To the Editor:

In response to the ever-eroding authority of the U.S. Constitution, some observations can be made.

Governors cannot rule a constitutional republic by decree, proclamation, edict, or executive order. To close businesses because of the perception of a pandemic is blatantly unconstitutional due to lack of due process. Governors cannot suspend the Constitution; they have no authority to do so. A certain statute giving them certain powers in times of crises may be legal, that is, written into law, but if this statute runs contrary to the Constitution, it is unlawful. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Governors cannot circumvent the Bill of Rights. They cannot order businesses closed, they cannot prevent citizens from peacefully assembling and they cannot prevent freedom of movement.

What we have seen is an unprecedented and unbridled power grab with governors and mayors putting the police in a most awkward position. They have told law enforcement to disregard the constitutional rights of citizens. For officers to do this is a direct betrayal of the oath they took to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Yes, domestic.

There have been a host of lawsuits filed against governors and mayors and non-elected public health officials on the grounds that the constitutionally protected right to due process had been violated.

In a recent judgment coming from the state of Ohio, a judge ruled that a water park in Erie County, which sought to reopen may now do so. Judge Roger Binette of the Erie County Court of Common Pleas referring to the Department of Health Director Amy Acton, said “If one unelected, unaccountable-to-the-public official, is allowed to invoke unfettered Orders that criminalize an otherwise non-criminal activity only for disobedience to her Orders, then the right to Due Process is extinguished.”

Just last month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the COVID-19 lockdown thereby freeing the citizens of Wisconsin from the tyranny of Gov. Tony Evers.

We Americans have unwittingly given up so many of our liberties that there is a danger we will never get them back. Benjamin Franklin once said, “that he who would give up liberty for safety, deserves neither.” Now more than ever do we need to remember that statement.

We are degraded daily in airports by the TSA touching, feeling, groping our persons when there is no reasonable suspicion of anything criminal with one exception: perhaps they seem to have a suspicion that we would like to travel. The NSA is completely out of control and has no constitutional right to search records, internet use, phone calls, without a warrant. Some citizens feeling confident they have done nothing wrong, believe they have nothing to fear. Nothing could be further from the truth. Words deemed to trigger an algorithm into intercepting and identifying certain words considered warning signs such as terrorist, bomb, freedom, surveillance, etc., could be problematic. These and hundreds more are used by millions of Americans in daily communication and there were numerous constitutional liberties lost by the passage of the Patriot Act, too numerous to mention here.

So, let us stand up for one of the most importance documents ever written and say no to an unconstitutional lockdown. Without the Constitution, we would still remain at the whim of tyrants.

Jim Morgan

Warwick