Last week I posted about David House, a man who got his laptop, camera, and USB cable snatched by Homeland Security for no definitive reason beyond his association with an organization supporting Bradley Manning. The action’s since been rubber stamped by a U.S. district court, a ruling coming just a few days before the Supreme Court took it to a whole new level, allowing strip-searches of anyone detained for most anything. Why? You already know the answer.Read also, Why You Should Not Bring Your Laptop To CanadaAfter House announced he was suing the government for illegal search and seizure, they attempted to have the case dismissed, arguing that the particulars of House's detention were legally covered by the rules of a standard border search. They stated, "There is no basis for the Court to conclude that searches of laptops or other electronic devices at the border should be subjected to a different standard than that for other closed containers. Nor is there a basis for the Court to conclude that Plaintiff's First Amendment rights were violated by the routine search and detention of his devices at the border."However, there clearly was a basis, because District Judge Denise J. Casper, who filed a 27-page ruling citing the fact that she could not determine whether or not confiscating House's devices was justified, denied their dismissal. The ruling of the Boston judge has been hailed by supporters of Manning. However, it is worth noting that Casper rejected House's claim that the initial search itself was unlawful, citing prior cases in which individuals have been searched at borders without suspicion of wrongdoing. The government reserves the right to search you at a border, Casper argued, provided the search isn't invasive.This, seemingly basic distinction, brings us to New Jersey, where an African-American man named Albert Florence was pulled over on the way to a family party by a state trooper. After running a search on Florence, the officer learned that he had an outstanding warrant, which had been issued over a fine that Florence had already paid. The state's negligence in the matter led to Florence being taken to a county jail, where he was subjected to the most evasive of strip-searches. Florence was ordered to take off all of his clothes and lift his genitals. Six days later, he was moved to another facility and forced to endure the embarrassing ordeal all over again.Florence filed a civil rights suit against the department and the case reached the Supreme Court where, this past Monday, it sided with the police in a 5-4 decision, essentially granting jailers the authority to strip-search individuals after picking them up on the most routine of offenses.Over the past decade there has been a lot of commentary about how the tragic events of 9/11 paved the way for the oppressive climate of the Patriot Act. Often forgotten is how the horror of the Oklahoma City bombing also birthed fresh assaults on the Constitution, most notably in the form of Bill Clinton's Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, inadvertently, reminded us of this toxic legacy by citing the fact that Timothy McVeigh was stopped for driving without a license plate."People detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals," wrote Kennedy. This all-encompassing statement, derived from a specific conservative perception of law and order, blatantly ignores the fact they can also just be wrongly imprisoned individuals — whose human dignity is disregarded.
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