This is an issue that people must stand up and take notice of.  Really it has gotten to the point where I don’t believe a rationale person can continue to ignore the complete and total disregard this administration shows for the Constitution, nor its continual pattern of putting criminals and those lacking dedication to the Constitution into positions of power.

General Hayden stands on the brink of confirmation has head of the CIA.  This is a man that is a liar and a scoundrel.  This is a man that swore a solemn oath as a member of the military to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and instead has chosen to become a domestic enemy.  Why do a say a domestic enemy?  Because this is a man who continues to declare that the President has the ability to engage in whatever level of spying and surveillance he chooses without regard for its blatant violation of the Constitution and our Law.

For instance:

NEW YORK Gen. Michael Hayden, expected to be named new director of the CIA, replacing Porter Goss as early as Monday, displayed a shaky awareness of the Fourth Amendment in an appearance at the National Press Club in Washingnon, D.C., on January 23, E&P reported at the time.

Hayden, the former national director of the National Security Agency, was much in the news at the time as a defender of the NSA's domestic spying program.

Hayden, now principal deputy director of National Intelligence with the Office of National Intelligence, was NSA director when the NSA monitoring program began in 2001.

As the last journalist to get in a question at the Press Club, Jonathan Landay, a well-regarded investigative reporter for Knight Ridder, noted that Gen. Hayden repeatedly referred to the Fourth Amendment's search standard of "reasonableness" without mentioning that it also demands "probable cause." Hayden seemed to deny that the amendment included any such thing, or simply ignored it. He directly said "no" it did not include "probable cause."

This caused Landay to reply, "The legal standard is probable cause, General."


***

QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I'd like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use --

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But the --

GEN. HAYDEN: That's what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But does it not say probable --

GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says --

QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard --

GEN. HAYDEN: -- unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: The legal standard is probable cause, General. You used the terms just a few minutes ago, "We reasonably believe." And a FISA court, my understanding is, would not give you a warrant if you went before them and say "we reasonably believe"; you have to go to the FISA court, or the attorney general has to go to the FISA court and say, "we have probable cause."

And so what many people believe -- and I'd like you to respond to this -- is that what you've actually done is crafted a detour around the FISA court by creating a new standard of "reasonably believe" in place of probable cause because the FISA court will not give you a warrant based on reasonable belief, you have to show probable cause. Could you respond to that, please?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure. I didn't craft the authorization. I am responding to a lawful order. All right? The attorney general has averred to the lawfulness of the order.

Just to be very clear -- and believe me, if there's any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. And so what you've raised to me -- and I'm not a lawyer, and don't want to become one -- what you've raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is "reasonable." And we believe -- I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we're doing is reasonable.

Well there are a number of alarming things about that exchange.

1. The obvious lack of knowledge or concern for that matter about what the Fourth Amendment actually says.
2. The fact that Hayden tries to establish the principle that because he is not a lawyer he has no responsibility to know and understand the Constitution.

Very questionable for a man that swore and oath to uphold and defend it.  Yes, a prime candidate to run the CIA.

It seems to me that there has been a trend here of people coming and going from this administration only to replaced by those more willing to violate the law at Lord Bush’s command.  Notice the upstanding people with pride and ethics didn’t stay long.  Take Colin Powell for instance.  He’s certainly been quite since he left, I wonder what threat he’s living under. 

Ladies and gentlemen your country is being dismantled around you.  Your economy is being destroyed; actually it has been being destroyed for years, the decline became evident in the 70’s as the dollar reeled from being converted to a baseless paper system, but the decline has continued and increased through the 90’s and now in the 2000’s it’s pace has become break neck.

I really don’t know what this administration is going to have to do to make it completely obvious to all but the 10% or so of America that will and always will believe anything, wake up and understand.

Our liberty, our country, is a delicate and precious thing.  I fear that too many years of living without signs of visible oppression and without armed conflict coming to our soil from a foreign aggressor since 1812, you have all become soft.