Bill of Rights

The 8th admendment was drafeted as an admendment to the Constitution in 1791...leave it as it stands...death to killers...

At CPAC 2011, Donald Trump stated that he supports the Second Amendment's protections for gun owners. However that is not the whole story. In this book "The America We Deserve" p.102 he says:

"I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun."

Although there is no generally accepted definition of an "Assault Weapon" (can't all weapons be used for assault?) previous law has attempted to define and differentiate an "assault weapon" from popular sporting rifles by cosmetic features or those deemed to make the rifle appear aggressive or militaristic, and not any feature that improves the functionality or makes the rifle any more dangerous. These laws tend to even ban features that add to comfort or even safety of a rifle design.

Because there are little real differences between todays popular self loading sporting rifles and those that were banned by "Assault Weapons" laws and the fact that the second Amendment is not about sporting or hunting uses of rifles, one can only conclude that any attempt to ban "Assault Weapons" is an attempt to infringe upon the Second Amendment itself.

In my opinion, Donald Trumps support for the 2nd Amendment is similar to saying you support your favorite football team and want them to win, but you also support a limit of one touchdown per game, and limit how many defensive players your team can have.

To search your home or effects, the government agent needs a valid search warrant, probable cause to assume a serious crime is being committed at that very moment (such as a gun shot), probable cause that someone needs to be rescued, probable cause while being in pursuit that a fugitive ran into the house, or your permission.

Also, when law enforcement enters your residence legally, they are bound to search for what is listed on the search warrabt, but if illegal or evidentiary items are in plain sight, they may seize them.

Various new access clauses that have not been interpreted or tested that may or may not allow searchs in the interest of national security appear in the Patriot Act.

A thing that holds our citys and states together to be one native government and rely on all beliefs..

Yes. Copies of the Constitution and Bill of Rights were sent to each of the 13 original States, so that their respective legislatures could debate and hopefully ratify it. The original of the Constitution is at the National Archives; sometimes one of the state copies go on tour.

a little something i wrote up today. This is a suitable answer from a non-technical perspective. If you are researching this for legal/criminal justice/etc reasons, you'll need something more in depth.

Should the US government be allowed to monitor domestic electronic communications of American citizens, without judicial oversight? Under current law (USA PATRIOT Act), federal law enforcement agencies are allowed to monitor telephone and email records, and to access public library records. In this paper, I will argue that the federal government should not be allowed to wiretap phones, monitor email, or check public library records without a search warrant.

1 The Fourth amendment to the US Constitution provides that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" (US Const., amend. IV.)

2 The Fourth amendment further provides that "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." (US Const., amend. IV.)

3 Federal law enforcement agencies use "National Security Letters" to gain access to records of electronic communications, and public library records; neither with issuance of a warrant by, nor subject to review of, the judicial branch.

4 The federal government's accesses of communication records are in direct opposition to the rights guaranteed by the fourth amendment.

5 The federal government should not be allowed to take actions which violate the rights laid out in the constitution, including its amendments.

∴ The federal government should not be allowed to spy on American citizens by monitoring their email, wiretapping their phones, or checking records from public libraries - without warrants.

The Fourth Amendment "provides the primary defense against government invasions of privacy" (Garlinger). A plain language reading of the text of the Fourth Amendment reveals that people have a right to be secure from unreasonable searches. That revelation leads to the question, what searches are reasonable or unreasonable? "The Fourth Amendment currently does not extend to information voluntarily given to third parties such as ISPs. The government, therefore, can access private information held by ISPs with little oversight or accountability" (Garlinger). This view is used to justify the government's review of data that the average citizen might consider private. To consider the content of an email anything other than the analog of the content of a letter written on paper and sent via postal mail, is an untenable position. Indeed the content of a letter is voluntarily handed over to the US Postal service, but sealed in an envelope. The content of an email is handed over to an ISP, but because of the nature of how data transfer works, email is transferred letter-by-letter, in a plain text format (Klensin); not inside a sealed envelope, as with postal mail.

Federal law enforcement agencies, in particular the Federal Bureau of Investigation, use National Security Letters to initiate a search of personal records from telephone and Internet service providers and public libraries. "Without any judicial review, the FBI issues NSLs to telecommunications providers to obtain customer subscriber information" (Garlinger). If the FBI were conducting searches which they believed an average citizen, or even judge, would consider reasonable, they could use the judicially reviewed search warrant process to gain access to records.

Contrasting the actions of the FBI - in using National Security Letters to acquire U.S. citizens' personal records - with the rights guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment; the two are diametrically opposed. It is particularly disturbing to see the government act contrary to the U.S. Constitution. The use of National Security Letters in the gathering of data related to U.S. citizens should be halted immediately. The federal government should instead use the already available judicial warrant application process, thereby allowing the Judiciary to maintain control, require probable cause, and ensure that due process is afforded the citizens.

In summary, the federal government should not be allowed to spy on U.S. citizens. American jurisprudence has a long history of allowable methods, which are not constitutionally tenuous, for the government to obtain information. By insisting on the issuance of warrants by judges, the United States government would better serve the interests of the citizens.

Works Cited

Garlinger, Patrick P. "PRIVACY, FREE SPEECH, AND THE PATRIOT ACT: FIRST AND FOURTH AMENDMENT LIMITS ON NATIONAL SECURITY LETTERS." New York University Law Review 84.4 (2009): 1105-1147. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Web. 24 Feb. 2011.

Klensin, John C. "RFC 5321 - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol." IETF Tools. Internet Engineering Task Force, Oct. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2011.

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act) of 2001, Title II, § 211, Pub. L. No. 107-56, 115 Stat. 272 (2001).

US Const., amend. IV. Print

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution garantees "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press."

This amendment was one of the original ten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights and were added to the Constitution before it was even ratified by the states.

The First Amendment does protect the press from censorship, but that does not mean that the press can print whatever they wish to print. The government is able to censor the press if the press is going to publish some information that would be a threat to national security. An example of such a thing that the government would be allowed to censor would be if the press was going to print the codes to release the nuclear bombs that the U.S. government has. However, this is an extreme example and it is only in very rare cases that the government needs to utilize this power.

The major gaurantee that the press has from their protection under the First Amendment is that they can say bad things about politicians and the government in gerenal (as long as it does not fall under libel or slander), without being punished by the government for their actions.

The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution deals with the rights of a person who is charged with a crime. An individual is to be afforded a speedy public trial by an impartial jury which is convened in the locale that has jurisdiction, and whose proceedings shall include a reading (specification) of the charges and the legal basis (cause) for them as well as the right to face any witness(es) against him, the right to compel (by subpoena) the testimony of any witness(es) in his favor, and the right to defense counsel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text The reason the Sixth Amendment was written into the Constitution was to protect the individual rights (liberties) of anyone accused of a crime by assuring due process to those who might be accused or charged. Many governments or regimes in power around the world at the time that this was written could (and did) imprison individuals indeterminately without any formal (or even informal) charges being pressed against them. The thoughtful men who drafted the Constitution and, in particular, the Sixth Amendment were well aware of that brand of injustice, and did not want something so patently unfair to be possible in the United States. In this day and age, we don't see too many situations where individuals are deprived of basic rights under the rule of law, do we....

Why are freedoms in the First Amendment important for people in a democracy?

Additions to the constitution are called amendments. The first amendment was :

Under the Articles of Confederation, only the national government could

There have been many cases that have been relevant to the 8th amendment. Some of the more well know are Atkins VS Virginia in 1998, Gregg VS Georgia in 1976 and Weems VS United States in 1910.

This is a very broad question, and I regret that this will be at best a condensed answer and at worst a misrepresentation of very well thought out positions, but some of the opposing viewpoints are:

First Amendment - Debate over this amendment is generally not partisan and usually centers around good taste (i.e. should pornography or explicit or subversive works be banned or censored) or damage to the greater good (i.e. what right do people have to yell "fire" in a crowded theater if it endangers the public.) Recently debate regarding the free practice of religion in the public sphere has veered into partisan lines. Conservatives insist on the freedom to display religious paraphernalia in the public sphere when it is Christian (i.e. the Ten Commandments on a courtroom steps or a nativity scene outside a federal building) but in a striking display of hypocrisy insist that minority displays of worship (i.e. building a Muslim community center near Ground Zero) be curtailed by good taste. Liberals generally insist that all religion be taken out of the sphere of government, including the above examples, and in more extreme cases attempting to eliminate "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance and the like.

Second Amendment - Conservatives generally believe that this amendment defends the right of all citizens to own any form of weapon with limited regulations or controls, or in extreme cases with no limitations whatsoever. Liberals generally believe that the right of citizens to own weapons is curtailed by the violence that can be inflicted without regulation - i.e. cop-killing automatic weapons should be banned and there should be limits on allowing children or felons access to weapons or the ability to conceal weapons. In extreme cases liberals may interpret this amendment as allowing only for the National Guard to hold weapons, and that private citizens are indeed not guaranteed the right to bear arms.

Fourth Amendment - This is increasingly being seen as a matter of national defense. In general, conservatives believe that increasingly draconian methods of search and seizure (i.e. warrantless wiretapping) are necessary and wise to defend against terrorist attacks while liberals tend to believe that civil liberties are far more important to the functioning of a society than personal safety, even if it endangers the homeland.

Sixth and Seventh Amendments - Similar to the 4th, conservatives may insist on opposing due process, for instance extraordinary rendition or the keeping of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay or unmarked overseas prisons in order to keep the homeland safe, while liberals will insist that jurisprudence is more important than safety.

Eighth Amendment - Recently back in the news in regards to the debate over the procedure known as "waterboarding" and whether that constitutes torture. Again, conservatives will insist that either waterboarding is not torture or that if it is, such torture is necessary to protect the United States while liberals will argue that waterboarding is clearly torture and thus banned by the 8th Amendment.

Tenth Amendment - In recent conservative doctrine this amendment is often used as a cudgel to deflect federal laws regarding gay marriage or taxes, with the argument that such matters are best left to the states. Liberals often oppose the notion that states have the right to defy federal law. This divide was also made recently apparent in the Arizona Immigration Law.

Yes. Children have rights in all of the countries that signed the International Convention on the rights of the child. The Unicef website has a site deicated to this document located at http://www.unicef.org/crc/crc.htm

This is an Open University question for ETMA02 Whoever posted this is a CHEAT!!!!!! Ive reported you to the course team as its not fair on those who are trying hard.

Court does not afford commercial speech full protection under the First Amendment.

It protects our unalienable rights as a citizen, because every person has privileges (rights) that cannot be taken away, and those rights help us get through society and the rest of our life. If we didn't have the bill of rights, it would be an unsafe, unfair, and unjust country to live in (referring to the United States).

"it is not the breaking of a man's doors and the rummaging of his drawers that constitutes the essence of the offense; but it is the invasion oh his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty and private property, where that right has never been forfeited by his conviction of some public offense" Quote from Justice Joseph P. Bradley hope this helps!

the 5 freedoms are freedom of press. freedom of speech. freedom of religion. freedom of Assembly and freedom of petition

The right to a speedy trial, on the surface, seems inconsequential. But it is a vital civil right written to ensure a suspect does not languish behind bars for years while waiting to go to trial. All suspects are innocent until proven otherwise and it violates that right to hold them indefinatly. Law enforcement and prosecutors try to have sufficient evidence before an arrest is made. After arrest it is usually the the other side that drag their feet, buying time to build a defense.