Category Archives: Civil Liberty

I’ve got a tip that will change your life…

Last week I touched on a handful of stories concerning police and civilian interaction that ended in tragedy. This week I’d like to focus on a story that should serve as a wake up call to anyone who has ever thought “not my problem” because “that stuff only happens to shady characters or people who hang around shady characters.”

David Hooks, 59, of East Dublin, Georgia was the poster-boy for least likely to be associated with a criminal element. He owned a construction company that routinely worked on military bases. Such work required numerous background checks at both the state and federal level (Department of Homeland Security and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms). Short of being vetted by the CIA you couldn’t ask for anyone with a cleaner background. This is not to suggest that those with “clean records” are incapable of committing crimes but rather that such people are statistically as likely to commit a crime as any of us are (I presume my readers also have clean records!).

So what irresponsible action on his part resulted in him becoming yet another casualty of Prohibition (the war on drugs)? Why he allowed his truck, sitting in his driveway, to be broken into and his SUV to be stolen. It turns out the guy who stole the truck, Rodney Garrett, (a self-described thief and meth addict) turned himself in to the cops claiming he found a bag of methamphetamine in the truck and thus “became scared for his safety.” So, based solely on this hearsay of a tip, a warrant was issued to search Hook’s home. Now, if the cops had executed this warrant the way the 4th Amendment intended (and the way it used to be done) there would have been no problem. They would have sent one or two squad cars over to the house, politely knocked on the door, served and then executed the warrant. They would have found nothing, hopefully apologized for the trouble, cleaned up after themselves and left.

But that is not what happened. Those accused of drug crimes, even mere possession, are presumed to be clones of Al Pacino’s “Scarface”, AK-47 at the ready 24/7. So, under a presumption of Hook’s guilt, the Laurens County Drug Task Force silently rolled up his driveway around 11 pm with no flashing lights, jumped out of their vehicles and rapidly approached the back door of the house. David’s wife, seeing dark shadowy figures moving about their house late at night logically concluded that the burglars had returned to possibly steal more vehicles or enter the house. It had only been two days since the first theft and being unaware the thief was in custody they had no reason not to suspect a repeat event.

So David grabbed a shotgun and prepared for a confrontation. What happened next is unclear because there are conflicting stories. The official version is that the police did approach with sirens and lights, they did loudly knock on the door and that when no one answered they broke the door down, saw David holding a shotgun and thus had no choice but to unload their weapons. David’s widow (and the physical evidence) beg to differ with that narrative. There were no lights, sirens or knocking. David was not shot near the back door but rather through an interior wall. In other words, they blindly shot at a wall not knowing what was behind it. Brilliant. Good thing his grandchildren weren’t visiting that night. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it does. His grieving widow and family had to endure a 44-hour search of the residence. The result? Not even a trace of narcotics was found. Oops.

So, the next time you think you are safe from brutal police actions, just remember, you are just one blame-shifting-meth-head’s “tip” or wrong address away from having black-helmeted thugs appearing in your doorway unannounced and unloading an entire clip into you or a loved one because they moved their hand the wrong way or came around the corner too quickly. No one is safe if everyone is just an utterance away from a weapons-drawn raid on his or her home. Due process is not the Gestapo breaking down your door in the middle of the night and claiming procedure was followed because they left a warrant on your corpse. This is not America. But if this is what America has become, then there is nothing exceptional about it. Prohibition must end. Again.

Details sourced from: http://goo.gl/dxTD1F and http://goo.gl/XX8Nz9

Ferguson is the New Black

I was shocked and saddened, as most were, to read about the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last week. What I was not, unfortunately, was surprised. Stories of police overreaction to the most innocuous of infractions (or none at all) are seemingly no longer the exception in a society where mere behavior, words, or possessions are sufficient evidence of criminality that is too frequently repelled with lethal force. The trivial nature of Brown’s misdeed (walking in the street) coupled with the rapidity and disproportionate response of the officer involved (6 bullets, including 2 to the head!) was illustrative of the small amount of daylight between life inside and outside the prison system.

I (fortunately) lack any direct experience with the prison system; however, what I have read is a realistic portrayal of that system can be found in the television series “Orange is the New Black” (warning: definitely not family friendly). In this series the main character is incarcerated (as are many others) for being involved in one of the many victimless crimes related to the “war on drugs.” The prison depicted is a federal, minimum-security women’s prison. But even under this lightest of all prison environments, life is clearly a stressful and miserable experience, in no small part due to the capricious and vindicate nature of the guards coupled with the lack of autonomy over ones life.

Naturally this is what one would expect; we all know prison is not supposed to be a vacation. It is supposed to be miserable so that it may act as a deterrent. And even when it is not a deterrent then we the public can still rest satisfied in knowing the “bad” people are being appropriately punished. But as it becomes clear that the vast majority of these prisoners are party to “crimes” with no victim, it makes the US prison system less like Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and more like Stalin’s Gulags. But I digress.

The most frightening aspect of the TV series is not its portrayal of life within prison but rather the realization that we ourselves live in a much larger prison known as the State. This prison has no escape, no furlough and no time off for good behavior. Consider: in prison perceived disrespect toward a guard or failing to immediately and mindlessly follow their directives is met with an immediate and violent response. The same fate is not uncommon for any of us who might fail to immediately comply with the “lawful order of a police officer.” In prison the guards can search the prisoners or their living space at any time for any reason. This is likewise true in many parts of the country under “stop-and-frisk” laws or with the now infamous no-knock-raids. In prison the mail correspondence and voice conversations are closely monitored. Outside prison we have the NSA to take care of that task. In prison the inmates must plead to their intermediaries (the administrative staff) for permission to engage in heretofore-unapproved activities. Outside prison we must plead with our intermediaries (elected officials) for permission (licensing) to engage in an activity so that we can avoid violent reprisals from the state. In prison the belongings of any inmate can be confiscated at any time for any reason. Outside prison our property may be confiscated (civil asset forfeiture) for nothing more than baseless whims of suspicion.The dream of the statist is to push society toward being more, not less, prison like. The statist wants nothing more than to have the power to force all to conform to their vision of the ideal society: behave this way that, not that, eat this, not that, run your business this way, not that, express yourself artistically this way, not that, smoke and drink this, but not that. Where else but in a prison are such visions of the ideal society possible through strict enforcement?

Many might say “hogwash” to all this. They’ll insist they don’t feel like prisoners, they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. That may be true, for some actions, but even prisoners may do things without asking permission or running afoul of a guard; but that does not make them free. They are simply the pinball that has not yet hit the wall. Inside prison the walls are narrow, outside prison the walls are wide – but both have walls. If you remain unconvinced and still need proof that you are but a mere serf living on the master’s (that is, the state’s) land then consider the truth found within an instinctual and visceral emotional response. What do you feel in that moment when you see flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror?

Order at the Border

This past week the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued a ruling in Riley v. California that dares to uphold the remains of a much abused 4th Amendment. The court ruled that the police may not search the cellphone of someone placed under arrest (often for offenses as trivial as “disobeying a lawful order” or “disorderly conduct”) without first having obtained a search warrant. In the digital age the principal of good design “form follows function” no longer is guaranteed. Digital function is not deducible from physical form; the sublime masks astounding capabilities. The contention was that since traditional wallets can be searched it must follow that anything approximately the same size as a wallet can be searched. A cellphone and a wallet may be comparable in size but that is where the similarities end. The rules that allow the police to search a defendant after an arrest dictate a limited spatial area (typically directly under the suspect’s direct control e.g. a car). So at first blush it might seem that if a cellphone is within that area it is fair game. But that analysis ignores the ways in which technology can redefine notions of spatiality. Cellphones (or the “smart” ones anyway) are not mere digital copies of the old-fashion wallet. They are but a keyhole onto a warehouse of information. Packed into these devices is the equivalent of what formerly would have been contained in ones home years ago; in essence they do indeed house ones “papers, and effects” which the 4th Amendment specifically protects from warrantless searches. Chief Justice John Roberts summarized this idea in his ruling:

 “With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans ‘the privacies of life.’ The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. …Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cellphone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple—get a warrant.”

 

However, as heartening as this decision might be, there still remains today an egregious violation of basic 4th Amendment rights that has time and again been upheld but the SCOTUS: border searches. In the court’s opinion (United States v. Ramsey (1977)) searches made at the border are de facto reasonable because they occur at the border and thus is any conflict with the 4th Amendment extinguished with a mere definitional twist. Border searches do not require suspicion nor a warrant; anything and everything may be legally searched and confiscated for no other reason than that one is crossing an imaginary line.

Even if one is inclined to believe that such border searches are necessary to keep out criminals and “illegals,” what may surprise you to learn is that the “border” is defined as 100 miles inland from the actual border (aka a “Constitution Free Zone” that encompasses two-thirds of the US population). What that means is that anyone, anywhere within 100 miles of a US border may be legally detained and searched for no reason at all by the DHS or ICE goon squads. They may seize electronic devices (phones, laptops), copy them wholesale, return them, and then rummage through one’s personal information at their leisure. That this does not currently happen routinely is small comfort; there is not a single barrier to the legality of such behavior. If you are within 100 miles of the border you are fair game. You may think you have nothing to hide, but do you really want total strangers looking at your photos and reading your emails? Secondarily, there is nothing objective about the 100-mile value – it could be changed to whatever arbitrary value our wise overlords deem necessary to maintain, “order at the border.” We are just one crisis away from a 250 or 500 mile border zone.

So while we may applaud the SCOTUS for their recent affirmation of 4th amendment protections, let us not forget to jeer them when they continue to permit those same protections to vanish at the border.

Eye in the Sky

Man, I really hate being right all the time! Just last June I made the hypothetical assertion that in the not too distant future the government would be spying on our driving habits from the sky, “… drones so high in the sky you won’t even know they are there…will allow the government to decide if your car should be allowed on certain roads at certain times” (full comment here). Although the latter part of my prediction (using that information to restrict our movements) has not come to pass (yet), the former nearly did just begin. It was reported recently that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ordered (and then cancelled after massive public outcry) a plan to implement a national license plate tracking system. Yes, you read that correctly. National license plate tracking. Hello – this is George Orwell, he’d like his book “1984” back, he’s tired of those in charge using it as a guide rather than a warning.

This plan was initiated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency (a division of DHS) and was only made public because the agency (fortunately) does not have the ability to accomplish this on their own, therefore they put out requests for proposals from private companies. Apparently they were hoping such a system would help them track down fugitive illegal immigrants. Yes, clearly the immigrants we really want to deport are the ones that have come to this country and earned enough that they can actually afford an automobile. Those guys are just parasites on the system.

But, this is not something new. License plate reading is already going on across the country. Law enforcement uses it now to track down specific suspects. Presumably any information about non-targets is discarded in short order (one would hope). But even if it is not quickly discarded, the limited size of most jurisdictions constrains the degree of privacy loss to be no greater than if a few of your friends saw you driving about. The real danger, however, comes from federalizing all of these systems and assembling them into one all encompassing nationwide tracking web (Matrix?) that can determine precisely where each of us has been. Fortunately the plans were cancelled, however that does little to assuage fears that ultimately this will one day be a reality.

What did those in power learn? Don’t be dumb enough to publicize requests to spy on your citizens. Next time they will build their own solutions and we will have no way of knowing anything about them. Although the proposed system did not employ drones (as I predicted) the intended result was the same as my prediction: track people’s movement in their car. In the end though it is likely that drones will be the preferred tracking method. Our government already uses them extensively and could deploy them now with little fanfare. This fact, when coupled with a new NHTS rule that requires “black boxes” in all new cars by September 2014, could mean in the not too distant future that “upgrades” to these boxes in combination with drones built to track the unique signature of each black box will mean the government could have access to live, real time movement data of everyone on the road. Farfetched? Well, time will tell. But ten years ago who would have believed that our government would one day be tracking us on line, reading our e-mails, recording our phone calls, or spying on us through our webcams. The combination of technology and government’s insatiable desire to control the citizenry make such predictions all too easy.

Bad Bill Strikeout

Georgia now has its own variant of the Arizona “religious freedom” bill (recently vetoed by that state’s governor) known as HB 1023  (“Preservation of Religious Freedom Act”). At first blush the Georgia bill appears to uphold the libertarian principal of the right of association (i.e. the right to decide who we do or do not associate with). However, upon further analysis I have come to the conclusion that this is a bad bill and should be opposed. For those that don’t already know, the bill essentially says that if a person acts with a religious motivation then they are immune from any and all laws, ordinances, rules or regulations that might otherwise restrict the actions they undertook as a result of their religious convictions. Taken literally one could claim immunity from murder and theft if one stated it was motivated by religious belief. So on its face it is hyperbolically broad. Strike 1.

Proponents of this bill are engaged in a bit of prophylactic legal wrangling. It is currently completely legal to discriminate against homosexuals. But despite this apparent lack of protection there has been virtually no private sector discrimination of homosexuals. In fact the biggest discriminator against homosexuals has been the public sector aka government (non-recognition of marriage, non-equality in the tax code, etc.). Recently though two isolated cases of a wedding cake maker and photographer refusing to sell their services to gay couples under a highly specific scenario (wedding) has risen to the national news level. Following this outrage theater set on the national stage, the extreme Christian right felt the writing was on the wall and it would only be a matter of time until their views on homosexuals would be not just socially but legally verboten. Their only course of action? Legalize (or rather outlaw the illegality of) their peculiar brand of bigotry. Through this bit of legislative memorialization they attempt to normalize their position in society. Because, you see, if something is a “law” then that means it is “ok”, and conversely, if something is illegal then that means it is “bad.” Without laws to tell us right from wrong we would be rudderless in an ocean of moral ambiguity. Yes, sarcasm.

Racism, bigotry, sexism, ageism, insert-your-own-ism-here-ism are stupid, ignorant, sad, hateful, preposterous and irrational. But what they are not is criminal. In other words, it should always be legal to be a first class jerk. While we don’t need laws against boorish behavior in order to know it is unacceptable, we also don’t need laws that place the seal of state approval on such behavior either. Strike 2.

This bill does get it half-right on one front though. Everybody should have the right to act on their beliefs. But, this freedom should not be restricted solely to those possessing the religious get out of jail free card. Religious freedom is merely one flavor of natural rights based freedoms. Respecting everyone’s freedom means recognizing the fact that we each have the right to live our lives as we see fit, as long as we do not employ violence or the threat thereof to prevent others from doing the same. So, rather than exempting a subset of people from all laws, this bill should instead exempt a subset of laws from all people. In other words, it wimps out where it really counts: freedom. Strike 3.

To think that the fabric of society would fall to tatters without flecks of ink scattered upon slices of dead trees is to ignore the true source of order in society: the people. The vast majority of people behave in a civilized manner because the vast majority of people are not evil. Ask yourself, if all laws were repealed tomorrow do you truly fear that your friends, neighbors, and co-workers, would all try to rob and kill each other? Would you behave any differently than you do today?

Ends and Means

Suppose the following: In order to prevent crimes against children there exist laws that require all residences and offices to be wired with cameras that record all activity. Furthermore, this practice has existed for decades and is simply accepted by the populace as a necessary intrusion of privacy. Most feel they have nothing to hide and so quietly accept the intrusion. Occasionally though this tool is used to harass and intimidate those who are out of favor with those running the State. Unfortunately though, in spite of these abuses, the acceptance of a “greater good” arising from this system weakens any widespread dissent. Now suppose an elected official finally objects to this system. Suppose they propose a repeal of the law enforcing this system.  Does this mean they are “for” crimes against children? Or does it simply mean they are against State sponsored violations of basic human rights? To take an even more extreme example: if it were shown that killing all males over the age of 30 entirely eliminates all crimes against children, should we thus enact such a law? If we did so, would the proposed repeal of such a law imply we are “for” those that would commit crimes against children?

It is entirely possible to be unified in the ends we seek while disagreeing over the most appropriate means to achieve those ends. Just because some particular set of means might achieve an end does not imply or prove it is the ONLY or BEST way to achieve that end. Objecting to an odious set of means does not imply an objection to its ends. Those that make such assertions are intellectual midgets, political opportunists all too eager to play upon the fears of the crowd as they employ cowardly straw man attacks.

So what is the point of my little tale above? To wit, Georgia Representative Sam Moore has introduced a bill (HB 1033) that would repeal all state laws related to loitering (defined as being on public property, ejection from private property is always permitted). Such laws empower local authorities to harass and intimidate (also known as profiling) those that they feel “look wrong” or “may be up to no good.” Current anti-loitering laws (GA §16-11-36) impose upon the citizens of this state a duty to produce proof of identity when such an inquiry is made under color of law enforcement. Current law states the officer may graciously allow one to prove their innocence “by requesting the person to identify himself and explain his presence and conduct.” To be clear this does not relate to probable cause (i.e. unambiguous evidence of potential or actual malfeasance), it solely relates to pure gut instinct, and nothing more. That these laws have stood for so many years is a ludicrous offense to a country supposedly founded on individual liberty. Sam Moore should be praised for his courage in opposing the status quo, not vilified with a false narrative.

But that’s not really the part of the bill that has gotten so many fired up. Legislation, like making sausage, is messy. Frequently new legislation that overrides parts of other unrelated legislation is added years later. Although the statutes related to loitering have nothing to do with restrictions on registered sex offenders, those statutes make reference to the loitering statutes so as to supersede any restrictions against them. Thus this bill (HB 1033) repeals those other statutes as well to ensure the complete and absolute abolishment of all anti-loitering laws. What ?!? Police can’t indiscriminately ask anyone for proof of identity just because they happen to be near a school or church? Clearly Sam Moore must hate children. It’s simply not possible that he is just as much against those that would harm children as his critics but simply feels there is a more effective route to achieving this end than maintaining Nazi-esque unconstitutional “prove-your-innocence” laws. These laws are in fact racist holdovers from the Jim Crow era recycled with a new purpose; to fool the credulous into believing the lie that such laws will protect our children. They do no such thing. They simply create a false sense of security that lulls us into complacency, making it more, not less, likely that such a predator will succeed.

 

Cookie Jar Policy

President Obama recently gave a speech (January 17) at the Justice Department outlining a variety of procedural changes to some of the NSA spying programs. Why the changes? The government got caught with their hand in the cookie jar when Edward Snowden revealed that these programs not only spy on potential security threats, they also “unwittingly” can and do spy on Americans. And not simply a little here or there by accident; they vacuum up petabytes of phone and Internet data every day about you and me. Oddly enough most Americans don’t take too kindly to this invasion of privacy and so after months of soul searching Obama has decided to placate the natives by establishing a new cookie retrieval procedure. Ah! We have a procedure now; that will definitely prevent abuse.

In order to justify these spying programs Mr. Obama cites historical precedent for the benefits derived from such spying during wartime. The rather troubling message here is that if wartime practices (spying) are permissible upon your own citizens during peacetime, what other wartime practices might also be justified in order to advance the cause of protecting the homeland? Kidnapping? Murder? Would the justifications used today for spying be that different from the justifications for drone strikes on US soil to “take out” a suspected terrorist (along with any unfortunate innocents in the vicinity)? Make no mistake; we are “at peace” now, we are not “at war.” A mere pronouncement by blowhards of us being at war on a concept (terror) does not magically justify the use of wartime methods.

We are told terrorism changes the rules of the game. In the past it was easy to define our enemy. “They” were on that side of that line, and “we” were on this side of the line. But today, with terrorism, the enemy hides among us in plain site, like a melanoma masquerading as a freckle. If the enemy can be anywhere or anyone among us, then that necessarily means from an enforcement or prevention standpoint we are all presumed to be the enemy, that is, we are guilty until proven innocent. Listening to your phone conversations or reading your emails is the only way to exonerate you dear reader!

Our leaders would have us believe the infiltrative-sniper-like threat of the terrorist is something new, a 21st century phenomena that requires a 21st century response. But this enemy-among-us mindset is no different than the McCarthyism of the 1950’s – where a fever of paranoia gripped the nation into thinking the “commies” were everywhere, ready to unleash their fury at a moments notice. During this cold war we were indeed infiltrated by enemies (spies) in exactly the same manner we are infiltrated by terrorists today. The difference was back then the technology was so limited it necessitated that we do actual work to identify the actual individual threat in order to devote our limited and scarce resources to monitoring that threat. However advances in technology have facilitated laziness. Why devote energy to identifying specific threats when you can just monitor EVERYONE instead. Today’s technology allows spies to achieve what their predecessors only dreamt of: the complete and wholesale monitoring of the movement, actions and communications of every digitally connected human being on the planet. Unfortunately this information overload has ironically led to less effective results. This vacuuming of data has not resulted in a single instance of attack prevention.

Before Edward Snowden’s revelations we didn’t know what we didn’t know. The “people” can’t act as a check on government abuse if we aren’t even aware of the abuse. Thankfully Edward Snowden made us aware. Absent that revelation you can be sure Obama would not have been laying out these “reforms.” But make no mistake; these proposed changes mean nothing. If the US Constitution can be ignored by the majority of Congress, why should we have any hope that a few policy guidelines or oversight committees will have any impact on how government governs it own actions. Quis custodiet ipsos custodies

Minority Report

This past Friday (December 27) a federal judge ruled that it is perfectly fine for the NSA to collect and review your phone and Internet records . Why is that? Well, those records don’t actually belong to you. This ruling is consistent with an interpretation of the 4th amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure known as the “3rd party doctrine.” Under this doctrine anything you disclose to a third party is no longer yours and therefore loses all expectation of privacy. Since it is no longer private the government has free reign to sink their teeth into it without any of those annoying justice-impeding anachronisms known as search warrants.

Innocent until proven guilty will soon be replaced by harassed until proven innocent.

As with all government propaganda there is a thin veneer of truth that shamelessly attempts to obscure the larger lie – but these truths are about as effective in that goal as Miley Cyrus’s underwear are in making her appear demure in her Wrecking Ball video. Yes, if you disclose something about yourself to a third party that information is technically no longer strictly private (private meaning known only to yourself). However what eludes this judge and those before him is that it is possible to convey private information to a third party under the protection of a contract. The privacy policies of some companies inform their customers how the company will and will not use information collected in the course of the business relationship. This establishes a reasonable expectation of privacy concerning any information stipulated to remain private. Therefore the 3rd party doctrine does not apply (even though the government wishes otherwise) in those situations where the consumer has a reasonable expectation of privacy per agreement with the third party. It would appear the mantra of the government is that expediency in catching the “bad guys” trumps all other concerns.

The judgment in this case is moving this country backward. Back to the 18th century that is. Back then the use of the “general warrant” by the British rulers was commonplace. A general warrant is distinguished from other types of warrants (i.e. arrest warrant, search warrant, etc.) in that it permits the holder of such warrant to pretty much do anything they want. They can search anything, anytime, anywhere and arrest anyone for any reason. If the principle of the 3rd party doctrine is applied consistently in future cases then it means the federal government has a general warrant to search anything not in your house. There is therefore no barrier to the government demanding the bulk disclosure of: patient records from doctors, purchase records from credit card companies, banks or other businesses, or school records from universities. This data could then be placed into a massive database and “mined” in order to uncover patterns and connections in a futile attempt to flush out the “bad guys.” Today the bad guys are the terrorists, the drug dealers or organized crime (ironically all entities created as a result of government interference). Perhaps tomorrow the enemies will be anyone who dissents from the approved public opinion of his or her masters, that is, The State. Someday soon the world’s mightiest super computers will employ predictive algorithms upon this ocean of data as they attempt to predict undesirable future behavior. Department of Pre-Crime at your service.

Perhaps the above sounds a bit far-fetched, but remember, there is nothing in the arguments currently employed to justify mass collection of data that would preclude these alternative forms of data collection. Just ten years ago the currently revealed mass collection of data would have seemed far-fetched. Just imagine what they can do ten years from now.

In this brave new world that is fast approaching our freedom will be instantly curtailed at the pleasure of any investigatory bureaucrat who doesn’t quite like our answers as they relate to our algorithmically questionable activities. If you become ensnared in this trap then you’d better hope you have an alibi. Innocent until proven guilty will soon be replaced by harassed until proven innocent.

And Justice for All…

The 19th Century saw an end to chattel slavery. The 20th Century saw an end to conscription slavery. Will we now, in the 21st Century, witness an end to the one remaining form of labor slavery, namely jury service? For those that do not consider jury service to be a form of slavery consider this: If a complete stranger sent you a letter ordering you to appear at a specific location at a specific time, what would you think? What if that person then also threatened you with imprisonment if you did not comply and with physical violence if you resisted the enforcement of compliance and you knew full well they could carry out that threat? Who would that person be, if not your master? The State is your master; the judge is merely its errand boy and the police its henchmen.

So if jury service mirrors the master-slave relationship and is thus a variant of slavery, why is there is no public outcry? Why the quiet acquiescence to our own subjugation? There are two reasons. Cost and confusion. The costs of jury service over one’s lifetime are relatively low (since many are never called and those that are get called only 2-3 times over a lifetime). For example, if the state imposed a new tax whereby everyone paid $10 a year and a randomly chosen 10 people would pay $100,000 instead, it simply would not be worth it for the vast majority of people to fight that. The odds you’ll be hit with the “big” tax are infinitesimal and the $10 tax isn’t costly enough to fight. Just because one puts up with something doesn’t mean it is ok or that consent is implied. It simply means that the costs of fighting it are greater than the burden imposed.

But if low costs are not enough to keep the masses in line, the state can rely on the modus operandi of the con artist: manipulate and confuse your victim into choosing to do your bidding. This is accomplished through public school mediated state sponsored indoctrination that convinces the masses that there exists this mystical thing called “civic duty” and that jury duty falls chief among those. There is no such thing as “civic duty” – we as individuals owe nothing to society by mere virtue of having been born and likewise “society” owes us nothing in return. Our only obligations in life are those that we explicitly consent to (employment, parenting, volunteering, etc.) But even if one does believe in the “civic duty” of jury service, does it not strike you as odd that everyone else in that courtroom (the judge, the lawyers, the bailiff, the court reporter, etc) are all there voluntarily and are being paid market rates for their service, yet the jurors are there involuntarily and are paid well below even minimum wage? Given that jurors by and large are present involuntarily the entire incentive structure of jury service is geared toward producing a low quality product as quickly as possible. That is not to say in ALL cases jurors behave this way, simply that most of the time that will be true since most of the time people just want to get back to their own lives, jobs, etc.

There are two ways the jury system can be improved. Just as we did with the military, we can move from a conscription-based model to an all-volunteer based model. I was called for jury duty last year and found the process to be fascinating. The timing was terrible so I was glad to be dismissed. However that is not to say I would be opposed to volunteering in the future. The point is I would be making the choice of when and where I serve.

The second method to improve the jury system would be to switch to a professional juror system. There is no reason that being a juror cannot be a full time paid profession just like any other. Think of it not so much as a panel of jurors and a judge but rather a panel of 13 judges with one judge guiding the proceedings. Those judges/jurors that gain a reputation for judicious verdicts would be sought out and used for more and more cases. Those that likewise had a poor reputation resulting from their unfair verdicts would cease to be used.

Today’s jury system is an anachronism. It pays homage to an era when the abuse of natural rights was commonplace. A slave may work under threat, but an employee works by desire. Which system do you want delivering you justice?

Invalid Means yield illegitimate Ends

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. This sentiment pretty much sums up the state of affairs in Georgia with respect to DUI evidence collection. If a driver is pulled over in Georgia and is suspected of being inebriated, then the law requires that the officer ask if they will submit to a BAC (blood alcohol content) test. The law also permits the driver to refuse, however under Georgia’s “implied consent” laws (one’s tacit agreement with the state in order to acquire a driver’s license) any driver who refuses will have their driving license revoked for not less than 1 year. However, just as in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, there is a twist. Since 2006, if you refuse the test, the police can then get a search warrant and forcibly extract your blood. This is done in rather Guantanamo-esque style  in Gwinnet county (see video) where at least five burly officers forcibly hold the suspect down while being tightly strapped to a gurney. This dehumanizing treatment is visited upon both the resistant and compliant alike.

Now don’t get me wrong, those that drive under the influence of anything (alcohol, drugs, texting, etc) are among the vilest sort of individuals. They put their own selfish pursuits above the safety of others as they recklessly navigate our roadways. Removing such drivers from the roads should be one of the paramount goals of the police. I see no issue with sobriety stops per se. Were the roads not monopolistically owned by the government it would be equally incumbent upon private road owners to purge their roadways of such drivers (dangerous roads are bad for business). So while I object to the government owning roads (as there is no justification for state sanctioned monopolies in any industry) I also recognize the reality today is that they do own them. Therefore, as owners, they have an obligation to keep them safe. Sobriety checkpoints are a valid tool to achieve that goal. The only problem with such checkpoints from a civil liberties standpoint is when they are used as a pretext to engage in warrantless searches and seizures that have nothing whatsoever to do with driving safety.

If the goal is to remove impaired drivers from the road before they can cause harm, then this is clearly achieved via license loss. Forcing a BAC test is superfluous if license loss has already occurred. In fact, making the penalty for refusal equal to the penalty for a positive test would more efficiently achieve the desired goal. It would both provide an even greater incentive to not drive drunk while removing from the roadways those that do so anyways. If an accident has occurred and a presumably drunk driver kills someone, then that driver is not going to go free even if they refuse a BAC test; they will be prosecuted based on their actions. Absent any mitigating circumstances (like proof of being drug/alcohol free) they will incur the maximum penalty. A refusal harms no one but the accused.

The 5th amendment guarantees the right of each person not to “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Obtaining a warrant to invade someone’s body makes a mockery of the intent of this amendment.  If this is not compelling someone, then I don’t know what is. If some day there is technology that can read memories shall the police be permitted to obtain warrants against all suspects and witnesses and then forcibly extract whatever information they deem might be relevant? The truth is important. Justice is important. But results are what matter. The goal should be to achieve the desired result without violating human rights and dignity. So yes, the ends do matter, but the means of achieving those ends matter even more. America, Georgia, is selling its soul for the illusion of justice and safety.