On April 2, 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States as reported in the New York Times, ruled that “… officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.” Also according to the august Times, “… Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court’s conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs, but also public health and information about gang affiliations.”
Say, what? Has the world gone completely mad? This is so transparently goofy, I wonder that anyone can take it seriously, except, oh, wait a minute – a simple majority vote of the SCOTUS determines the law of the land. And the mainstream media, such as it is, continues to treat Justice Kennedy as some sort of “moderate” instead of the conservative that he is. “Liberal” and “conservative” have lost any meaning in today’s society. As far as I can see, even the so-called “liberal” Justices are really just a little less conservative.
It’s just plain silly, or it would be if the ramifications were not so disturbing. “… no position to second-guess”? By that reasoning, courts are in no position to second-guess correctional officials if they shoot a prisoner down. After all, there is a possibility that the person may have smuggled weapons. The logic is the same. It’s sort of a “Stand Your Ground” for the state. This is akin to the National Defense Authorization Act that gives the military power to take anyone, citizen or not, into custody without a hearing, without habeas corpus, the “suspect” just disappears, based on nothing more than what the military thinks or asserts that the person might do sometime or another. No, this is just one more step in the establishment of the authoritarian state. George Orwell, here we come. And no one seems to care except of course the redoubtable Chris Hedges.
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