The U.S. Supreme Court Is Marching in Lockstep with the Police State
“[I]f the individual is no longer to be sovereign, if the police can
pick him up whenever they do not like the cut of his jib, if they can
‘seize’ and ‘search’ him in their discretion, we enter a new regime. The
decision to enter it should be made only after a full debate by the
people of this country.”—U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
The U.S. Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to
intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents
when they overstep their bounds. Yet as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State,
Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice. In the
police state being erected around us, the police and other government
agents can probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally
manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the
general blessing of the courts.
Whether it’s police officers breaking through people’s front doors and
shooting them dead in their homes or strip searching innocent motorists
on the side of the road, these instances of abuse are continually
validated by a judicial system that kowtows to virtually every police
demand, no matter how unjust, no matter how in opposition to the
Constitution.
These are the hallmarks of the emerging American police state: where
police officers, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with
keeping the peace, are part of an elite ruling class dependent on
keeping the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects
and enemies rather than citizens.
A review of the Supreme Court’s rulings over the past 10 years,
including some critical ones this term, reveals a startling and steady
trend towards pro-police state rulings by an institution concerned more
with establishing order and protecting government agents than with
upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Police officers can use lethal force in car chases without fear of lawsuits.
In Plumhoff v. Rickard (2014),
the Court declared that police officers who used deadly force to
terminate a car chase were immune from a lawsuit. The officers were
accused of needlessly resorting to deadly force by shooting multiple
times at a man and his passenger in a stopped car, killing both
individuals.
Police officers can stop cars based only on “anonymous” tips.
In a 5-4 ruling in Navarette v. California
(2014), the Court declared that police officers can, under the guise of
“reasonable suspicion,” stop cars and question drivers based solely on
anonymous tips, no matter how dubious, and whether or not they
themselves witnessed any troubling behavior. This ruling came on the
heels of a ruling by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in U.S. v. Westhoven that
driving too carefully, with a rigid posture, taking a scenic route, and
having acne are sufficient reasons for a police officer to suspect you
of doing something illegal, detain you, search your car, and arrest
you—even if you’ve done nothing illegal to warrant the stop in the first
place.
Secret Service agents are not accountable for their actions, as long as they’re done in the name of security.
In Wood v. Moss
(2014), the Court granted “qualified immunity” to Secret Service
officials who relocated anti-Bush protesters, despite concerns raised
that the protesters’ First Amendment right to freely speak, assemble,
and petition their government leaders had been violated. These
decisions, part of a recent trend toward granting government officials
“qualified immunity”—they are not accountable for their actions—in
lawsuits over alleged constitutional violations, merely incentivize
government officials to violate constitutional rights without fear of
repercussion.
Citizens only have a right to remain silent if they assert it.
The Supreme Court ruled in Salinas v. Texas
(2013) that persons who are not under arrest must specifically invoke
their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in order to
avoid having their refusal to answer police questions used against them
in a subsequent criminal trial. What this ruling says, essentially, is
that citizens had better know what their rights are and understand when
those rights are being violated, because the government is no longer
going to be held responsible for informing you of those rights before
violating them.
Police have free reign to use drug-sniffing dogs as “search
warrants on leashes,” justifying any and all police searches of vehicles
stopped on the roadside.
In Florida v. Harris (2013),
a unanimous Court determined that police officers may use highly
unreliable drug-sniffing dogs to conduct warrantless searches of cars
during routine traffic stops. In doing so, the justices sided with
police by claiming that all that the police need to do to prove probable
cause for a search is simply assert that a drug detection dog has
received proper training. The ruling turns man’s best friend into an
extension of the police state.
Police can forcibly take your DNA, whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime.
In Maryland v. King
(2013), a divided Court determined that a person arrested for a crime
who is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty must submit
to forcible extraction of their DNA. Once again the Court sided with the
guardians of the police state over the defenders of individual liberty
in determining that DNA samples may be extracted from people arrested
for “serious offenses.” While the Court claims to have made its decision
based upon concerns of properly identifying criminal suspects upon
arrest, what they actually did is open the door for a nationwide dragnet
of suspects targeted via DNA sampling.
Police can stop, search, question and profile citizens and non-citizens alike.
The Supreme Court declared in Arizona v. United States
(2012) that Arizona police officers have broad authority to stop,
search and question individuals—citizen and non-citizen alike. While the
law prohibits officers from considering race, color, or national
origin, it amounts to little more than a perfunctory nod to
discrimination laws on the books, while paving the way for outright
racial profiling and destroying the Fourth Amendment.
Police can subject Americans to virtual strip searches, no matter the “offense.”
A
divided Supreme Court actually prioritized making life easier for
overworked jail officials over the basic right of Americans to be free
from debasing strip searches. In its 5-4 ruling in Florence v. Burlington
(2012), the Court declared that any person who is arrested and
processed at a jail house, regardless of the severity of his or her
offense (i.e., they can be guilty of nothing more than a minor traffic
offense), can be subjected to a virtual strip search by police or jail
officials, which involves exposing the genitals and the buttocks. This
“license to probe” is now being extended to roadside stops, as police
officers throughout the country have begun performing roadside strip
searches—some involving anal and vaginal probes—without any evidence of
wrongdoing and without a warrant.
Immunity protections for Secret Service agents trump the free speech rights of Americans.
The court issued a unanimous decision in Reichle v. Howards (2012), siding
with two Secret Service agents who arrested a Colorado man simply for
daring to voice critical remarks to Vice President Cheney. However,
contrast the Court’s affirmation of the “free speech” rights of
corporations and wealthy donors in McCutcheon v. FEC (2014),
which does away with established limits on the number of candidates an
entity can support with campaign contributions, and Citizens United v. FEC
(2010) with its tendency to deny those same rights to average
Americans when government interests abound, and you’ll find a noticeable
disparity.
Police can break into homes without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home.
In an 8-1 ruling in Kentucky v. King
(2011), the Supreme Court placed their trust in the discretion of
police officers, rather than in the dictates of the Constitution, when
they gave police greater leeway to break into homes or apartments
without a warrant. Despite the fact that the police in question ended up
pursuing the wrong suspect, invaded the wrong
apartment and violated just about every tenet that stands between us and
a police state, the Court sanctioned the warrantless raid, leaving
Americans with little real protection in the face of all manner of
abuses by police.
Police can interrogate minors without their parents present.
In
a devastating ruling that could very well do away with what little
Fourth Amendment protections remain to public school students and their
families—the Court threw out a lower court ruling in Camreta v. Greene (2011),
which required government authorities to secure a warrant, a court
order or parental consent before interrogating students at school. The
ramifications are far-reaching, rendering public school students as
wards of the state. Once again, the courts sided with law enforcement
against the rights of the people.
It’s a crime to not identify yourself when a policeman asks your name.
In Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada (2004),
a majority of the high court agreed that refusing to answer when a
policeman asks “What’s your name?” can rightfully be considered a crime
under Nevada’s “stop and identify” statute. No longer will Americans,
even those not suspected of or charged with any crime, have the right to
remain silent when stopped and questioned by a police officer.
The cases the Supreme Court refuses to hear, allowing lower court
judgments to stand, are almost as critical as the ones they rule on.
Some of these cases, turned away in recent years alone, have delivered
devastating blows to the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Legally owning a firearm is enough to justify a no-knock raid by police.
Justices refused to hear Quinn v. Texas (2014)
the case of a Texas man who was shot by police through his closed
bedroom door and whose home was subject to a no-knock, SWAT-team style
forceful entry and raid based solely on the suspicion that there were
legally-owned firearms in his household.
The military can arrest and detain American citizens.
In refusing to hear Hedges v. Obama
(2014), a legal challenge to the indefinite detention provision of the
National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA), the Supreme Court
affirmed that the President and the U.S. military can arrest and
indefinitely detain individuals, including American citizens. In so
doing, the high court also passed up an opportunity to overturn its
1944 Korematsu v. United States ruling allowing for the internment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps.
Students can be subjected to random lockdowns and mass searches at school.
The Court refused to hear Burlison v. Springfield Public Schools
(2013), a case involving students at a Missouri public school who were
subjected to random lockdowns, mass searches and drug-sniffing dogs by
police. In so doing, the Court let stand an appeals court ruling that
the searches and lockdowns were reasonable in order to maintain the
safety and security of students at the school.
Police officers who don’t know their actions violate the law aren’t guilty of breaking the law.
The Supreme Court let stand a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Brooks v. City of Seattle
(2012) in which police officers who clearly used excessive force when
they repeatedly tasered a pregnant woman during a routine traffic stop
were granted immunity from prosecution. The Ninth Circuit actually
rationalized its ruling by claiming that the officers couldn’t have
known beyond a reasonable doubt that their actions—tasering a pregnant
woman who was not a threat in any way until she was unconscious—violated
the Fourth Amendment.
When all is said and done, what these assorted court rulings add up to
is a disconcerting government mindset that interprets the Constitution
one way for the elite—government entities, the police, corporations and
the wealthy—and uses a second measure altogether for the
underclasses—that is, you and me.
Keep in mind that in former regimes such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet
Union, the complicity of the courts was the final piece to fall into
place before the totalitarian beast stepped out of the shadows and into
the light. If history is a guide, then the future that awaits us is
truly frightening.
Time, as they say, grows short.
