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| I bet he's sorry he didn't use his turn signal. |
Last week, Justice Scalia seemed very concerned that, along with buying health insurance the government would force us to eat broccoli. God forbid! But it's okay to strip search people for traffic violations. There is some discussion about police using this power at their own discretion. I think they already have too much power.
I suffered a lot of unwanted attention from a local police officer who pulled me over anytime he wanted, just to chat. Yeah, really. It was scary, the last thing I wanted to do was piss off a cop. My daughter eventually called a local official to get him to stop harassing me. Thank God he couldn't strip search me for driving without a headlight. I wonder how many cops will use this decision for whatever purpose they want. This is a very depressing decision, especially if you have young kids who are driving.
After last weeks Supreme Courts interrogation of Solicitor General Verilli, I thought personal freedom was something the Supreme Court was interested in upholding, unless of course it means keeping your clothes on. This has to be THE MOST conservative Supreme Court in history. It's getting to the point where we are living in a police state. Which is exactly the way they want it.
I think we passed the point of living in a police state some time ago. It just keeps getting worse. We've given up all our rights because we were scared stupid after 9/11. Now it's a self perpetrating nightmare. At the same time this strip search for any reason went by, the government's "intelligence" agencies can mine all of our personal data and keep it on super computers for five years. This is up from the previous outer limit of 180 days. Couple that with the threat of military detention without legal recourse if they think you're a terrorists, know a terrorist, or think you might become a terrorist at some unnamed future date, well, what's left?
ReplyDeleteI would point out something that virtually everyone seems to have missed: they have never and they don't now 'strip search' people for violating laws. They conduct this search if someone is going to be booked into the general population of a jail. It is a security measure. The person who might get 'shivved' isn't going to feel any different if he is attacked by a felon or a petty thief. He will sue everybody in sight for violating his rights.
ReplyDeletePeople almost NEVER get booked into jail for failing to properly signal a turn. Or for jay-walking. Most of them never even get noticed, except by the drivers who have to look out for these morons.
Does that mean I like or agree with this ruling? Not necessarily. ; )