The Epoch Times Several Republican senators signaled they will work to stop the passage of legislation approved by the House that would authorize special offices within several government agencies to investigate alleged domestic terrorism, warning that such measures could be weaponized against the public.
“It sounds terrible,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told The Hill about the proposal, comparing it to the PATRIOT Act, or the Disinformation Governance Board that was set up under the Biden administration before it was put on “pause” last week.
“It’s like the disinformation board on steroids. Another way to look at is the PATRIOT Act for American citizens,” the Missouri senator said in reference to the Bush-era bill that was enacted in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The PATRIOT Act has long been flagged as a law that expanded the government’s surveillance capacities, allowing it to track email and phone conversions as well as collect bank records—although it was initially to be used to target Islamic terrorists…
Well, lets take another look at the Latim maxims.
Noscitur à sociis, and ejusdem generis are the Latin maxim rules of construction that apply to all written documents, including the US Constitition and Bill of Rights. Such association in context (noscitur à sociis) means where two or more specifics in a series are followed by a general, the general is delimited to things of like kind to the specifics (ejusdem generis). For example, apples and oranges and other fruits would include tangerines but maybe not dates, apricots but definitely not tomatoes and potatoes. A way around that rule would include the phrase “including but not limited to…”, or other similar phrase, before recitation of the specifics, so the general would include things of unlike kind, the tomatoes and potatoes. But it doesn’t stop there, the writing must be construed from its four corners (four corners rule) to arrive at intent, with all ambiguities decided against the writer thereof, and, for statute or constitution such construction must also look to the history.
But you don’t get that far because specific prevails over general statements. You can’t get past the expressio unius rule, to the grab bag of powers of the ejusdem generis rule, or any other rule of consruction for any law of doubtful meaning because so clear and unambiguous what the framers said in the framing documents..
Does federal government have the express power in the Constitution to enact the domestic terror bill.? If it does not but doing it anyway is usurpation of Bill of Rights Tenth Amendment which the framers included as a condition of signing on to a Constitution. The federal government has the duty to do the right thing and limit its acts delimited by the framers and notwithstanding its power to do a wrong thing by ignoring the framers. The Tenth Amendment is incorporated by reference into the Constitution by the Latin maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius meaning powers expressed excludes all others not expressed and of like or unlike kind, same reserved to the people or the States.
So Senate, kill the House bill.