Landay: "...the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to violate an American's right against unreasonable searches and seizures..."
Gen. Hayden: "No, actually - the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure."
Landay: "But the --"
Gen. Hayden: "That's what it says."
Landay: "The legal measure is probable cause, it says."
Gen. Hayden: "The Amendment says: unreasonable search and seizure."
Landay: "But does it not say 'probable cause'?"
Gen. Hayden [exasperated, scowling]: "No! The Amendment says unreasonable search and seizure."
Landay: "The legal standard is probable cause, General -- "
Gen. Hayden [indignant]: "...believe me, if there's any Amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. Alright? And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. The constitutional standard is 'reasonable.'"
My Sunday surfing linked me to the exchange above between Knight-Ridder reporter Jonathan Landay and Gen. Michael Hayden, and it hit one of my hot buttons: the sketchy grasp many Americans have of the Bill of Rights. Clearly in the exchange above, either the reporter or the general is wrong. Because I don't want to bog this post down in what could become garden variety partisan sniping, I'll leave it to the reader to follow the link (http://www.crooksandliars.com/...) and learn whether the reporter or the general is the better student of the Constitution.
My aim here is higher, and I mean that in that corny civic sense of duty sort of way. I propose the following: That on July 4, 2006, the entire political zone of the blogoshpere--Right and Left--dedicate itself exclusively to a discussion of the Bill of Rights. I suggest that bloggers suspend all other discussion on the day we celebrate our national independence to think and write about exactly what it is we're celebrating that day.
Some of the questions that could be worth exploring:
1. Why did the Founders include each of the individual Rights in the first place?
2. What is the relevance of each of the Rights to us today?
3. What are the threats to those Rights, collectively and individually?
4. What would American life be without any one of those Rights?
5. Which Right, if any, could we most do without?
6. Which Right would you most readily die for?
7. Which Right would you most readily kill for?
8. What is best way to effectively teach the Bill of Rights to American students?
9. Should knowing the Bill of Rights be the criteria for immigrants seeking American citizenship?
10. Should political office seekers be expected to demonstrate a knowledge of the Bill of Rights?
11. Should learning the Bill of Rights be part of basic training for all our troops?
Bloggers can prepare for this day by writing their posts in advance of July 4 so they can enjoy their holiday without feeling compelled to post, yet their sites would still be alive for those who want to join in the dialogue with comments.
In effect this is a call for a blogosphere ceasefire on the Fourth of July. Even the most passionate amongst us, on either end of the political spectrum, has to admit to some battle fatigue at this point. And we all know that it's only going to get more bloody as we head toward the November election.
Not only would this celebration of our Bill of Rights provide a welcome respite from the fighting, but it would demonstrate to the MSM the positive and unique power of blogs to conduct a national dialogue that is beyond the capabilities of print and television.
I would also suggest these few rules for the day:
1. Every blog should attempt to address all 10 of the first amendments, so the enterprise doesn't get top heavy with the First and Second Amendments. (And no short changing the Third Amendment either, which could very well come into prominence if martial law were declared any time soon under any number of possible scenarios).
2. No ad hominem attacks.
3. Total ban on mentioning the names Bush and Clinton.
Highly recommended as a starter source: In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action by Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy. Terrific bibliography, only slightly dated by book's pub date of 1991.
Anyone interested in helping to carry forth this crusade should feel free to copy and paste this post during your travels through the blogosphere. Also, in the spirit of the Founding Fathers feel free to make amendments to the proposal at your pleasure. In the end the form this all takes will be up to the benign dictators who run the blogosphere as well as whether they even want to devote their bandwidth to what amounts to an old fashioned--but badly needed--exercise in civics.