Right, Bobert. I consider the erosion of the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments the biggest danger we face right now, and this is coming, not from some external enemy, but our own government—which is where all attempts to subvert the Constitution come from: those who have taken an oath to preserve it and protect it.
The real conspiracy:—
In 1992, Paul Wolfowitz, then the under secretary of defense for policy (the Pentagon's third-highest ranking civilian), takes the lead in drafting an internal set of military guidelines, called a "Defense Planning Guidance," which is routinely prepared every few years by the Defense Department.
Wolfowitz's draft argues for a new military and political strategy in a post-Cold War world. Containment, it says, is a relic of the Cold War. America should talk loudly, carry a big stick, and use its military power to preempt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). And if America has to act alone, so be it. (Read excerpts from the Wolfowitz draft.)
Controversy erupts after the draft is leaked to the press. The White House orders Defense Secretary Cheney to rewrite it. In the new draft there is no mention of preemption or U.S. willingness to act alone.
The report goes on to assert that "The number one objective of U.S. post-Cold War political and military strategy should be preventing the emergence of a rival superpower." This was detailed in the last Frontline on PBS. It goes a long way toward explaining the recent otherwise inexplicable behavior of the current administration.
The relationship to this thread is that the Constitution offers several impediments to the implementation of this policy. This is the latest attempt, made by various administrations during the history of the United States, to set the Constitution aside so it can carry out its ambitions.
It would be a dangerous delusion if our confidence in the men of our choice should silence our fears for the safety of our rights. Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded on jealousy, not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power. Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence will go. In question is a power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, that bind them down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. -- Thomas Jefferson