerned with Ms. Dean's expletives or her subsequent apologies. I am much more concerned with the fact that our federal government and the US public has placed such an accent on racial slurs as to actually encourage division of the races. We are all Americans. I have several close friends who are black and who are in my judgment persons of highest integrity and in many cases high ability. Their black skins have never been found to be distasteful to me and in fact I never notice it, until I conjure up a mental image of the person. I have no feeling or desire to alienate blacks as a race, any more than I do Indians, or Slovaks or Russians, as nationalities. I see differences in the characteristics of these people. In some cases I see a characteristic as superior to that of my own, and in other cases a characteristic inferior to that of my own. I also see a large differences in characteristics between individuals within the same race or within the same nationality, all of which leads me to the philosophy of my taking a person as I find him, not for outward appearances, but rather for what he stands for, his contribution to society, his track record, and how he treats other people.
    Folks, let's get on with trying to solve some of the problems of our country and get off the kick of which person is better because of skin color, religion or whatever. Take a person the way you find him. If he is favorable to your program, work with him. If unfavorable, write him off and isolate him, but this does not mean to spend your time castigating him. Get on with your own work.

Low Student Loan Rates

Open email to House Speaker Boehner:

Dear Speaker Boehner,
    I have read your latest newsletter.    You are trying to get the Democrats to cooperate with you in avoiding an interest increase on student loans and continuing at the low subsidized rate.
    I was previously under the impression that one of the planks of the Republican Party was freedom and self-determination. This was supposed to be accentuated with smaller government and particularly in attempt to avoid interference in matters where economic market forces are trying to prevail.
    Your support of a continuing effort to keep student loan rates at a low level is completely contrary to the above concept.
    Student loans are a significant part of financial markets. When a student desires to advance his education through college/university, his first recourse is through actual grants from the federal government, of which the most significant are Pell grants. He next can draw on his family for support or scholarships from outside organizations, such as the Lions Club, etc.. When he is still short of funds to pay tuition fees, and bodily support for advanced education, he goes to the commercial markets. The higher the interest rate for loans in the commercial market, the less likelihood that he will be an acceptor and the less likelihood that he will be proceeding to higher education, at least at that stage of his life.
    Keep in mind that at the present time we have a tremendous number of young people with advanced education and who have significant student loans, even at the low subsidized rate, without employment. Simply stated, there is an overabundance of college-educated people in relationship to available positions. More simply stated, the federal government has contributed to a market excess at great taxpayer cost involving Pell grants and low-interest student loans. How long would you like that to continue, considering your present program of attempting to gain Democratic support for continuing low student loan rates?
    It is rather unusual for me to be on the side of Democrats, but with your implication that Democrats appear to be opposed to continuing low student loan rates, I support their position. For whatever reason they hold this position, it is clear that when the market is already overdeveloped with respect to availability of product or services, it is ridiculous for government subsidization this to exacerbate the overdevelopment.
    If you want to do something to benefit the country, get off the kick of meddling in commercial markets. Let the market take care of itself. Means that suppliers and users will come into proper balance through standard negotiation procedures, without government dumping taxpayer money on one side or the other.

More Mish Mosh from the National Security Agency

Officials at the National Security Agency (NSA) have gone all out to assure the American public that their surveillance program is absolutely needed for public protection against terrorist acts, and that it does not unnecessarily invade individual privacy.
The Washington Times has a considerable write-up on the NASA revelations.
Some of the information is revelation, but it is mostly a mish mosh of anecdotes.
Let us remember that the question is not whether we need a surveillance program to unearth projected terrorist activities. The question is what sort of program should be used and still stay within the privacy rights of innocent individuals, as required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
The Washington Times reveals that NASA has had two surveillance programs, rather than one. Deputy NSA Director Christopher Inglis said that one program exposed by Mr. Snowden, code-named Prism, collects email, text, video messages and other online communications from nine Internet companies, but it is used only to target foreigners believed to be outside the United States. The obvious use of this program is to look at the email, text, video messages, and other online communications, all of which are the personal records of individuals, most of whom are innocent and who's records have been illegally seized according to the limitations of the Fourth Amendment.
The other program, authorized under the USA Patriot Act, involves the collection of “metadata” from about every telephone call made or received in the United States, Mr. Inglis said. “The controls on the use of this data at NSA are specific, rigorous and designed to ensure focus on counter terrorism,” Mr. Inglis said. “To that end, the metadata acquired and stored under this program may be queried only [under] a reasonable articulable suspicion” of a link to terrorism. Here again, the seizing of the personal records of presumed innocent individuals is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Mr.Inglis also said, "The agency is not recording “the content of any communications, what you’re saying during the course of the conversation, the identities of the people that are talking or any cell phone locational information,” he added. Instead, the NSA collects only the numbers called and calling, so that when the agency discovers the telephone number of a terrorist overseas, it can be discovered whether that person had been in touch with anyone in the United States". Here again, the mere collection of the meta-data, which involves the personal records of individuals, is a violation of the fourth amendment. It has also been said that private companies similarly collect this kind of information from the Internet for marketing purposes. That does not make it right, and it should be stopped by both private companies and the federal government.
Additionally, NASA said that last year it checked fewer than 300 telephone numbers against its database containing details about every phone call made in America. I am unimpressed, because NSA should not even have had the database on which to check the 300 telephone numbers. Telephone service suppliers have this information as a database, because they need it for billing, and this is done with the acquiescence of the customers. In the case of NASA having a similar database, there is no logical commercial reason, and it is certainly not being done with the acquiescence of "customers". Since the phone companies are justified in maintaining the database, while NSA is not, NSA could have obtained a court order requiring the phone company to turn over the records of those specific customers under suspicion of various activities.
As an anecdotal presentation, NASA said Najibullah Zazi, who schemed to bomb the New York subway, and David Headley, who helped plan the 2008 Mumbai massacre, were caught because of their telephone or online communications with al Qaeda suspects abroad. That's good, I'm glad they were caught. The question is whether my Fourth Amendment rights were also violated in the operation, and whether a more specific program not involving seizing of records of innocent people could have produced the same results.
FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce revealed two more plots that he said had been disrupted with the help of intelligence from the two programs.
In one, a “known extremist in Yemen” was being monitored using Prism. The extremist was in contact with a man in Kansas City named Khaled Ouazzani.
“We went up on electronic surveillance and identified his co-conspirators” in plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, said Mr. Joyce. “We were able to disrupt the plot, we were able to lure some individuals to the United States, and we were able to effect their arrest. And they were convicted for this terrorist activity.” Hooray! Good job! However, it doesn't seem to me that the private records of presumably innocent individuals were necessary.
In the second instance, the FBI in October 2007 reopened a cold case from 2001, after "NSA provided us a telephone number only in San Diego that had indirect contact with an extremist outside the United States.” The FBI doesn't say how NASA knew about the foreign extremist. It is highly unlikely that this could have been picked up from a database. More logically, the information was obtained from other intelligence sources. Any subsequent tracking could been done through phone company databases, after obtaining a court order involving this suspicious person.

The G8 on Syria

The G8 is a group of eight nations considered to be most powerful in world politics and finance. The G8 meets periodically in a Summit Meeting to discuss major problems and opportunities. They recently met in Northern Ireland. The 8 includes the following countries : The U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia.
Of the various topics discussed, the accent was on the Syrian civil war, and from my point of view, good news resulted. The Washington Times says the G-8 Summit Meeting will continue through Tuesday, and Syria is expected to remain at the top of the agenda, even though a shared position on Syria among the eight nations  almost certainly will not materialize.
The reason for the disagreement is caused primarily by the Russian position, with its support of the Assad regime.
I have no particular reason  to support the Assad regime or the rebels, but I am thankful to the Russians for throwing in this ittem of discord, which will force the other 7 to seriously consider the merits of an override.
Neither the G8 nor any of the individual countries should be involved in the Syrian civil war. It is a local matter and should remain as such. I have previously discussed humanitarian possibilities, but that should not favor one side or the other. Humanitarian matters can be handled by private donations through the Red Cross. 

Rep. .Neugebauer on Immigration, Abortion, and the Farm Bill

Open email to Rep. Neugebauer (Texas):

Dear Randy,
    I read your latest newsletter.
    I liked your discussion of the Immigration Bill. You said you could not support the bill in its present form. You need strengthening of border security, reforming the lottery system, developing an effective guest worker program, and honoring the laws of our country. This seems to be pretty much in line with the opinions of Sen. Cruz, and I congratulate you both. However, you are in a numbered minority with the Democrats. The only way you're going to be heard is by lots of hollering. Do not acquiesce. This is not something on which you should compromise.
    With respect to your position on abortion, I can't get excited about it one way or the other. I agree with you that the killing of full-term or almost full-term babies is inhumane and should be stopped. However, we have many more important things of greater complexity to resolve. I suggest you put through a bill which designates the killing of any unborn infant, normally able to develop reasonable life with current life-support technology, as murder. If you can't get that through, go on with something else. You can always come back to it, when we have all the other problems resolved.
    With respect to the Farm Bill, we have discussed this previously. You seem to be partial to it, but I and many others, including Sen. Cruz are strongly opposed. We must get rid of subsidies, unless they involve obvious catastrophes, such as famine. A Farm Bill also has no reason to include food stamps and foreign food aid. Lastly, the present crop insurance system is a fraud and deception. Farmers should pay their own premiums for crop insurance. 

US Government Surveillance Program

    I received an email from my nephew suggesting I look at a Twit video by Steve Gibson, in which he explains some of the technicalities of the National Security Agency's Prism Program. I did so and will report below. For those who may want to spend the time to look at it themselves, the Internet address is http://twit.tv/show/security-now/408. To avoid a lot of the upfront commercials, start at the timeline about one quarter of the way from the start. It will still take you more than an hour.
    NSA has said that it is collecting only mega data. Mega data means that the data is only ancillary to the message, namely when it was sent, to whom it was sent and such related items, but does not contain the context of the message itself. According to Steve Gibson, that is only partially true. Email data is collected in total, including context.
    Internet suppliers such as Google and Yahoo have said that they had not allowed access to their servers by NSA. That is true. NSA has not needed access to those servers, since NASA is wiretapping the Internet on the upstream side of the servers. Most of the information on the Internet is being transferred by fiber optics using light. NSA has tapped into that light system, which is likely the basis of it using the term "Prism" to describe their operation.
    In interrogation by Sen. Wyden, NSA Director Clapper said that NASA is not collecting phone data on millions of Americans. That statement is false.
    Whistleblower Snowden had taken an oath to not reveal NSA information and has violated that. It is my opinion that he is subject to prosecution. Similarly, NSA director Clapper should be subject to prosecution for lying to Congress.
    Separate from the Twit video,  Ex VP Cheney has come out strongly in support of the NSA surveillance program, as being fundamentally necessary to protection of the US public against terrorism. I believe Cheney has taken an unnecessary excessive position. There is no question but that we need a surveillance program as an aid in the determent of terrorist activities, but we also need to protect our citizens from unreasonable search and seizure as required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. In my opinion, the present operation of Prism is unconstitutionally broad. It can and should be modified to greater specificity with respect to suspicious individuals.

Stay Out Of the Syrian Conflict

Open email to Senators. Lindsey Graham (SC) and Marco Rubio (FL):

Dear Senators Graham and Rubio,
    I heard your comments concerning US involvement in the Syrian conflict on Fox News this morning.
    I am very disappointed to learn that you are war proponents. With your knowledge of how we have performed in Middle Eastern wars, I would have thought that you would obviously be neutral on Syria.
    We have no basis of interest in Syria. It has nothing to offer us, and our involvement will only lead to additional costs at a time when we certainly do not have excess funds to waste. In addition, the initial supplying of weapons leads to a no-fly zone, which then leads to the shooting down of one of our planes by a shoulder missile operated by who knows which side. We are then rushing to "boots on the ground" and another Iraq, Desert Storm Kuwait, and Afghanistan. A ridiculous scenario.
    I strongly urge you change your positions to complete noninvolvement in Syria. That would include no use of US taxpayer funds for compassionate reasons. Refugees in neighboring country camps can be handled by those countries and any private funds from the US through the Red Cross.
    May I repeat? The Syrian conflict is none of our business and we should stay out of any involvement. As leaders in the US Senate, you have an obligation to see that we do not fall into a trap developed by war mongers such as Sen. McCain.

Shut down the US Embassy in Iraq

    The Washington Times has an interesting article on the US Embassy in Iraq. With that information and information from Wikipedia, we have the following picture of the embassy:
    It is the largest and most expensive diplomatic post in the world.
    It is often dubbed by news reports as “The Fortress” and is America’s largest overseas diplomatic post.
    It cost roughly three-quarters of a billion dollars to build during the late 2000s.
    It employs 15,000 people.
    Operating cost is approximately $2 billion per year.
    Private contractors involved in its operation have contracts totaling $5 billion.

    I have a simple question. Why?
    In spite of its favorable historical reputation as the cradle of civilization, Iraq is now a third world country.
    We are spent billions of dollars in ousting Saddam Hussein and satisfying our desire for nation building, but what kind of nation have we built? The people are engaged in a civil war and both sides want us out of their country.
    The purpose of embassies and consulates in foreign countries is intended to facilitate continuing good relations. We have no good relations in Iraq. Americans employed there are subject to the danger of being maimed or killed, and there seems no justification as to why the US government should continue to run this operation.
    As indicated above, the operating cost continues at a time when we are making every effort to conserve our resources. Does it make sense that some government employees in essential jobs are on nonpaid furlough while we continue to dump money into a completely wasteful embassy situation.
    Iraq has only a small amount of oil with respect to the world market, and we have decided earlier, presumably for worldwide political reasons, that we will have no interest in their oil. The country has nothing else to offer the US other than a grand headache. If Iran wants to take it over, or if Russia or Turkey have designs on it, that has no bearing on us.
    I strongly suggest we shutdown the US Embassy in Baghdad, as being a wasteful expense. For trade possibilities and other general relations with Middle Eastern partners, we have Jordan and Israel. If Iran, Syria, and Iraq get their houses in order and want to have good relations with the United States, there may be justification for US embassies and consulates in their countries. Otherwise we should consider them as insignificant to our continued economic development.

House Speaker Boehner's Newsletter

Open email to House Speaker Boehner:

Dear Speaker Boehner,
    I read your newsletter.    I respectfully suggest that you are distracted.
    I don't care about a statue of Frederick Douglass, and I doubt that many people do.
    Your job is to castigate the Democratic Obama administration, so that in future elections we can return to a more reasonable government without the pain of having to go through a Syrian-type military revolt.
    Please get on with the major aspect of your job.

Congratulations to Sen. Cruz (Texas)

Open email to Sen. Cruz (Texas):
    
Dear Sen. Cruz,
    The Washington Times says VP Biden held a fundraiser at the home of Doug Hickey, CEO of BinWise, a beverage distribution company. 100 attendees paid up to$10,000 each.
    VP Biden told the group that he is urging Democrats to donate money for the 2014 election, because Republican Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas “control” the GOP.
    That statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but if that is the standard abstract thought process of Democrats, we have great hope for the country. Most rational people can easily see the disconnect. But, our main problem is to find some way to handle the uninformed voters, who have a single interest of free stuff, which they believe the Democrats can supply.
    Meanwhile, congratulations to you, Sen. Cruz, for the progress you are said to be making in organizing the Republican position.

Trespass of Fourth Amendment Rights by NSA

Open email to Sen. Cruz (Texas):
Dear Sen. Cruz,
    As you know, a few weeks ago whistleblower Edward Snowden informed the British newspaper Guardian that the National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting phone call information on US citizens in contradiction of what he considered Fourth Amendment rights. This created a firestorm in the press and was followed by further revelations that the NSA surveillance program involved considerably more than only the initial report on Verizon telephone calls.
    NSA, which is obviously part of the Obama Administration, has made an all-out effort to justify the surveillance program by recently inviting Congress to top security briefings on the program.
    Congress has had mixed feelings on these briefings. For example, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said, “We were given some very specific and helpful information about how these programs have helped keep Americans safe.” “I can’t imagine any U.S. senator sitting through a briefing like we just had and not feeling thankful for the efforts that NSA and others put forth.” Conversely, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) expressed public skepticism with NSA Chief General Keith Alexander’s assertions that phone records may have helped avert “dozens” of terrorist events.
    I see no reference to your having attended these top security NSA briefings. If you have, I would like to have your opinion. Meanwhile, I will give you mine.
        The issue is not whether the NASA surveillance program may have helped in protecting the American public from terrorist acts. I have sure that a case can be made that it may have. However, the question is whether the NASA surveillance program violates citizens Fourth Amendment rights as granted by the Constitution.
    I have previously written on this subject and have made the point that case English law, on which the Fourth Amendment is based, requires that an individual's personal records may be seized by the government only if a warrant specifically claims justification through the individual having committed or or being suspected of committing an illegal act. In other words, no fishing expeditions. It is obvious that the seizure of everyone's telephone records and emails is not justified by this consideration.
    I am not saying that NSA should not have a surveillance program justified by an effort to identify potential terrorists. I am saying that the Fourth Amendment allows the existence of such a program, with limitations, and those limitations have been exceeded. NSA must revise its position to be more specific to justify record seizure, or probably more practical, to destroy those seized records and obtain from the holders [cell phone companies and holders of email servers such as Facebook] only those records which have a basis in suspicion of illegal acts.
    May I have your opinion on this?

Weapons to the Syrian Rebels

    I see that Pres. Obama has approved the sending of weapons to the Syrian rebels. There seem to be no other details as yet, but it can properly be assumed that it will be at a financial expense to the American taxpayer.
    What advantage does this action have for the American people? I can think of none.
    What danger does this action present to the American people? Other than the initial cost to the taxpayers, it is also a first step in a move to engage us in another war.

"In Our Interests"

     I was watching Neil Cavuto and his group on Fox News this morning. They were discussing US dollar aid to Egypt.
     In the discussion, one of the reasons given for our continuing foreign aid to Egypt is that it is "in our interests".
    Always having an inquisitive and suspicious mind, I started to consider that "in our interests" is a very overworked term, used to justify about anything, and for some reason or other seems to be accepted by people in general.
    However, I started to apply it to to the Egyptian foreign aid situation. In the Cavuto discussion, someone said that US foreign aid to the Middle East decreases political upheaval. The context of the conversation was such that that comment was not directly related to "in our interests", but it may have some applicability to the situation.
    Let us now look at what "our interests are" to justify foreign aid to Egypt.
    Egypt controls the Suez Canal, which is a major waterway from the Middle East to Western Europe and the US. The alternative sea route is all the way around the tip of South Africa. Is it in the US interests to have access to the Suez Canal? Does our foreign aid to Egypt buy us this access? If so, why not say so and avoid the confusion of using a general term of "in our interests". It's a Suez Canal access is not important to us, let's also say that and consider other reasons to justify Egyptian foreign aid.
    Does US foreign aid to the Middle East reduce political turmoil?. It is remotely possible, but I don't really see how it could be worse than it is. In fact, we have been dumping foreign aid on the Middle East for 50 or more years with little result in establishing a peaceful environment there. However, do we really have some basic interest in having a politically quiet Middle East? What advantage would that be to us. One might say that extreme turmoil in the Middle East could interrupt the supply of Saudi crude oil to the US, and that might be a hardship. But, we should be self-reliant on energy sources as much as possible anyhow. If the interruption of crude oil supply is a danger and "in our interests", why not say so and get on with addressing the real problems.
    All in all, I'm tired of seeing or hearing the term "in our interests". Let's get rid of that stock phrase and come up with real reasons of why we do certain things. If we face the facts, we may start to travel down a more logical route.

Congratulations to Sen. Cruz (Texas)

Open email to Sen. Cruz (Texas):

Dear Sen. Cruz,
    You are all over Fox News at noon today. The left is really hitting hard at you. They have been joined by VP Biden and Sen. McCain, the war monger.
    It has been said that you have aroused these people because of your effectiveness.
    Congratulations! You are fulfilling every hope that I had when I voted for you.
    Please do not be intimidated. You are making wonderful progress, and it can be expected that the enemy would be highly aroused.

Sen. McCain War Mongering

    Sen. John McCain was again warmongering on Fox TV news this morning. He went on at great length with his usual rabble rousing, without a word of dissent from the Fox News reporter/commentator.
    I now judge Sen. McCain as probably the most dangerous man in America, possibly exceeding even Pres. Obama.
    McCain says the US objective should be to unseat Syrian Pres. Assad. He says Pres. Assad has killed 80,000 of his own people. McCain does not say why any president would consider killing 80,000 of his own innocent people. Perhaps the 80,000 were rebels, or it may not even be 80,000. It is difficult to trust word-of-mouth reports. Many times they are filled with lies or exaggerations. But, let's say that Pres. Assad's government forces may have killed 80,000 rebels. For comparison, government forces in the American Civil War killed 94,000 rebels.
    McCain doesn't really say why he prefers rebels over government forces in the Syrian Civil War, but he says that merely supplying Syrian rebels with weapons is insufficient. He is now pushing for a no-fly zone. He says no American boots on the ground.
    May I now suggest how a country falls into a war?
    One first beats the drum for a particular side to obtain a preference for one side of the other by public opinion. In the case of the Syrian war, the drum has already been beaten such that many warmongers in the US government are already on the side of the rebels for no known reason. They actually know nothing about the rebels. The people may be a little smarter. We don't know how they feel about rebels versus government forces in Syria, but we do know that the majority of the American public is opposed to becoming involved in the war.
    Continuing the scenario: After enough support is generated in leadership circles, the requested no-fly zone is set up, wherein American planes patrol the Syrian air space. This is done at great cost.
    After an indeterminate time, one of the American planes is shot down by a shoulder launched missile from the ground. It is not known whether the launcher was Syrian government or Syrian rebel, but it is assumed to be Syrian government. This then requires boots on the ground in order to control the missile launchers, who are so mobile that they cannot be attacked from the air. At that point, we are involved in a full scale war, e.g.. Iraq, e.g.. Afghanistan.
    McCain also says we must become involved to stabilize the Middle East. In other words, we should be the Middle East policeman. Can we afford this? Let's remember that we have been doing this for at least 50 years without any significant success. The Middle East is now in more of an uproar than when we first started more than 50 years ago.
    Someone should put a muzzle on Sen. McCain. Too many people can be influenced by ridiculous rhetorical and allow us to be pulled into another conflict, in which we have no business, would be very costly, and has been proven ineffective in the past. Syrian government forces and rebels have neighbors, who have more at stake in the Syrian conflict then do we. They already have a problem with Syrian refugees, which justifies their involvement.
    In passing, let's also take a look at Turkey, with its recent uprisings. Does John McCain want to take sides against the government? How about a no-fly zone? How about some US boots on the ground, or should we wait until one of our planes is shot down, or someone decides to use a chemical rather than a bomb or bullet?

Wrong US Path in Syria

    The Washington Times quotes Pres. Obama as saying that since Pres.Assad of Syria has used chemical weapons against the rebels, he has crossed the "red line" and Pres. Obama will now send weapons to the Syrian rebels.
    This is a typical example of how ego derived from a mistaken position can drive one down an incorrect road.
    There is no justification for supporting one side or the other in the Syrian conflict, and chemical weapons have nothing to do with it.
    War is not a chess match. It is an all-out attempt on both sides to control the other by killing as many of the enemy as possible. All forms of killing are not only permissible but desirable or necessary. This includes use of bayonets, starvation, deprivation of water, bullets, bombs, fire, chemicals, atomic weapons, disease, propaganda, and anything else that I may have left out.
    If one wants to monkey around in the Syrian conflict or any other, one should be prepared to use whatever weapon is necessary to resolve the conflict as quickly as possible. This usually involves big medicine. Recall that we resolved the Japanese-American war in three days with two atomic bombs.

Chemical Weapons in Syria

    The Washington Times says the Obama administration has concluded that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime has used chemical weapons against the opposition seeking to overthrow him. It goes on to say that the Obama Administration has not determined how it will respond and that the US Congress was also being notified of the chemical weapons determination on Thursday in classified documents sent to Capitol Hill.   
    The Times also reminded us that Obama has said repeatedly that the use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line" and constitute a "game changer" for US policy on Syria..
    This last Times reminder seems to be a challenge to the Obama administration that because of his previous statement, he is now compelled to do something drastic.
    I hope Pres. Obama doesn't fall for this old "knock the chip off my shoulder" ruse. He made a previous stupid statement, and it would only be more stupid to live by it merely because he said it.
    We have a number of war mongers in our government, of which Sen. McCain is probably primary. As I said previously, because he was a prisoner of war for several years does not make him an expert on war. He is an expert on being a prisoner.
    We have already busted our guts on ridiculous wars in Iraq, Desert Storm for Kuwait, and a years-old war in Afghanistan. All for what purpose? Save the world for Democracy? Help the downtrodden? Reduce our threat of terrorism? All ridiculous! Just look at the individual cases and tell me what we have accomplished other than spending a tremendous amount of money and sacrificing a great number of American soldiers' lives.
    War is a terrible thing. It is extremely costly, both in money and lives. There are times when it is necessary, such as defense against an invading enemy, but we don't have that case from any of the above, nor with Syria. Who cares whether Russia and Iran support the Assad government? What do we know about the rebels in this Syrian civil war? But more importantly, what difference does it makes to us? Just because we like the sound of "revolt" or because one side uses chemical weapons as opposed to bombs and bullets, does that give us some logical reason to become involved?
    Show me what I think is a good reason why we should spend one nickel or one life in supporting one side of the other in the Syrian conflict, and perhaps I will change my mind. It has been said that the majority of the US populace appears to be opposed to any involvement in Syria, but a politico said a popular opinion is not necessarily the correct one. In my judgment, it is the correct one in this case. Tell me why it is incorrect.

Gun-Control

    After last December's horrific shooting at the Sandy Hook School, Pres. Obama made a strong pitch for more strict laws on gun control. The pitch failed in Congress.
    According to the Washington Times, federal prosecutions for gun violations according to existing law, increased 45% by April after the month before the shooting.
    This is a strong indication that the usual government claim of needing greater restrictions on the personal liberties of its citizens is without merit. Government already has too many restrictive laws. It only needs to enforce them.

Farm Bill

Open email to Rep. (Texas) Neugebauer:

Dear Randy,
      You appear to like the proposed Farm Bill.
      Take a listen to Mark Bittman of the New York Times. He grabs a headline by saying the farm bill is like "welfare for the wealthy".
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/farm-bill-welfare-wealthy-mark-bittman-122403588.html?vp=1
      The text of the Daily Ticker accompanying the video says the Farm Bill covers food stamps, foreign food aid, and crop insurance, but Mr. Bittman concentrates more on direct subsidies to wealthy growers [huge farms], which receive direct subsidies. You well know that direct subsidies are not necessary to ensure a continuity of agricultural produce and such subsidies should obviously not be included in any Farm Bill.
I have also previously said that food stamps are direct welfare and have no business being part of a Farm Bill. It has been said that food stamps constitute 80% of the total farm bill expenditure in the present proposal.
I also hold a similar opinion with respect to foreign food aid. As human beings, we certainly have compassion and need to help extreme cases of poverty around the world, but we cannot solve all of worlds food problems with benevolence. Again, it is welfare and should not be included in the Farm Bill. If necessary, set up a separate Welfare Bill, so that we can see how much we are spending on domestic and international welfare.
Crop insurance is also a fraud or deception. The implication is that the government is running an insurance program by which farmers may insure their crops against loss by paying an insurance premium, as is standard for any insurance operation. In fact, Wikipedia says the USDA is authorized to offer basically free catastrophic (CAT) coverage to producers who grow an insurable crop. Farmers may buy additional coverage beyond the CAT level, if they pay some premium. Crops for which CAT insurance is not available are protected under the Noninsured Assistance Program (NAP). A portion of the premium, as well as the administrative and operating expenses of the private insurance companies, is subsidized by the federal government. The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation reinsures the private insurance companies by also absorbing some of the losses of the program when indemnities exceed total premiums. Several revenue insurance products are available on major crops as a form of additional coverage.
All of this seems to me a continuing fleecing of the American taxpayer pocketbook. I strongly suggest you talk to Sen. Cruz, who seems to have a good understanding of what a practical Farm Bill should be.

Senate Immigration Bill

    The Washington Times reports that the Senate has voted to take up the Immigration Bill with a full Senate discussion, expected to last three weeks.

    Sen. Cruz called the Immigration Bill, as prepared by the Gang of Eight , an impending disaster for the following nine reasons: 

• Provides immediate legalization without securing the border
• Rewards criminal aliens, absconders, and deportees and undermines law enforcement
• Contains extremely dangerous national security loopholes
• Facilitates fraud in our immigration system
• Creates no real penalties for illegal immigrants and rewards them with entitlements
• Delays for years the implementation of E-Verify
• Does not fix our legal immigration system
• Advanced through a process predicated on a deal struck before markup
• Rewards those who have broken our laws by offering a special path to citizenship.

    The fact that the Democratic Sen. Schumer from New York is for for the bill in its present form, including the nine items mentioned above, automatically tells us it's a bad bill for the country. Schumer and his Democratic compatriots actually want no immigration bill which would place limitations on potential new voters coming into the country and expected to vote Democratic. For those millions of illegal immigrants already in the country, Democrats want to guarantee Democrat votes by giving illegal immigrants benefits, for which they will show much appreciation. It is the old political technique of gaining votes by promising two chickens in every pot or kissing many babies.
    Since Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Senate, it is likely that the bill will pass in its disaster form. The only possibility of stopping it is a Republican filibuster, and that seems to have been eliminated for some unknown reason.

Rep Neugebauer's (Texas) newsletter

Open email to Rep Neugebauer (Texas):

Dear Rep. Neugebauer,
    I have read your newsletter.
    You you say you want to know more about the collection [seizure] of private information on US citizens. I have written three posts on the subject, all of which have been copied to you, including the latest today. The bottom line is that the present government surveillance system is unconstitutional [Fourth Amendment], because it is too broad in scope. The government seizure of a person's personal records must be based upon a suspicion or anticipation that that person is guilty of an illegal act. A little common sense on how to apply the Patriot Act could easily bring a surveillance program within satisfaction of Fourth Amendment rights.
    With respect to the Farm Bill, you seem to be satisfied with its progress.The Senate version reduces spending by about $23 billion over ten years, while the House reduces spending by about $40 billion. That is good news, but the total bill is also at odds with the opinion of Sen. Cruz. Nearly 80 percent of it is comprised of food stamps, which is an atrocity. I will side with Sen. Cruz on this matter. I have said before and will say again you must eliminate food stamps from this bill. Food stamps are form of welfare having nothing directly to do with agricultural production.
    You say you will be voting next week on the National Defense Authorization Act, and you are favorably inclined. You say the NDAA is a comprehensive bill that authorizes the budget for the Department of Defense and national security programs at the Department of Energy.  It provides the support our troops need—both at home and abroad.  It also provides for our national security by making smart investments in our readiness, and helps prepare for our future by controlling spending. I agree completely with supporting our troops at home and abroad, improving readiness, and controlling spending. However, I believe you are way off base in assuming that it should have anything to do with the Department of Energy. Anything involving national defense should be completely within the Department of Defense. I have said before and repeat now that the Department of Energy should be eliminated. It has done no good in the many years of its existence and has actually contributed to the financial decline of the country.

Sen. Cruz's (Texas) Newsletter

Open email to Sen. Cruz:

Dear Sen. Cruz,
    I have read your newsletter.    Thank you for your practical position on the Farm Bill. Unfortunately, you seem to be one of the very few voices of reason in the Senate. My only suggestion is that you holler as loud as you can. Including food stamps is a part of the Farm Bill Is a ridiculous association.
    With respect to balancing liberty with security, I have recently sent you a copy of my open email to House Speaker Boehner on the subject. You and I seem to be on the same wavelength.
    With respect to Samantha Powers for UN Ambassador, I agree with you completely. She is not an American. She's an Internationalist and there's no place for her as an American representative at the UN.
    On the Immigration Bill, as you point out, it is a disaster. Unfortunately, there seems to be little we can do about it at this time. The Democrats say they have the votes, which they do, and there's no sense to tilting windmills in the spirit of Man of La Mancha.
    I also listened to your radio discussion with Mark Levin. You have a super position. If we had more Senators like you, we would certainly have a better country. I take one little issue on the matter of abolishing the IRS. I have no objection to a flat tax, but someone has to collect the money. If it isn't the IRS, who will do it?

Conflict between the Fourth Amendment and the Patriot Act

Open email to House Speaker John Boehner:

Dear Speaker Boehner,
Politico, an American political journalism organization, quotes you this morning as follows:
'House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday called NSA leaker Edward Snowden a “traitor” and said his actions are a “giant violation of the law.”
“He’s a traitor,” Boehner said on “Good Morning America.” “The President outlined last week that these are important national security programs to help keep Americans safe and give us tools to help fight the terrorist threat we face. The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk.”
     According to the Washington Post, you additionally said, “The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk. It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are. And it’s a giant violation of the law.”
    You believe all of the programs detailed in recent days are legal and you been briefed on them.
You said Americans’ privacy is “absolutely” being protected.
“Every time that I’ve been in a briefing, nine out of 10 people in the room are lawyers there to protect the privacy of the American people”.
Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper has also agreed with your position by saying that the disclosures have harmed America’s ability to hunt down terrorism suspects, and lawmakers in Washington have called for the extradition and prosecution of the former CIA employee [Snowden].

I have already written twice on this subject but had concentrated on the fact that based on case history, the surveillance program constitutes a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. That is obviously at odds with what you said in the second paragraph above.
At the time of my previous writing the only information available was that Snowden had released information to the British newspaper Guardian concerning the seizure of Verizon phone records. We now have additional information that Snowden released information of a broader Internet monitoring program called Prism, which has the ability to retrieve large quantities of information from companies such as Google and Facebook.

  I now desire to take strong objection to your broadside attack on Snowden, calling him a traitor and a giant violator of the law.
In order to be a traitor in conventional terms, a person must have done significant damage to his country by revealing military or other sensitive information to foreign countries, who are ostensibly enemies. I don't see that in the present circumstances. Snowden only advised the world at large that the US government has been collecting [seizing] records [telephone information and possibly emails] on its citizens. Many of us have suspected this for some time and only now have confirmation. More importantly with respect to the "traitor" designation for Snowden, what possible advantage is that to a foreign enemy including terrorists? In fact, the collected information is so broad, that potential terrorists might take solace in the fact that the surveillance program has actually helped to hide the identity of real suspects. However, since I might be missing something, perhaps you and James Clapper might wish to enlighten me on how the disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk and how the hunting down of terrorism suspects has been compromised.

The US surveillance program finds its basis in the Patriot Act, which had the intention of controlling terrorist actions in the US. In effect, the Patriot Act reduced the liberties and rights of the American people. The question remains as to whether the Patriot Act is in itself unconstitutional, because of its contradiction with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The argument goes on to say that if it there is a conflict between the Act and the Fourth Amendment, which should we follow? The Fourth Amendment is nebulous in current practicality, while the terrorist threat is considerably more real. On this basis, opinion seems to side with the Patriot Act. However, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution exists and cannot be ignored.
Perhaps we are looking at this in the wrong way. Perhaps we do not need a direct conflict between the Fourth Amendment and controls on terrorism. Basically, the Fourth Amendment says that any warrants to investigate the personal records of individuals must have just cause of suspicion of an illegal practice by the owner of those records. In other words, no general fishing expeditions.
The problem with the present surveillance program of the Patriot Act is that it is too broad. It tries to cover areas of personal information, which are not suspect to illegality. It may be doing so because of the present Administration's ideology to avoid discrimination, which automatically destroys specificity.
If one were to search for gold, one would not take an ocean trip, search the seashore or check the Great Lakes. One would go to the mountains, for the simple reason that experience shows gold is found in mountainous areas. Similarly, it is ridiculous to search for terrorist prospects within the total general population. Experience shows that while there are a few homegrown terrorists, most of them have connections with foreign countries. Specifically those countries are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. We also know that almost uniformly terrorists are of Muslim religious persuasion. That religious designation also applies to homegrown terrorists, as we have seen in the recent Boston Marathon bombings. Knowing all this, it should be relatively easy and certainly much more efficient for the US government to be asking for phone and email records involving specific areas, such as calls to and from the known terrorist origin countries and to also be looking for keywords such as explosives, and Jihad in conversations. These are only off the top of my head, and probably several more could be considered specific to terrorist programs. Any warrants involving such specifics would be much more compatible with the Fourth Amendment
  With respect to the Fourth Amendment itself, it was intended to protect the American people from government. If government continues collecting completely general information on all of its citizens, that information can be used adversely to create a completely autocratic society, which the Fourth Amendment desires to avoid. Let us also remember that terrorism is not new to the United States. After the development of the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment, US citizens continued to be plagued by Indian raids on white settlements with ensuing horrible massacres. In spite of that, the fourth amendment was not renounced. Rather other methods were found to control that terrorist activity. Similarly, other methods not contrary to the Fourth Amendment can be used in controlling present terrorist activities.

Seizure of Verizon Phone Records

    I previously wrote on the constitutionality of the federal government seizure of private telephone records from cell phone supplier Verizon.
    My position was that the federal seizure violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which has its roots in English law. As support for my position, I quoted the 1765 case of Entick v. Carrington, in which Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden ruled that the search and seizure of all of Entick's papers was unlawful, since the warrant lacked probable cause to justify the search.
    After my first writing, the situation has escalated. The person who leaked the information to the British newspaper Guardian has been identified as Edward Snowden, which is not especially significant.
    Much more important is a statement by US Rep. Peter King. He is also Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He said, “The National Security Agency [NSA who seized the records] does not listen to Americans’ phone calls, and it is not reading Americans’ emails.” But referring back to the Entik v.Carrington case of 1765, there is no mention that Entick's papers had to be read in order to be unlawful. The mere search and seizure was enough to declare illegality. In the present case of the search and seizure,  no probable cause was shown.
    Sen. Rand Paul (Kentucky) is obviously on the right track of declaring the seizure operation illegal. Persecution of leaker Snowden seems to be a side issue to take attention away from the obvious deficiency of the NSA in this operation.

Ricin Poisoning

Open email to Congress:

   Ricin is a poison. It has been in the recent news, because ricin-laced letters have been mailed to various politicians, including Pres. Barack Obama. Chemical and Engineering News has a good two-page article on the ricin poisoning attempt in its May 20th issue.
    That article quotes David a Sanders, a Purdue University structural biologist.
    Dr. Sanders says he hopes the recent scare will not result in a call from Congress or other officials to ramp up ricin research. It is an agent scientists know a lot about, he says and the recent poisoning attempts don't justify spending money and talent to learn more about it. Besides he says when research programs on deadly agents are expanded, one result is to increase the number of people who are expert in producing weapons-grade agents.
    I ask Congress to pay attention to what Dr. Sanders has had to say. Stay out of it. You can't accomplish anything, and you have much more important things to do. Trust the FBI to handle your protection. It has competency in this area.

Constitutionality of Verizon Record Seizure

Both the Washington Times and Fox TV News report that the cell phone company Verizon has been ordered by the federal government to supply to the government the details of all its telephone calls.
         More specifically, the Washington Times says the following:
1. The order states says Verizon “shall produce to the National Security Agency (NSA) upon service of this Order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this Order … an electronic copy of the following tangible things: all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”
2. The order was signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
3. The order is in force until July 19, according to the court order. A British newspaper said the order was granted to the FBI on April 25.

It is apparent that the Obama administration is collecting phone records of millions of citizens in bulk, whether or not they are suspected of wrongdoing.

The question is whether this action is constitutional.

The IV th Amendment to the Constitution says:
    "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."

  Wikipedia says, "Like many other areas of American law, the Fourth Amendment finds its roots in English legal doctrine".

The Fourth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791. In the amendment, "papers" clearly means written documents, such as letters, leases, contracts, handwritten notes, diagrams, etc.. While we still have such handwritten papers, the technology has been expanded, such that electronic documents, including lists of telephone numbers, are clearly included.

In the case of Entick v. Carrington, which occurred in 1765 and obviously known to the founding fathers of the Constitution, Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden ruled that the search and seizure was unlawful, as the warrant authorized the seizure of all of Entick's papers, not just the criminal ones and the warrant lacked probable cause to even justify the search.

Thus, case history clearly shows that the search and seizure of phone records from Verizon, involving personal "papers" (phone records) of millions of people was clearly unconstitutional.

The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) is a U.S. federal court  established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). The FISC oversees requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United States by federal law enforcement agencies (primarily the F.B.I.).

           I call on Congress to address this matter with the Obama Administration. Congress can challenge Judge Vinson's order at the Court of Appeals, and if necessary take it to the Supreme Court.