* the backdoor assault on civil liberties
Topics: Rights
17 Apr 1994
From: ervan
While there remain some civil liberties that the Supreme Court has not
yet got around to declaring null and void, the other two branches are
busying achieving de facto when they cannot de jure.
The government applies the following trick in several instances:
1) Confiscate people's money
2) Return that money in the form of a 'service' or 'grant'
3) Permit access to said service only in exchange for
surrendering one's civil liberties.
Given that the government takes 50% of our income, this is a serious
infringement.
Saturday, the Chronicle reported that Clinton is advocating making all
residents of public housing sign a lease relinquishing their fourth
amendment rights and permitting the police to search for guns at any
time, for any reason, without warrant. We all know how long it will
take for 'for guns' to be replaced by ''. BTW, does anybody still
believe the Democrats have even the remotest interest in doing anything
about civil liberties except racing the Republicans to the repeal of
the Bill of Rights?
Anyway, the point here is that if we let the poor keep their tax money
they would have enough to buy or rent decent housing (with whatever
kinds of security arrangements they wanted). They would have an
interest in keeping it decent, unlike the 'public' housing situation
where nobody cares a whit. Even if you don't believe that, we could at
least give them the money implicit in the housing subsidy and let them
do with it what best suits their circumstances. But, no, we tax the
poor into oblivion and then warehouse them in government created free
fire zones and use that for an excuse to strip their civil liberties.
Anyone want to bet on how long before some politician will say 'well,
since public housing allows arbitrary searches, it only makes sense
that private apartments should to'? This is exactly what happened with
drug testing. With the invasiveness of current smoking regulations on
private property, the distinction between private and 'public' clearly
no longer has any relevance.
The seconnd example is the one that I gave last week, Kiryas Joel.
Freedom of religion has been effectively denied by the artifice of
public schools. The public schools are also notorious for supressing
freedom of speech (Edgewood vs. Kirby for instance) and, of course,
there are no Fourth Amendment protections in the schools that children
are obligated to attend. Don't misunderstand, I think certain
restrictions in schools are reasonable, but there is a world of
difference between letting parents pick the schools that suit them and
being obligated (or nearly so) to attend public schools.
A few years ago, the drug free workplace act came to Rice. It said
that any institution which receives a majority of its *external*
funding from government sources must force all employees to comply with
the drug free work place act. Among other things, the act requires one
to agree to accept random drug tests. Notice that Rice does not get a
majority of its funding from government sources, only a majority of its
*external* funding. Also, though only some employees are covered by
the grants in question, all employees must comply. Furthermore, the
university is obligated by law to enforce the policy via expulsions or
firings. The net result is that the government has forced private
employers to enforce a law that it cannot (drug prohibition) and in the
process completely circumvented any Fourth Amendment protections. The
implications for the Clipper chip are obvious enough I think.
You are all familiar with the situation involving roads. There are
essentially no civil liberties left when you are in your car. For
example, meeting a profile is sufficient cause to search your car for
anything, regardless of its relevance to driving or traffic safety. The
government takes our taxes and builds roads as a service. But it
cannot resist using that choke point to circumvent the Bill of Rights.
Of course, it is made impossible to have a private road. Only
government road building can use imminent domain. The government
collects all of the gas taxes for its roads, even if you burn that gas
on a private road (this is very much like property taxes for schools).
And just try getting a new road bed past the EPA unless you are a
government entity!
One of the more obnoxious problems involing this is the revocation of
driver's licenses for being convicted of a drug offense (having no
relation to driving safety). Would private roads ever turn down a safe
driver because he was busted for possession of marijuana in high
school? Of course not. But since the government owns the roads, it
will use them as a tool to blackmail every aspect of your life.
Also on the matter of streets, I'm reminded of the "Great Mall Debate"
as it was called. Liberals want to force owners to allow pamphleteers
in malls. Libertarians want to let property owners do what they want.
That happens to be allowing bookstores and newstands, which customers
want, but banishing LaRouchies and such since they are a nuisance. The
liberals are suddenly all concerned about free speech (when they
disavow PC, I'll start listening again). The point is that free
enterprise does a perfectly excellent job of providing free speech
forums. Contrast that with the myriad nonsense that one must do to get
a parade permit in most cities. These regulations are designed and
used to effect censorship. Boston tries desperately to prevent gays
from marching (for the moment subject to some Supreme Court
uncertainty) while Bookstop has a large selection of gay books and
magazines.
On the horizon, we have the same trick coming with health care. The
government is going to take our health care money and give us back its
version of health care. But in the process we will all get health
cards that have our whole medical history on them. It will quickly
become the case that everyone must have their health card at all times
to be presented on demand to the police, and if not that to have it
available anytime anyone 'voluntarily' interacts with the government in
any way. People should be able to keep their health care dollars and
spend them on whatever they want (this is not an argument against
giving the poor money for health care).
---Ervan
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