Saturday night’s the night for ripping up the Bill of Rights. Is that all right with you?

What are you doing tonight, August 4, 2007? Tonight, the members of the House of Representatives are walking closer, and closer, to ripping up the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. They are considering the passage of S. 1927, the dishonestly entitled Protect America Act of 2007. The Senate has already passed the legislation.

If S. 1927 is passed by the House of Representatives tonight, the new law will allow the President of the United States, through Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, to order any private person or any employee of any communications company or governmental entity to give them access to private communications, and to order that person to keep the spying secret. If a person refuses to comply with the orders of Alberto Gonzales or John Negroponte, they can then be thrown into prison.

No one other than Alberto Gonzales or John Negroponte is allowed to review the decision. Under the new law, if Gonzales and Negroponte decide that going through the certification process for the spying is too troublesome (even though no one other than Gonzales and Negroponte have the power to stop the certification process anyway) then Gonzales and Negroponte have the power to just tell someone to start spying, and no one has any power to stop the spying from taking place.

There is no judicial review of the spying. There is no congressional review of the spying - Alberto Gonzales gets to certify himself that he is not doing anything inappropriate, and then says so to the rubber stamp Congress. There is no search warrant. The FISA courts don’t have anything to do with it.

Furthermore, the new law states that those who conduct the spying operation are “not required to identify the specific facilities, places, premises, or property” that the spying are going to be targeted against.

That’s in blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. It’s a slap in the face of the Bill of Rights. It’s a direct attack against the foundation of American liberty.

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America instructs: “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.“

There’s no exception for the President, for the Attorney General or for the Director of National Intelligence in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. It absolute. When government spying takes place, it must preserve the security of people (not just citizens) against government abuse through unreasonable search, and it must be directed at a clearly described particular place or person or thing.

If the Republicans and right wing Democrats who support this new law don’t like it that way, then it’s because they don’t like the Bill of Rights. They’re working, right now, Saturday night, to attack the Bill of Rights and put the President’s henchmen beyond all legal restraint. If Alberto Gonzales and John Negroponte are given the power to order Americans to help them spy on people without even having to explain what and who is being spied against, then they have the unstoppable power to spy against anyone they want to, and to keep it secret.

So what are YOU doing tonight? Have you even read this law? Are you too busy watching Masters of Science Fiction on ABC? As the House of Representatives votes to give President Bush’s aides the power to spy against anybody, American or not, are you watching Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo on the Cartoon Network? Are you watching the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel? Or maybe, are you just getting drunk?

Wake up, America. Your freedoms are being taken away in order to give new powers to the worst presidency in history. Are you going to stand up and do something about it, or are you going to take it sitting down, in your easy chair?