Last Thursday, two Congressional hearings took place in the U.S. House of Representatives that demonstrate just how far America has drifted from its founding principles. Both hearings were at 10:00 am--I testified at one and my colleague Nick Anthony testified at the other. Disappointingly, both hearings demonstrate that any principle, no matter how foundational, can take a backseat to politics. Even the Constitutional Amendments in the Bill of Rights are at risk, a danger that was clearly demonstrated by the attacks on personal financial privacy discussed during the hearings. One of those--the Fourth Amendment--was the subject of the hearing where I testified. It's the one the founders included to protect Americans from warrantless government searches, and its origins date to the Stamp Act, a law passed by the English Parliament in 1765.
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