@HenryAWallace
from the British Bill of Rights, legislation dating from "The Glorious Revolution" of 1688/1689.

One of the things that irked the upper crust of the colonies was that they didn't enjoy the same protections that royal subjects in Great Britain did. Some of the items in the British Bill of Rights were included in the US Bill of Rights, one or two others had already been rolled into the original constitution.

Per wikipedia, the Bill provided that:

* the pretended power of suspending the laws and dispensing with laws by regal authority
without consent of Parliament is illegal;
* the commission for ecclesiastical causes is illegal;
* levying taxes without grant of Parliament is illegal;
* it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal;
* keeping a standing army in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law;
* Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;
* election of members of Parliament ought to be free;
* the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament;
* excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted;
* jurors in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders;
* promises of fines and forfeitures before conviction are illegal and void;
* for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening and preserving of the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently.

activity, from spying to firing on Brits.

After the draft of the Constitution (sans any amendments) was circulated for ratification, the people and their legislatures demanded inclusion of the Bill of Rights. The deal was basically fast ratification of the document as presented, on the condition that the Bill of Rights be added ASAP. I believe it took only six months to get the Bill of Rights drafted, circulated AND ratified. Given the state of technology in those days, that t'weren't nothing.

In my opinion, the only reason it happened that fast (or at all?) is that Framers and legislators alike were mindful that the same "rabble" that was demanding that the Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution PDQ had not only just fought a revolution, but won it.

If anyone is having trouble connecting the dots, I don't blame him or her. So, let me try to bring all the above together. Regardless of what the Framers thought or wanted, I don't believe that the people who demanded and quickly ratified the Bill of Rights, the same people who had risen up in violent rebellion, including, but not limited to, spying on those officially in charge, intended to have the Bill of Rights protect only those who were doing nothing wrong in the eyes of the government du jour.

If they were, shame on them! But, I can't imagine they were.

@Pluto's Republic How do I go about converting?

Gmail scans your email for financial transactions, which are used to create a database of your financial activities.

A better choice for Americans is Proton email. The only email with end to end encryption. Take a look at the people from CERN who created it: About. They also offer a VPN for secure and private Internet use, as well. This means all your data is protected by strict Swiss privacy laws.

And, it's free.

@Pluto's Republic

I kind of trust scientists from CERN. My prof for whom I wrote later on my thesis paper in the early seventies, dragged us students from Berlin to CERN in Switzerland to listen to a speaker there. I was very, very young and there is a photo of me sitting in the audience with eyes wide open and apparently quite clueless about what the speaker tried to explain.

But I trusted him and my prof.

Gmail scans your email for financial transactions, which are used to create a database of your financial activities.

A better choice for Americans is Proton email. The only email with end to end encryption. Take a look at the people from CERN who created it: About. They also offer a VPN for secure and private Internet use, as well. This means all your data is protected by strict Swiss privacy laws.

And, it's free.

@Bollox Ref

Because the searches for technical information tend to be better with Google and the debugging environment in Chrome is very nice.

But on my personal devices I use Safari and DDG - and I use ad lock everywhere.

I’m pissed about the gmail sign on thing though because I’m paying them to host my own domain. I’m going to look into hosting at proton or something (one of my more paranoid friends is already there).

use Chrome as their browser of choice.

Likewise the Google search engine.

(Edited)

I admit to using googlemaps in emergencies......and googlebooks has so much 19th C. historical goodness for download, that it's hard to resist.

@Daenerys

I recently switched to Opera after Firefox got rid of my ad blockers. No thanks.

Which blockers did you lose? Mine all made it through pretty much OK.

Plus Opera has a built-in VPN, which I like.

Hmmmm, may need to look into Opera again.....

after Firefox got rid of my ad blockers. No thanks. Plus Opera has a built-in VPN, which I like. There's an Android version too, which I installed on my mom's phone when she got a new one.