ECOLOGICAL BILL OF RIGHTS: some additions to the Bill of Rights, as others take them away

As others tear down rights, it always helps to formulate and to address what rights should be maintained--and added--for localism, sustainability, electoral choice, and greater freedom from state encroachment. What follows is an excerpt from the book. It is only additions to the Bill of Rights, and a subsequent renumbering, instead of the current fashion to take more and more away. Many are framed in how more geographic self-interest and sustainability feedback from local areas could be enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Particularly "Article 29", on bodily integrity I think is a general principle that should be enshrined, covering many issues in one statement of belief covering everything from abortion, to animal rights, to food security, to avoiding forced vaccinations, and to attempts to monitor post-purchasing consumer/citizen behavior through the materials themselves, like with RFID. By the way, France under Chirac seems to be moving in the direction of a "statement of environmental health rights" to be placed into its Constitution next to and connected to the Rights of Man. Little wonder the polluting oil industry connected neocons hate France. This is a quote from Chirac in 2004, in a speech at the opening ceremony of the founding of the Congress of the World Organization of United Cities and Local Governments. It recalls to mind his 2001 statement on the same issue:

"To help the State and public authorities take full account of the ecological aspect, I have called for France to have an Environmental Charter incorporated into our Constitution. The right to a quality environment will hence be protected in the same way as the rights of man and the citizen stated in the declaration of 1789 and the economic and social rights laid down in the Preamble to the 1946 Constitution. The Charter was drafted following a major national public debate and had been submitted to Parliament. It states the place of Man in his natural environment, without which he would not be able to survive, and the detrimental consequences of excessive pressure on natural resources. It declares everyone's right to live in a balanced environment that is not harmful to their health."

Vive la France, I say. If the U.S. removes its Bill of Rights, under the updated Patriot Act, there is really nothing left for U.S. citizens to be proud of at all. In case you have forgotten, all of the below Rights--which your "leaders" swore to uphold--they instead have vanquished and have rendered them and YOU as a citizen an endangered species. I use "leaders" loosely--because increasingly these U.S. elites prefer to have unauditable elections and to totally lack even competitive parties. The below rights have been decimated by a Democratic/Republican convergence instead of simply Bush, though the executive supremacism of the outright fascist Bush Administration, from the judicial coup of 2000 onward, probably is blackmailing them on many levels or even directly threatening them for compliance.

Recently I heard here that 6 Senators--3 Democrats and 3 Republicans--as a bipartisan move are planning to contribute to filibustering the "House/Senate agreed" destruction of the Bill of Rights by the Patriot Act.

Back to topic here: an "Article 29" amendment on bodily integrity would be a boon for individual and ecological and consumer rights. This is only the introduction to that one:

The Constitution of Sustainability shall support bodily integrity of all citizens and species. There are bodily rights beyond which all government shall keep from challenging and instead shall maintain them, running the gamut from environmental pollution issues that impinge on bodily integrity, to food issues, to commodity monitoring, to surveillance, and to abortion. The Constitution of Sustainability is based on bodily rights and bodily integrity assured through these rights. Government is limited to a social operation regulating only spaces and activities between individuals for sustainability and for human rights instead of regulating or having any jurisdiction on internal bodily activities or personal decisions about one's own body. Attempts of some to pressure government to enforce certain moralities to regulate internal bodily issues are forms of bodily tyranny that break the skin barrier that government shall not pass. The Constitution of Sustainability shall assure bodily integrity through upholding bodily rights, instead of demoting them.

ECOLOGICAL BILL OF RIGHTS
ARTICLES XV-XXIX


Article 15

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


Article 16

A well regulated Militia, jurisdictionally being based on watersheds, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.


Article 17

Section 1.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Section 2.

Military shall be prohibited from conducting or participating in civil police work.


Article 18

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.


Article 19

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.


Article 20

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and watershed district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which watershed district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.


Article 21

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by watershed-resident jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a watershed-resident jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.


Article 22

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted upon any species whether for punishment or experimentation.


Article 23

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.


Article 24

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the people inhabiting particular watersheds and States respectively, in that order, or to the people as a whole.


Article 25

The right of citizens of the Constitution of Sustainability to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the Constitution of Sustainability or by any State on account of gender, ethnicity, heritage, sexuality, handicapped status, age, or religion.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


Article 26

The District constituting the seat of Government of the Constitution of Sustainability shall be a state like any other within the Constitution of Sustainability.


Article 27

Section 1.

In the interest of a competitive party environment for democratic elections, where candidates are potentially independent of private capital for the launching and maintaining of campaigns or their content, all Local, State, and Federal Elections shall be publicly funded. Additionally, see Article II, Section 18.

Section 2.

No where are private public relations personnel or advertising personnel to be employed by the local, state, or federal governments, or funded by the local, state, or federal governments. The government itself is already public relations incarnate and can speak for itself to the people.

Section 3.

In all political party campaigns for office, political parties shall be prohibited from appointing personnel to their informal party administration of an election campaign from any simultaneously incumbent personnel in power in a state.

Section 4.

Complete transparency and paper-based auditability of the entire voting infrastructure in local, state, and federal elections shall be maintained as a public jurisdictional issue.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


Article 28

Section 1.

In the interests of avoiding private organizational and governmental organizational interlocks, sharing of privately collected information on consumers is prohibited from being turned into public documentation that is made available to citizens or corporations, in general, or the government in particular, whether free or for a fee. The data gathering of private entities for their internal purposes and the data gathering by public entities for governmental purposes, whether public or covert, shall remain separate.

Section 2.

Governmental agencies shall be prohibited from hiring out to private corporations or other persons any data gathering or administrative duties. The differentially administered and differentially biased data by private agencies or persons, subsequently given to the government to act upon, is punishable by law.

Section 3.

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


Article 29

Section 1.

The Constitution of Sustainability shall support bodily integrity of all citizens and species. There are bodily rights beyond which all government shall keep from challenging and instead shall maintain them, running the gamut from environmental pollution issues that impinge on bodily integrity, to food issues, to commodity monitoring, to surveillance, and to abortion. The Constitution of Sustainability is based on bodily rights and bodily integrity assured through these rights. Government is limited to a social operation regulating only spaces and activities between individuals for sustainability and for human rights instead of regulating or having any jurisdiction on internal bodily activities or personal decisions about one's own body. Attempts of some to pressure government to enforce certain moralities to regulate internal bodily issues are forms of bodily tyranny that break the skin barrier that government shall not pass. The Constitution of Sustainability shall assure bodily integrity through upholding bodily rights, instead of demoting them.

Section 2.

State or private mandated implants or collars of various sorts for tracking humans shall be prohibited.

Section 3.

State forced medication and external electro-magnetic manipulation of mental or bodily states shall be prohibited.

Section 4.

In the interest of female bodily integrity, the female bodily right to choose abortion or birth control technologies or medications shall not be infringed.

Section 5.

All peaceable citizens shall have the right to anonymous, publicly unmonitored outdoor civic spaces as to be free of intimidation as part of the proper redress of grievances against Government.

Section 6.

Citizens have the right to unadulterated, healthful, organic foods. Citizens have the right to unadulterated environment, air, water, and earth.

Section 7.

Citizens have the right to complete information on the path a commodity takes to their purchase.

Section 8.

The Constitution of Sustainability shall preserve the unmonitorability and anonymity of citizens, extending to any commodities once they are purchased, in the interests of checking against undue state or corporate power against the individual. The bodily right to be unmonitored shall extend to post purchasing behavior.

Section 9.

On the contrary, for public elected officials and appointees, live camera monitoring shall occur in all of their publicly funded office spaces, courtrooms, fully viewable and recordable by the public at large on demand wherever public business is being conducted by such persons. Everything that occurs in a public venue by public officers, is open, recordable, and transmissible.