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Judge Napolitano on how our freedoms have been systematically wiped out since the Constitution was signed
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Does the government work for us that we work for the government.
-- the United States changed from a humble peaceful Republican to a police state tonight freedom vs security.
This past week the United States Supreme Court told police that they could break down the door of your home if they smell what they think -- smoke from the use of marijuana coming from inside.
Last week the Indiana Supreme Court told police and -- state that they can -- a private home even if I'm not looking for evidence of a crime.
And yesterday the Justice Department revealed that FBI and local police are executing sneak and peek warrants.
They break into your home -- -- night and and don't tell you that they've done this for over eighteen months.
And they are doing this in ordinary criminal prosecutions.
Not just for the pursuit of terrorists as the law requires.
This is all about the slow loss of personal liberty.
Last year my friend and colleague here at fox Glenn -- conducted a controversial experiment on air -- by the use of -- rubber frog in the pot of boiling water.
I don't do this with a real -- -- kill.
-- demonstrated that you throw the frog into -- water when it's boiling a frog jumps out.
But -- -- throw the frog into cool water and raise the temperature slowly the frog will never realize it's being -- This doesn't always work but it's an old metaphor that sheds light on the self evident truth.
Radical change is immediately noticeable not just what it is radical but when it is disruptive.
But if that happens slowly and -- steps if that happens -- degrees eventually the radical change well it happened.
And will not have noticed at all.
America was -- that on the belief that our rights come from god and their inalienable.
But in reality our liberties have been on -- in the decline from almost the moment of the conception of this great country.
The -- alien and sedition acts which criminalize free speech that was critical of the government.
Were enacted in the eighteenth century by the same generation indeed in some cases the same people who adopted the First Amendment was its iconic language that.
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.
Those laws expired.
When Jefferson refused to enforce them.
The two generations later another president would argue that he could -- -- state officials and newspaper editors with whom he had political differences.
And two generations after that the government enacted the Espionage Act of 1917.
Which made it a crime to speak out against World War I or -- oppose the draft.
And two generations after that FDR arrested Japanese Americans and Italian Americans just because of their nationalities -- the Supreme Court let him get away with it.
And two generations after -- the war on drugs was prosecuted.
To distract us from the disaster in Vietnam and the economic destruction brought about by wage and price controls on the rejection of the gold standard.
Each of these assaults on freedom used the previous assault as a legal justification.
-- something peculiar happened during the presidency of George W.
Bush.
In the aftermath of 9/11 the loss of liberty became more direct and more obvious.
But the time the President Bush's second term there was angry and vocal dissent to the loss of personal freedom.
But -- federal agents were writing their own search warrants bypassing judges the government was monitoring the computer strokes of ordinary folks not just alleged terrorists.
The -- -- prosecuted an eighty year old librarian.
Because she told her 75 year old assistant.
That the FBI came calling -- a public library where they both worked.
One of the dissenters to all of this was a young junior senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.
Of course he's the president.
President Obama's flip flop on personal freedom has shown -- almost magical transformation from a peaceful civil libertarian into an authoritarian.
Who thinks he can start wars without congressional approval dispatched police to break down doors of unsympathetic defendants and wage a war on the wealthy.
He's even demanded to know to -- business people have made political contributions.
Before -- will let the government do business with that.
He wants to tax the most productive in our society and he's nominated to lifetime federal court judgeships.
Person so out of the mainstream of legal thinking that even his fellow Democrats have opposed.
President Obama's post 9/11 world has radically redefine privacy laws.
So much so that we allow the government to force us -- the nude photo booths and touch our children and babies in their most intimate places.
Have you ever noticed.
With the government always claims when it does these things it does so in the name of safety.
When was the last time you heard the government give as a basis for its behavior.
Personal freedom some -- I cannot judge this is America where freight.
And I would say there are none more so enslaved as those who falsely believe themselves to be free.
Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter warned us about this two generations ago.
He said the loss of liberty rarely comes -- night.
It usually comes because a well intended people and the unintended consequences of their use and abuse.
Of government to interfere in our lives.
