Criminal Law Blog
February 28, 2006
Bush, the NSA Violations, and Austin P.D. Violations of the 6th Amendment
Martin Niemőller, a German Protestant pastor and victim of Nazi persecution, wrote: “First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.”
The NSA eavesdropping on United States citizens and residents may not bother some people now, because they might think “the government won’t have any reason to wiretap me.”
But in the Austin American Statesman edition dated February 25, 2006, it came out that Austin Police Detectives secretly recorded a private face to face conversation between a lawyer and his client. The lawyer had been specifically promised that he would not be recorded, and he apparently was recorded anyway.
I can only guess that the lawyer, a Republican representative to the Texas House, thought the detectives would not secretly record his conversation with his client, especially after they promised not to.
Anyone who hears of this flagrant violation of the 6th Amendment should be extremely troubled by it. The founding fathers wanted the Bill of Rights in place to protect all of us, not just law breakers. That’s because the British were trampling all over everyone’s rights then.
Well, President Bush appears comfortable violating our 4th Amendment rights against unlawful, warrantless searches of our conversations. And until they were caught, it would appear that at least some of the Austin P.D. detectives were comfortable violating the 6th Amendment rights of certain prisoners, since it appears that what happened to the Republican representative and his client also happened to another lawyer and his client.
Don’t wait until there is no one left. Speak up now.
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