Strip searches and Advil

The Supreme Court has ruled that the middle-school principal who strip-searched a student in his quest to hunt down contraband prescription drugs was (not entirely surprisingly) in the wrong.

The drugs in question were ibuprofen (technically prescription-strength) and naproxen, which are both available over-the-counter, will not under any circumstances get you high, and at worst may cause some minor stomach upset*. The strip-search in question was rightfully characterized as an unnecessary overreaction, as well as frightening and humiliating for the student.

The only thing I don't like about this decision is that the court opinion upholds that deeply irritating idea that a search of a student and/or his belongings can still be reasonable under the 4th Amendment without having probable cause. I personally think that the perpetual double standard against school children makes no sense at all: we require that they be in school and provide public schools to fill that need, and either a student is protected by the Constitution or not. The latter, obviously, would have some problems, so instead of providing full Constitutional protections there's this weird half-assed gray territory where a search needs to be reasonable but doesn't need probable cause**, and students are free to protest so long as it doesn't disrupt anything, and so on. It just strikes me as jarringly odd.

*Granted, there is an extremely slim possibility that someone could have an allergic reaction, I suppose.
**It's my opinion that if there isn't probably cause a search is by definition unreasonable.

Someone is listening

In Brazil, an accusation of illegal wiretapping leads to the President suspending the higher-ups allegedly responsible until a full investigation is completed.

Gosh, I wonder what America would do in such a situation?

Oh, right.

Also, Thailand is having another overthrow-the-government party. Or maybe it's the same one and they just took a break for a while. I can't quite keep it straight at this point. (Dear Thailand: If you've still got a monarchy that upholds lese majeste laws, and you're rioting over attempts to bring down the prime minister...you might want to reconsider your priorities. Just my two cents.)

BS of the day

Verizon Communications, the nation's second-largest telecom company, told congressional investigators that it has provided customers' telephone records to federal authorities in emergency cases without court orders hundreds of times since 2005.

The company said it does not determine the requests' legality or necessity because to do so would slow efforts to save lives in criminal investigations. (Washington Post)

Right. Because the government is saving lives by systematically destroying our Constitutional rights to privacy. So many many lives are on the line when the government wants someone's phone records. Also, there's big famous bridge in the New York metro region that I'm looking to sell.

I'm not sure who's more disgusting here, the phone companies or the government. On one hand, the government is entirely overreaching their bounds. On the other hand....

Verizon and AT&T said it was not their role to second-guess the legitimacy of emergency government requests.

Look, part of being a responsible citizen, be it a huge corporation or a single guy, is knowing when to say "Look, I don't think this is right, so I'm going to talk to some other people about it." That's when, if you're feeling naive and stupid, you go to the police/other feds/etc, and if you're feeling like actually doing something, you go to the media, you deluge your congressional representatives with letters and faxes and phone calls, and you raise holy hell until the issue gets the attention it deserves. Afraid it's going to hurt business? Suck it up. That's the trade-off for living in a free society: the secret police aren't going to bust down your door and haul you away if you ask questions or complain, but that leaves it up to you to take charge when things are going wrong.

The most depressing thing is that the most prestigious new outlets in the world could scream this from the rooftops, we could drop leaflets on the streets, wage an all-out propaganda war...and still, nothing will happen. I'm pretty much convinced at this point that one of two things will happen: gross injustices will continue unabated and the authorities responsible will never, ever be brought to justice or be in any way called on their actions, or something violent is going to happen that will result in America's infrastructure taking a crazy beating.