The accusation of trespass against the inalienable rights of another is the probable cause that warrants (or permits) the use of force. Probable cause is received when one or more citizens issue a complaint under oath indicating that the person or persons in question have committed a crime. Probable cause is needed to give warrant (or permission) for the government official to violate the rights of liberty or property according to the fourth amendment. Since, both the act of searching someone’s property and the act of detaining them are trespasses against the liberty and property of another, there is supposed be some sort of permission granted from We the People for this to occur. Since “we the people” are the sovereign authority and government officials are only the servants, our servants must obtain a warrant, based on probable cause, to search our property or detain (arrest) us in our normal activities. My purpose here is not to offer legal advice, but to explain the moral purpose of and need for due process to preserve liberty. Note: As I am not a lawyer, and this is only a brief overview, it may not completely conform with current policies of due process. We need to both understand it and fight to restore it. Unfortunately, this part of freedom was something we had already almost completely lost when I went to China in 1986 and is being lost more and more as the years go by. It is in the following three stages of due process that the true power of “we the people” should be found. These amendments define how our government employees obtain authority over one of their bosses. However, most of the amendments in the Bill of Rights deal with issues of due process of law.

Many Americans know the rights guaranteed by the first and second amendments to the Constitution that are part of the Bill of Rights. It hasn’t totally prevented it, but it has certainly acted to inhibit it. It was supposed to help prevent the abuse of power by our public servants. But how do you prevent him from seizing authority over you he does not possess? That was the reason for the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. Returning to the idea that the people in government are employees or public servants, how do the public retain control over their servants? If you had a security guard watching over your property, does he have the authority to become your boss? Of course not. But few people know what that is supposed to mean. The Bill of Rights says that we cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property except by due process of law. The public is supposed to maintain their primary authority in our republic through due process of law, which is also called the rule of law.

Due process of law