Your Fourth Amendment Rights Are Hanging in the Balance.

The Fourth Amendment

On Monday June 13th, there was another vote in Cedar Falls, Iowa on Ordinance #2740 – an unfunded mandate that FORCES citizens to provide a key to their home or business to the city. The key is to be placed in a lock box that City Officials and Firemen will have access to.

 

The mandate applies to apartments, some rental houses, and all businesses.

It passed, five to one.  FIVE to ONE.

Again, our rights as free citizens are being compromised for our safety.

Precious fellow citizens, I was shocked while watching the youtube video (below) to see that there were very few people in attendance at the May 23rd meeting. If this is affecting apartment dwellers, why would the room, hallways, and parking lots NOT be overflowing?

Are citizens not taking this news seriously?

What alarms me the most, after watching this video, and after reading the facts, is the attitude of the members of council. They have an idea that protecting the citizens of their city somehow includes the right to have a key to their home or business.

They have the mistaken notion that the right to privacy must be violated in order to protect a citizen, not from an inevitable occurrence, but from something that might happen…Maybe.

 

The city’s fire chief, John Schilling, rambles a bit on the “speculation” of the constitutionality of this mandate and states that the judiciary system has never addressed whether it is or isn’t constitutional.

Allow me to express, sir, that it isn’t constitutional, and those of you in your positions, including the council,  should know that without ever having to take it to a judge. If you can read, then you can probably discover that you are treading on dangerous ground that is nothing more than a slippery slope that puts our rights at risk. Yes, OUR. Do not think that your tiny mandate will not have impact across the state, and eventually the country.

As for Councilman Kamyar Enshayan, He is an arrogant man, full of himself and apparently of the power he feels belongs to him. When it is his turn to speak he offers many “what if” scenarios like:

“Let’s say something happens in a building,” {note the vagueness} whether there are people in there or not, an alarm goes to the fire department and the fire crew arrives.  …Could be a false alarm,  so do you want them to tear down everything to go in there and find out there is nothing, or, if you’re out of town, they should just wait around.”

Okay, does he even hear himself talking here?
Does he really think the firemen will “wait around” before going in to a home to investigate a fire? Allow me to assure you, Councilman Enshayan, no one is going to break a door down unless they see smoke and flames. No one is going to  “wait around” vacillating back and forth on whether or not there is someone in danger. They will take action if there is a fire, and if there isn’t, insurance coverage will take care of it. What on earth is your real motive, sir?

And since we are discussing hypothetical situations, I have a few of my own.

What If, there is no false alarm? I guess life will go on just like it always does, only a citizen is out of town wondering which council member or city official is in their living room watching cable and having a sandwich at their expense.

What if  no one is out of town? I guess that there will be no reason to break a door down.

What if there is a fire in an apartment building? Does anyone reading this really think a competent fireman is going to stand outside and rummage through the lock box for the appropriate keys, or get down to business?

He goes on to say:

“The merits of an idea does not depend on the number of the people who hold that idea.”

That is correct sir, slavery was a “good idea” that had no merit whatsoever, even though a majority of people in the south thought it did.  Unlimited access to an American citizen’s home is not a good idea either, no matter how many of you on the council thinks it is. The merit of the idea does not depend on number; Correct. It depends on whether or not it is logical, honors the Constitution of this nation, and the rights of the good citizens who are fortunate enough to live here.

He also states:

“If something is unsafe, we, the elected officials of this city, will do everything we can in the best of our abilities to protect the citizens….It doesn’t matter how many people are in this room, {addressing the fact that a citizen promised more people would rise up to protest} we have to protect everyone.” {italics, mine}

Well, that’s a lofty goal, Councilman Enshayan. Are you now going to promise each and every college girl a body guard so they won’t be mugged or raped? It might happen, you know.
What if something happens? It is now your job to protect them from what may happen, (your words, sir). While you are at it, let’s find lifeguards for every swimming pool in the city, even private residential homes, because something might happen. And we can go on and on…
Your points are not logical!

I don’t hear a man who is wanting to watch out for his neighbors and their families. I hear a man who is puffed up with pride, offering flimsy reasons for such a drastic ordinance, and quite frankly, a man who cares more for the cost of a broken-down door than he does the rights of the men and women he was elected to serve.

I would like to applaud Councilman Nick Taiber for being the only man on council who remembers what our Constitutional rights are all about. He is a man who stood against the majority; he is nobility lived out before us. I encourage anyone reading this article to write, call, or email him to encourage him.

There is more at work here than the concern for broken doors and citizens coming home from out of town to find a mess.

I leave it to you, good reader, to develop your own conclusions, and once you have pondered the matter, do something about it.  You don’t have to live in Cedar Falls, Iowa to be a voice that stands up for a fellow American Citizen’s rights. I encourage you to make a phone call, write an email, and help your American brothers and sisters.

Cedar Falls City Council Meeting May 23rd, 2011

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One Comment

  1. This is INSANE! Who is going to be responsible for all of the keys………and if they are the ones responsible they better have some GOOD INSURANCE OR ARE BONDED. By insisting and madating they have keys for these businesses they are severely exposing themselves to all sorts of liabilities. All one of the owners has to do is say something was stolen and how do they prove no one in their office did it? What happens if someone breaks into their offices and steals the keys??? Who’s paying for the loss? Who is replacing all of the locks. Insurance companies will not like this at all? Further, I don’t know who they think they are that they can tell people what they have to do! If it were me……..I’d move my business out of city limits no matter what it took!

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