From: "Albert P. Franco, II" <apf2@apf2.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 03:52:22 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: [ISN] Feds Want Banks to Spy on All Customers...Even You!   (fwd)
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19981125194905.0088b530@209.204.247.83>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/enriched

 >Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 08:26:54 -0500 (EST)
>From: Ken Williams <jkwilli2@unity.ncsu.edu>

>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
>
>Good thing I keep all my money in a steel case buried somewhere
>along the Appalachian trail.  No bank accounts, no credit cards.
>
>Ken Williams
>
>>From: ISPI Clips 6.51
>>From: WorldNetDaily, November 23, 1998
>
>Big Brother Banks? FDIC has snooping plans
>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19981123_xex_big_brother_.shtml
>David M. Bresnahan, David@talkusa.com
>Contributing Editor, WorldNetDaily
>
>Are you a potential criminal? Are you a threat to banks, airlines, a
>potential spy, or perhaps an IRS tax protester? The government would like
>to know and they are about to force banks to be their detectives. 
>

Isn't this called prior restraint? Isn't it specifically illegal for the government to treat all members of the public as criminals a priori?

This certainly sounds like one of the grossest cases of Feds-That-Should-Die(TM) that I have ever heard. I'm sure that the founding fathers would have been stocking up on gun powder and lead over this one. And I'm NOT one of the many Libertarian/Money-Gun-and-Gold-Stashing types on this list. I far and away prefer to work inside the system peacefully. But, it does give me pause to think about it!

When a supposedly NON-LEA agency such as the FuckingDICks begins creating regulations of this sort it is the most blatant proof that the constitution has died. Perhaps it is time to start draft the next version of the Declaration of In dependance... Actually, we wouldn't need to change much. It was an excellent document then and now and perhaps it is time shake the dust off of it!

Here's my take on a new version, (read carefully the changes in some cases are subtle):

THE DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Action of the New Continental Consensus, July 4, 1999
The Declaration of the People of the United States of America 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. 

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, Privacy and the Pursuit of Happiness -- 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shown, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these people; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present Federal Government of the United States of America is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World. 

It has refused its Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good. (Agencies such as the NSA and CIA whose actions are wholly unsupervised and unchecked.)

It has forbidden its Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till its Assent and modification should be obtained; and when so suspended, it has utterly neglected to attend to them. (Basterdazation of state and local voters measures threw inappropriate judiciary interference.)

It has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only. (Pick any agency... none allow for direct representation in their regulatory actions. Public comment IS NOT direct representation!)

It has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with its Measures. 

It has investigated, harassed, terrorized, and killed members of Representative Bodies repeatedly, for opposing with its manly Firmness its Invasions on the Rights of the People. 

It has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to allow others to act; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of the Annihilation, have not been returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposing them to all the Dangers of Invasion from it, and the Convulsions within. 

It has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new ownership of Lands and Properties. 

It has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing its Assent to Laws for respecting Judiciary Powers. (You can't sue them unless they say it's OK... And when you do who do you sue?)

It has made Judges dependent on its Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries. 

It has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance. 

It has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent or oversight of our Legislatures. (NSA, CIA, IRS, ATF, etc.)

It has affected to render the Military and National Security Forces independent of and superior to the Civil Power. 

It has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving its Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: 

FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us; 

FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: 

FOR cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World: (ITAR, etc.)

FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 

FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury: (Try to fight an "infraction" in California!)

FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences: (Hi CJ!)

FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rules into these Colonies: (Ever been to a US territory?) 

FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: (Let's hear it for the IRS and NSA, and now FDIC!)

FOR suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever. (Who actually makes tax regulation?!)

It has abducted Government here, and declared us under of its Protection and thus waging War against us. 

It has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People. 

It is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy of a civilized Nation. 

It has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive to bear Arms and false testimony against their Countrymen, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. 

It has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Profiteering Drug Peddlers, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions. (Don't forget Noriega and his CIA buddies. You wouldn't get even money on the bet that they have changed their ways...)

It has subverted the very essence of the Constitution and Bill of Rights which gave it birth by perpetrating the following acts of barbarism and contempt for the people:

Confiscation of Personal Properties being routinely executed without the most minimum attempt at DUE PROCESS;

Routine and massive warrant-less searches and seizures of the personal communications of the people;

Commonplace denial of competent legal defense and availability of juries of one's peers;

Unconstitutional restrictions of the movement of the people and their assets;

Unconstitutional restrictions of the peoples' right to assemble, publicly and privately and secretly;

IN every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury and imprisonment in State Mental Institutions. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People. 

NOR have we been wanting in Attentions of our International Brethren. They have warned us from Time to Time of Attempts by our Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over them. They have reminded us of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. They have appealed to our native Justice and Magnanimity, and they have conjured us by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been denied the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Union in the Spirit of Freedom, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends. 

WE, therefore, the People of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONSENSUS, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these States, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United States are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the Federal Government, and that all political Connection between them and the Federal Government of the USA, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. 

Signed,

The names of course will be changed to protect the innocent...

I may not be up to the task of editing TJ, but you get the point!

I was going to send this through an anonymizer and sign it Thomas In Payne. But Fuck the MIBs.  This is MY Opinion Freely Stated as I'm guaranteed by the Constitution they are so hell bent on destroying. This adaptation of such a revered document as our dear Declaration of Independence is meant to provoke thought and perhaps one last effort by many to halt the erosion of the effectiveness of what was perhaps the most important statement of what a government should be that the world has ever known. It is time that we take back our Constitution from the MIB.

My only question is HOW?

APF