Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Supreme Court jokes about strip-searching little girls A small good step by the Supreme Court yesterday in Arizona v. Gant regarding Fourth Amendment rights in cars, but the case of Savannah Redding isn't looking too good. Reading the transcript of the oral arguments of Safford Unified School District v. Redding was pretty depressing. I don't know how the Justices will rule, but it appears that they find little wrong with the idea of school officials stripping a young girl and were merely concerned by the procedure of determining when it's a good idea. They even discussed body cavity searches in schools as if that was merely another option. The Justices also talked about the idea that kids change clothes anyway for gym or the pool, so how is that different from a strip search. Really! They can't tell the difference between the humiliation and loss of individual rights in a strip search and changing for gym class? Dahlia Lithwick has a scathing OpEd at Slate: Search Me: The Supreme Court is neither hot nor bothered by strip searches. When constitutional historians sit down someday to compile the definitive Supreme Court Concordance of Not Getting It, the entry directly next to Lilly Ledbetter ("Court fails utterly to understand realities of gender pay discrimination") will be Savana Redding ("Court compares strip searches of 13-year-old girls to American Pie-style locker-room hijinks"). After today's argument, it's plain the court will overturn a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion finding a school's decision to strip-search a 13-year-old girl unconstitutional. That the school in question was looking for a prescription pill with the mind-altering force of a pair of Advil--and couldn't be bothered to call the child's mother first--hardly matters. To me, it's a simple thing. Is having school officials strip search students constitutional? No. Period. Anytime. For any reason. At all. But that simple view was nowhere to be found in the room. It's unlikely that we'll be able to expect the Supreme Court to protect the rights of our kids. We'll have to do it ourselves. Every parent needs to teach their kids that whenever school officials attempt to interrogate or search them, they should refuse to do anything until their parents and lawyer have been called. In that vein, I highly recommend that all parents read A Teaching Moment, at a Public High School by Joel Rosenberg at WindyPundit. "I know you kids were dealing drugs to her," he opened with. "And if you don't confess to me now, when she kills herself, I'll see you all charged with first degree murder." At which point the kids started freaking out, just a little. Including, on the inside, my kid. But only on the inside. "I want my father and I want my lawyer, now." Daddy's girl did Daddy proud. Later, Daddy has a discussion with the Vice Principal... "And, in case I'm not clear, nobody at your school -- not you, not your mall ninja, not anybody -- is to interrogate my kid on anything without either her attorney or me being present. You can talk to her about her homework, but anything else, David or I are to be there. On a good day, you might get us both. You got that?" Long pause. "I want to hear a yes on that right about now." "Yes." That was the last time the Vice Principal of that school and I had a chat about anything. That's how you handle a power-mad zero-tolerant pipsqueak bureaucrat. 9:29:47 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Prohibition isn't free, part 269 Drug War Torture Mexican soldiers fighting a war against drug cartels have arbitrarily detained suspects, beating and torturing them with electric shocks, a senior human rights official said on Wednesday. [...] Soldiers charged with patrolling drug hotspots have detained suspects in military barracks -- sometimes for up to 12 hours -- and beaten them to solicit information before turning them over to police investigators, Ibarra said. "They give them electric shocks on different parts of the body ... testicles, arms, legs, buttocks," Ibarra told Reuters. "We have seen with great concern a growing number of incidents. The armed forces are not trained as police and when they are used as police there tend to be excesses," he said. Yep, just one more in a long list of extremely damaging side-effects of a drug war intended to keep people from voluntarily enjoying a recreational activity... and failing at that. Good thing we'll be stepping in to escalate the war, huh? Of course, John Stossel gets it: Visiting Mexico last week, President Obama said he will fight drug violence: "I will not pretend that this is Mexico's responsibility alone. The demand for these drugs inside the United States is keeping these cartels in business." I don't expect politicians to be sticklers for logic, but this is ridiculous. Americans also have a hefty demand for Mexican beer, but there are no "Mexican beer cartels." When Obama visits France, he doesn't consult with politicians about "wine violence." What's happening on the Mexican border is prohibition-caused violence. 8:34:36 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Odds and ends Great headline: Christ to speak on war on drugs tonight [Thanks, Micah] Great editorial: U.S. should put an end to war on drugs, legalize pot Interestingly, it's not just the dope smokers in the park calling for legalized marijuana use. Conservative, progressive and libertarian intellectuals alike have argued that we ought to legalize marijuana. The Post's editorial board has long called for an end to the war on pot. Our opinion meshes, in this instance, with that of the late conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr., who once argued that "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and make it illegal only for children." Great data: Plan Colombia and Beyond: A compendium of drug-war statistics Clear evidence that our efforts to stamp out cocaine in Colombia and the Andes has been a colossal waste and failure. WOLA has more in this report by John Walsh Reducing the availability of drugs like cocaine has been a perennial goal of U.S. drug policy, in hopes that higher prices and lower purity would translate into less consumption. But since the early 1980s, cocaine prices have been falling, not rising, according to two comprehensive analyses, one from 2004 and the other from 2008. The 2008 study, which was recently made public by the Obama administration, shows that U.S. cocaine prices continued to fall through 2007, while purity remained high. The new data undermine well-publicized claims by George W. Bush administration officials that supply disruptions had achieved unprecedented cocaine shortages in the United States. [Via Eric Sterling] 7:14:36 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []