Ian wrote:
> [Nathan, Justin, John, comments?]
>
>
> THE NATION
>
> High Court Backs Agent Who Stopped Motorist
> Ruling: In case of drug smuggling, justices say police need only a reasonable suspicion, not
> evidence of a crime, to pull over a vehicle. [etc]
Hi Ian, here's a comment on the latest from the Supremes shredding what little is left of any application of the Fourth Amendment to vehicles.
First, it was unanimous which goes to the stuff about what a decisive difference it makes whether its Gush or Bore etc. The police state we're living in has been created in a non-partisan manner, in many of its worst respects over the last thirty years. Of course the criminalization of the possession of pot and so on took place eons ago and all, but its not the laws that are on the books but the practice of enforcement. If the criminal laws of England in the 18th century had been enforced they would have had to hang more than half the population.
The convenience for a narrow ruling class of making all but the braindead and/or bornagain into criminals is self-evident. I have no respect for anyone who knowingly and thoughtfully accepts as the (perhaps unfortunate) product of a fundamentally sound system that it imprisons - frequently under conditions that amount to torture - the two million plus now imprisoned in this country.
When I behold a factious band agree To call it freedom when themselves are free; Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law...
from Oliver Goldsmith 'The Traveller'
So how to understand the diff between Rehnquist Ginsberg & Co and Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th Circuit? Well, I know Reinhardt to be a pro of the first order. I've argued (and won) before a panel he was on (Gregorian v Izvestia, 871 F.2d 1515 (9th Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 493 US 891), and in argument he was as sharp and prepared as anyone I argued before in my life. And of course the Fourth Amendment simply talks about searches, no exception for vehicles& drugs, and Reinhardt didn't see the overwhelming policy reasons why anyone who leaves her home should be subject to arbitrary searches by the police. But it's not that world anymore, sorry, say Ginsberg Souter Breyer and Stevens. So that goes to the stuff about what a decisive difference the administration of the law by skilled and bright professionals makes.
Defending what's left of the Bill of Rights is godknows worth the effort; but critically - without illusions. For an overall structure in which to understand the process, let me quote a nice summary: "Parliamentary democracy. the welfare state, the rule of law, and more general bourgeois conceptions of 'right', are profoundly ambiguous resources in their very constitution. Of course bourgeois democracy should be defended against fascism...Of course 'welfare' states should be defended against monetarist barbarism and the cruelty of 'self-help' ideologies, in a world where the means through which people could help themselves are taken away from them. Of course the rule of law should be defended against governmental diktat...Of course human rights should be defended against governmental expediency and raison d'etat. But it needs equally to be remembered that Parliamentary democracy works on impoverished definitions of what constitutes legitimate 'politics'...Such democracy also embodies highly restricted notions of representation. Welfare states, in their external, donatory operations, reinforce conditions and experiences of powerlessness - hence the appeal of much conservative anti-state rhetoric. Law is bourgeois, male and white in most of its content, and profoudly alienating in its forms. 'Rights' are abstract, insubstantial and in their claimed universality devices which legitimate an oppressive and unequal social order. In short, these are not, in themselves and as presently constituted, possible forms of emancipation; they are instrinsic forms of bourgeois order. One always engages on this territory at a cost..."
Philip Corrigan & Derek Sayer, _The Great Arch : English State Formation as Cultural Revolution _ 2d Ed. (Blackwell) 1991, p.206.
john mage