Obama Signs Global Internet Treaty Worse Than SOPA

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DennisLeeWilson's picture

SOPA and PIPA were diversions--and they worked!

Suverans2's picture

The breach in our defenses, said Frank Chodorov[1], is in Article VI of the Constitution, which provides that "...all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

So much for the Tenth Amendment.

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles stated that "The treaty power is an extraordinary power, liable to abuse," and warned that "Treaties can take powers away from the Congress and give them to the President. They can take powers from the states and give them to the federal government or to some international body and they can cut across the rights given to the people by their Constitutional Bill of Rights."

This is precisely why "the Eisenhower Administration, and particularly the U.S. State Department, went all out to defeat the Bricker Amendment, which sought to greatly limit that power.

"Introduced into the Senate in February, 1952, as Senate Joint Resolution 130, the "Bricker Amendment" to the Constitution read as follows:

    Section 1. A provision of a treaty which conflicts with this Constitution shall not be of any force or effect.
    Section 2. A treaty shall become effective as internal law in the United States only through legislation which would be valid in the absence of treaty.
    Section 3. Congress shall have power to regulate all executive and other agreements with any foreign power or international organization. All such agreements shall be subject to the limitations imposed on treaties by this article.
    Section 4. The congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

No one listened then, and my guess is that no one will listen now.
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[1] Frank Chodorov was an American member of the Old Right, a group of libertarian thinkers who were non-interventionist in foreign policy and opposed both the American entry into World War II and the New Deal.