Bill Of Rights

The Bill of Rights Tour -- a traveling multimedia exhibition featuring an original copy of the Bill of Rights -- begins a three-day appearance at 10 a.m. today at the Baltimore Convention Center.The 1st U.S. Army Band is scheduled to perform during opening ceremonies for the free exhibition, which is making its 10th stop on a 16-month, 50-state tour. It features the Virginia copy of the Bill of Rights, on loan from the Virginia State Library and Archives.The exhibition, which is sponsored by Phillip Morris Companies Inc., is intended to appeal to all age groups and is accessible to the disabled.

I have followed national news reports of 13 correctional officer involved in partnership activities with inmates as well as four female correctional officers getting pregnant by inmates ("Alleged gang leader in poor jail conditions, his lawyer says," May 15). No one can deny that this is alarming and disgraceful! Unions will say it is the result of under-staffing and more money is the answer. Money and more staff is not the answer. It is leadership! Gov. Martin O'Malley demonstrated his lack leadership skills and lack of common sense when he endorsed the union's bill of rights which gives correctional officers an automatic appeal before three correctional officers.

The Bill of Rights -- the first 10 amendments to theConstitution -- was ratified 200 years ago today. No less anAmerican than Alexander Hamilton thought this addition unnecessary. He did so for an interesting reason that is often overlooked in discussions of constitutional development."Bills of rights," he penned in his next-to-last Federalist paper, "are in their origins stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of such privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince.

Food and retail workers at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport protested working conditions on Wednesday and attempted to deliver a proposed "Bill of Rights," to AirMall USA, BWI's concessions manager. Unite Here, a labor union that represents hospitality workers in Baltimore and elsewhere and is working to organize the airport concessions workers, said the private management company has benefited from higher passenger traffic while workers struggle with low wages and lack of health care access.

Advocates of strict new gun control laws recently rallied in Annapolis. Protesters staged a counter rally, and one was quoted as saying, "The Second Amendment belongs to us." It does and it doesn't.It does in the sense that it "belongs" to all American citizens; it doesn't in the sense that it protects gun owners' rights exclusively, at the expense of everybody else.This argument comes up every time the public starts demonstrating the will to enact new restrictions on gun ownership and use. The National Rifle Association and other such groups recite the Second Amendment like a mantra.

THE structure of schooling in the United States is about to undergo a change so fundamental that it amounts to a reconstitution of education. The change will begin with the nationalization of important areas of education policy and will eventually result in the creation of a national public secondary school curriculum enforced by performance tests.The last time the country experienced such a basic shift in the relationship of individuals to their government -- the adoption of the U.S. Constitution -- the protection of individual liberty was secured by the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

THIS MONTH the Bill of Rights is 206 years old, and I got to celebrate the occasion with Mary Beth Tinker. Mary Beth who?On Dec. 16, 1965 (coincidentally, just one day after the anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights), Mary Beth Tinker wore a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam War. Only 13 years old, she and some other students in Des Moines wanted to show their support for a proposed Christmas truce and cease-fire in Vietnam.After lunch that day, Mary Beth was called out of algebra class to the principal's office.

The original handwritten copy of the Bill of Rights sent by President George Washington to Maryland for ratification disappeared long ago into that great shredder in the sky where all lost documents go -- along with the copies sent Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina and Georgia.The Maryland copy, presumably signed by Vice President John Adams and other notables, may have been sent back to Congress with the rest of the ratification documents after the General Assembly unanimously approved the document Dec. 19, 1789.

I suppose it is just romantic fantasy to look for defining moments in life -- those magical instants when bells chime and lightning flashes and understanding, like a Fourth of July fireworks display, explodes on the consciousness.Understanding probably accumulates quietly, little step by little step, in increments so subtle that you don't even know they've occurred.So, I don't know precisely when I gained a special, emotional appreciation for the importance and the immediacy of the Bill of Rights to my life.

When one of our Founding Fathers suggested in the Constitutional Convention that a Bill of Rights be drawn up, the state delegations unanimously rejected the idea. So the document was drawn up without one, and the Bill of Rights added only later. We celebrate its bicentennial Sunday. There were several reasons for this apparent flip-flop.In the first place, most of the states in 1787 had bills of rights already. When Elbridge Gerry proposed that a federal version be drafted, Roger Sherman declared this was unnecessary because the state bill of rights were sufficient.

If you've paid attention to Internet news over the past year, you might know that the notion of a "free Internet" has been hotly debated and seen by many as under siege. Internet activists recently stopped SOPA and PIPA , two bills that would've given broad powers to government and companies to shut down copyright infringing websites. Now, a U.S. Congressman, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa , is stoking an online debate on what a potential "Digital Citizens' Bill of Rights" could look like.

Hessie Abraham Davidson, former chairman of the Davidson Transfer & Storage Co., who counted among his many interesting and challenging moving jobs overseeing the moving of the U.S. Constitution, died Sept. 18 of complications from a stroke at Springhouse Assisted Living in Pikesville. The longtime Slade Avenue resident was 98. The son of Russian immigrants Isaac W. and Emma Davidson, he was born in Baltimore and raised on Hollins Street and later in a home on Groveland Avenue.

With a passion for constitutional questions that bubbles just below the surface, a group of mostly foreign-born students from Randallstown High School beat out teams from schools in Montgomery, Washington and Charles counties for a chance to represent Maryland at a national social studies contest. Perhaps it is because they come mostly from Nigeria, Liberia, Grenada and Egypt, countries that have all seen political turmoil, that these students, with the help of their teacher, have turned the new experiences of living in a democracy into a quest to win the We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution National Finals to be held in Washington this weekend.

Freedom of speech is at the top of the list of The Bill of Rights, but people who think of themselves as religious should read their Bibles ("Justices rule anti-gay church can protest at military funerals," March 3). Clearly the most significant message of the Judeo-Christian belief system is to love thy neighbor as thyself and to treat others the way you would want them to treat you. Would the self-proclaimed religious protesters from Westboro Baptist Church want to deal with verbal assaults at the funerals of their loved ones?

U.S. Rep. C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger said Friday he will introduce a bill in the U.S. House requiring transit providers to take precautions to protect riders' safety and comfort. At a news conference Friday morning at the BWI/MARC station, Ruppersberger said the legislation will be called the Commuter's Bill of Rights and will be modeled after the recent Airline Passenger Bill of Rights, which went into effect earlier this year. The legislation follows on the heels of the June 21 incident in which more than 900 MARC riders were stranded on the Penn Line in extreme heat for two hours while an Amtrak crew concentrated on making repairs.

Rep. C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger said Friday that he will introduce a bill in the U.S. House requiring transit providers to take precautions to protect riders' safety and comfort. At a news conference Friday morning at the BWI/MARC station, Ruppersberger said the legislation will be called the Commuter's Bill of Rights and will be modeled after the recent Airline Passenger Bill of Rights, which went into effect earlier this year. The legislation follows the June 21 incident in which more than 900 MARC riders were stranded on the Penn Line in extreme heat for two hours while an Amtrak crew concentrated on making repairs.

The intent of the creators of the Bill of Rights, whose bicentennial we are celebrating, was to reinforce the claims of rights that a citizen may assert against the government -- rights such as freedom of speech, press, association and assembly, religious liberty, personal privacy and due process of laws in general, the right of a citizen to limit the power of the state to restrict his personal freedom, the right for which many of our forebears fought and...

IN THE LAST few weeks, the nation has devoted a great deal of attention to the "greatest generation" and its successful fight against fascism. But something important is missing from the celebration: the distinctive vision of the leader of that generation, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and his effort to connect the idea of security with protection against human vulnerability in all its forms. In his eloquent remarks inaugurating the World War II memorial in Washington, President Bush insisted, "Across the years, we still know his voice."

The article attacking the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United vs. FEC ("In our system, the tie goes to the conservatives," January 26) suggests that we rewrite the Constitution's preamble to read, "We the corporations…" The author fails to recognize that corporations are comprised of individuals who have the constitutionally protected right to speak in whatever form they choose. Any prohibition permitting the suppression of core political speech, corporate or otherwise, violates our rights as Americans to speak freely and engage in political discourse.

Holiday travelers who plan to reach their destinations by air this weekend can expect some delays due to weather. But no one should have to endure sitting in a cramped cabin aboard an aircraft stranded on the runway for hours before their flight even begins. That's why consumers should welcome federal regulations issued Monday by the Obama administration that limit the time planes can spend on the tarmac waiting to take off without providing passengers with adequate food, water, medical care and usable rest rooms.