Today, the final nail was hammered into the coffin of our Constitution. Is America dead, or merely in suspended animation? That depends on us. Act before the jackboots spring forth from the ink upon which The Military Commissions Act of 2006 was penned.
Some inspiration:

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The Gulag Archipelago

ISBN 0 00M 6336426

Part 1

The Prison Industry

Footnote 5

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in there lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or, what about the Black Moria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur—what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalins’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more_ we had no awareness of the real situation. We spent ourselves in one unrestrained outburst in 1917, and then we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure! [author’s emphasis]…

We have been happily borne – or perhaps have unhappily dragged our way - down the long crooked streets of our lives, past all kinds of walls and fences made of rotting wood, rammed earth, brick, concrete, iron railings. We have never given a thought to what lies behind them. We have never tried to penetrate them with our vision or our understanding. But there is where the Gulag country begins, right next to us, two yards away from us. In addition we have failed to notice an enormous number of closely fitted, well disguised doors and gates in these fences. All those gates were prepared for us, every last one! And all of the sudden the fateful gate swings quickly open, and four white male hands, unaccustomed to physical labor but nonetheless strong and tenacious, grabs us by the leg, arm, collar, cap, ear, and drags us in like a sack, and the gate behind us, the gate to our past life, is slammed shut once and for all.

Excerpted from A.I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Then They Came For Me

Stephen F. Rohde, Esq.

http://www.janrainwater.com/htdocs/Rohde.htm

First they came for the Muslims, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Muslim.

Then they came to detain immigrants indefinitely solely upon the certification of the Attorney General, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an immigrant.

Then they came to eavesdrop on suspects consulting with their attorneys, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a suspect.

Then they came to prosecute non-citizens before secret military commissions, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a non-citizen.

Then they came to enter homes and offices for unannounced "sneak and peek" searches, and I didn't speak up because I had nothing to hide.

Then they came to reinstate Cointelpro and resume the infiltration and surveillance of domestic religious and political groups, and I didn't speak up because I had stopped participating in any groups.

Then they came for anyone who objected to government policy because it aided the terrorists and gave ammunition to America's enemies, and I didn't speak up because...... I didn't speak up.

Then they came for me....... and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Stephen Rohde, a constitutional lawyer and President of the ACLU of Southern California, is indebted to the inspiration of Rev. Martin Niemoller (1937).

“ The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”
Patrick Henry

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny” James Madison

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined. --Patrick Henry, on ratification of the Constitution, 1788

He who will give up essential liberty for temporary security deserves neither liberty nor security. Thomas Jefferson

"He that would give up a little bit of liberty for a little bit of personal safety, deserves neither liberty nor safety" --Benjamin Franklin

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." --Benjamin Franklin

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State." --Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels

"Beware of the leader who bangs of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.

"And when the drums of war have reached a fevor pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind is closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and do it gladly so. "How do I know? I know for this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." --Julius Caesar.

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." --William Pitt, 18 Nov 1783

It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. --Patrick Henry

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle! Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." --Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857

Aquiescence is Treason! Silence is Sedition! Sharpen your pens, polish your shields, make some noise! Light the candles. Resist the consolidation of power and give courage to those who are willing to wake up and wield the crowbars! Open the coffin and start CPR. Never give up. Or, like many other evolutionary events in human history, this too, the legalising of Rights, will fall and fade. Even so, like other evolutionary ideas and technologies, it can wait until the 100th monkey is born again, and wait for the elder monkies to die. There will be another enlightenment, and another age of reason. Aunty.