Thursday, January 27, 2005

Whaddya have to hide?

Grits reader "Radical Russ" offers his own suggestion for new Fourth Amendment language in the wake of atrocities visited by the U.S. high court upon the downtrodden original. Far superior to my own, I think his suggestion perfectly captures the clear intent of the Supreme majority, who declared this week that a canine sniff is not a "search" because the hound is only searching for illegal things. Russ suggests the Fourth Amendment should henceforth read:
"If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide, do ya, punk?"
And for coming up with the perfect substitute for the Fourth Amendment -- one, I think, inspired by the zeitgeist of our times -- let me reward Russ' "blatant blog whoring" by suggesting that you check out his comments on the Caballes ruling, including plans for a counteroffensive:
I'm getting a bottle of hempseed oil and spraying a little on the trunk lid of every Hummer, Lexus, Jaguar, BMW, and Cadillac I see. Maybe if it's some rich white conservative folks whose civil liberties are getting trampled, we might all get our civil liberties back.
Light blogging today, but check out these folks:
  • Doc Berman sees a "new right" in favor of sentencing reform.
  • Crime & Federalism has the stick figure art that got elementary kids taken off in handcuffs, and a good post on attorney ethics (Stop your sniggering out there, it's not an oxymoron. Hey, I said stop it!)
  • The Texas Civil Rights Project has sued on behalf of high school students beaten up by police in El Paso, and another of their clients, death penalty opponent Dave Atwood, went to jail for five days rather than pay a trespassing fine.
  • Howard Bashman points to this Boston Globe article airing criticisms of Alberto Gonzales for hearing cases as a Texas Supreme Court Justice that involved campaign donors. News flash: Texas judges compromised by donor system. Perhaps the next Boston Globe scoop might be: More cattle, boots per capita in Texas than Massachussetts. For the lowdown on who is buying what in the Texas Supreme Court, see Texans for Public Justice's Dollar Docket, which unfortunately has not been updated since the summer.
  • Pete Guither has found a law so bad the Justice Department won't defend it.
  • Talk Left cites Radley Balko, who says if it walks like a duck, it's probably a national ID card.

No comments: