Marc Perkel Rantz

House gives bin Laden a Win Today

Letter to the Editor

Osama bin Laden won an important victory in the United States House of Representatives today as Congress voted to give up the basic freedoms that our forefathers fought and died for. And they have the guile to call it the "Patriot Act". What it really should be called is the "Cowardice Act" because it shows that America is so week that we are willing to surrender our freedom over the loss of a mere 3000 lives and 2 buildings. Why did hundreds of thousands of soldiers fight and die for just to have Congress vote our freedom away. Every time we give up our freedom the enemies of freedom win. Congress should vote against what bin Laden wants - not with him.

EFF Blog-a-thon - The Fight for Online Freedom

This is my entry for the Blog-a-Thon that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is sponsoring. The contest is about who used the internet in creative ways to stand up for digital rights. This should be FUN!

I started out in 1996 in the middle of my divorce where after getting a screwing by the courts I decided to represent myself pro se. This lead to about 20 lawsuits that I published online and resulted in my forced legal education. I found that I could actually intimidate judges by what I was publishing online about them.

In particular there was one incident where I called the Missouri Court of Appeals Souther District and recorded a conversation with the clerk of the court where she admitted that she had no idea if the judgements actually came from the judges or not. I not only posted it online but emailed a copy to 250 Missouri judges. It eventually led to the Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court being caught forging a signature to cover it up and he stepped down as chief justice shortly thereafter. I don't know if I caused it but a fantasize that I did.

Needing attention for my legal woes I decided to Run for Congress in 1998 as a Democrat, and in 2000 I ran for US Senate against John Ashcroft as a Republican. I'm the guy who lost to the guy who lost to the dead guy.

Blogging has been good for dealing with consumer issues. When Sprint decided to charge me $241 for $7 worth of usage I used the web to fight back. I created This Web Page which contains 5 recorded phone calls of their collection agency threatening me in a game of electronic warfare. I did a similar web site on MCI when they shut off my phone service with 12 recorded phone calls. The CBS evening news found the MCI story on my web site and Interviewed me on the evening news.

Recording phone calls was very effective in a dispute I had with PayPal. They didn't like my Men's Guide to Escort Services and my Shy Girl's Guide to becoming a Whore. So they not only cut me off, but decided to keep my money and actually took $300 out of my checking account. So I called them up and recorded this conversation of them explaining their policies in their own words. Within two weeks I had my money back.

The web is good for making political statements as well. During the 2004 election Michael Moore made public statement giving people permission to pirate his movie Fahrenheit 9/11 on the internet but no one actually did it because they feared copyright infringement. So 2 weeks before the election I rented a 100mb line and published it for downloading within 2 hours of posting it on my blog. the 100mb line was saturated and stayed saturated up to election day. Once I did it other people joined in because of the media coverage and the fact that no one contacted me to take it down. (Thank you Michael Moore and Loin's Gate Films). This resulted in hundreds of thousands of copies being sent over the Internet.

I currently own several controversial sites like OverthrowTheGovernment.org and FlagBurning.org. Here's a video of me burning my 2000 census form on the steps of the Missouri Supreme Court. I host many political sites such as Bartcop, American Politics Journal, Political Strikes, and Faux News Channel. My motto for hosting is, No anti-bush site left behind.

Blogging is also good for social change. One can write articles that educate and empower the next generation. These articles include my anti-smoking tobacco message, The Truth about Smoking Pot and Why it's important for young people to vote.

My latest project is The Church of Reality which is a religion that I invested based on believing in everything that's real. The purpose of this religion is to evangelize reality the way it really is and to raise the importance of reality in society in general. It challenges fiction based religions on the basis of what is real.

So whether you are running for office, intimidating judges, standing up to big corporations that are screwing you over, fighting political battles, reforming the government, educating people, or starting new religions, blogging is the ultimate tool for free speech. It is so powerful that "they" would love to shut it down and it's only because of organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation that people like me can continue to speak out and change that world ensuring that the human race will continue to evolve forward.

The Right to Privacy is in the Constitution

Is a right to privacy in the United States Constitution? Yes it is - but not where you think it is. A lot of people are looking into the amendments to the Constitution for something that can be construed as privacy. Others say that it's just not there. But it is there and it's right in the original constitution.

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7:

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

In listing the powers that the United States should have to serve the needs of the people Article 1, Section 18 lists 18 things. Post offices is one of them. It is in the Constitution that mail is important.

So - what does this have to do with privacy you might ask? To address that we first have to ask ourselves 2 questions. What is mail in the context of 18th century technology - and - why is it so important to make it into the constitution?

In 1776 there were no telephones, no television, no email. The only form of long distance communication that existed at the time was mail. And mail by definition was understood to be PRIVATE. In that era with the technology at the time the word "mail" meant long distance private communication. And long distance private communication was so important that the founding fathers put it into the Constitution.

The privacy aspect of mail is established in federal law.

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 83 > § 1703

§ 1703. Delay or destruction of mail or newspapers

(a) Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, unlawfully secretes, destroys, detains, delays, or opens any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail entrusted to him or which shall come into his possession, and which was intended to be conveyed by mail, or carried or delivered by any carrier or other employee of the Postal Service, or forwarded through or delivered from any post office or station thereof established by authority of the Postmaster General or the Postal Service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

(b) Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, improperly detains, delays, or destroys any newspaper, or permits any other person to detain, delay, or destroy the same, or opens, or permits any other person to open, any mail or package of newspapers not directed to the office where he is employed; or

Whoever, without authority, opens, or destroys any mail or package of newspapers not directed to him, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Why is it illegal to open someone else's mail if you don't destroy it or delay it? If the person gets the mail without delay then what has changed in reading it first? Only one thing. You have violated their privacy. It is established in federal law that privacy applies to mail. The reason for this is that it is part of our culture to respect the privacy of others by prohibiting the reading of other people's mail. And in 1776 mail was considered as private as it is today. And the founding fathers considered mail important enough to put it into the Constitution.

I therefore contend that the founding fathers recognized mail not only for the aspect of mail being long distance communication, but that it was private, and the element of privacy was contemplated in the establishment of post offices clause.

More research needs to be done to fully support this. What needs to be researched is to understand why the founding fathers considered mail so important. And then to establish what the laws and culture was regarding the privacy of mail and if the founding fathers depended upon that privacy. Was the mail used to convey secret information where a letter was sealed and there was an expectation that the postal carriers would respect the seal? I believe that once researched it will be obvious that the element of privacy was part of the post office clause.

Other Support for Constitutional Privacy

The First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...

Why - because religion is private.

The Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and 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.

Clearly the search part is prohibited because of personal privacy. The seizure part is about the ownership of property, but searching doesn't take away property, it takes away privacy. The Fourth Amendment protects a persons privacy by prohibiting unreasonable searches. The Fourth Amendment is really saying "The security of a person's right to privacy shall be protected by prohibiting unreasonable searches." I contend that the Fourth Amendment screams privacy.

Clearly privacy is contemplated in the Constitution even if it isn't directly spelled out. I invite everyone to take this work, copy it, and build on it. Spread it around because those who think privacy isn't in the Constitution just don't get it.