At nearly all levels of government in the United States, there now exists a clear and open contempt for the Constitution, most especially the Bill of Rights which are being viewed as the Bill Of Privileges, which can be modified or revoked in an arbitray and capricious manner absent the Constitutionally mandated Amendment process.
All of the Bill of Rights, as I understand them, especially at the time they were written, were inviolable outside the Amendment Process. That is no longer true, as by Legislative or Judicial fiat any or all of them can be modified without the consent of the governed.
I don’t recall the language in the Bill of Rights that permits the Supreme Court or Congress to make any judgments or pass any laws that alter or amend these rights. Although, I’ll bet a few self-made Constitutional experts here will disagree.
Neiman - 12:05pm on 05/05/2008
Umm… I guarantee you that all those people stopped were subway riders. They had a constitutional right not to take the subway. There are search stations set up during rush hour inside every major transit terminal, and you can refuse the search if you want to (you’ll just have to walk down the street to a terminal where there’s no search station).
Dishonest statistics.
Hairy Polemic - 01:05pm on 05/05/2008
Almost 90 percent of those stopped were innocent.
So the cops stopped 86,000 people from carrying something dangerous into the subway last year? That sounds pretty fricken good to me (I ride everyday).
Hairy Polemic - 01:05pm on 05/05/2008
Rob,
If this program has been running for over a year, it has been challenged in court. Since it’s still running, they seem to have passed the test of “reasonable” before one or more courts.
Rodney Graves - 01:05pm on 05/05/2008
So the cops stopped 86,000 people from carrying something dangerous into the subway last year? That sounds pretty fricken good to me (I ride everyday).
If this truly was an opt-in search, as in you must consent to a search to ride the subway, then I have less of a problem (being forced to pay tax dollars for a public transportation system I can’t ride unless I get groped by a cop is a different matter), but I don’t think you’ve substantiated that all these searches are taking place at subway stations.
Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but I don’t think cops should get to frisk you just because.
If this program has been running for over a year, it has been challenged in court. Since it’s still running, they seem to have passed the test of “reasonable” before one or more courts.
You suppose that all judges are “reasonable” appliers of the law. Which is a rather suspect supposition given some of the travesties the American judicial system is responsible for.
Rob - 01:05pm on 05/05/2008
forced to pay tax dollars for a public transportation system I can’t ride unless I get groped by a cop is a different matter
It’s an opt-in search if you want to ride… though technically you can still ride if you walk a couple of stations down where there are no cops. The MTA is a private corp. chartered by the city, we pay fares (not income tax) to ride.
I don’t think you’ve substantiated that all these searches are taking place at subway stations.
I don’t need to do that to point out that the statistics are dishonest. The article you quoted makes it seem like there is a city-wide initiative by cops to search people illegally. (That is all I needed to dispute.) And there is no such initiative. So many people get searched per year precisely because there is an initiative to set up search stations at major transit hubs which have millions of people going through them daily.
As an aside, NY cops are probably the most respectful and legally risk-averse (as in they don’t want to get sued) police officers I have ever met.
Hairy Polemic - 01:05pm on 05/05/2008
Rob,
I find the odds of all judges being reasonable in their reading of the law to be almost as low as the NY-ACLU and Davinski giving us all the pertinent data on such an article.
Note also that violent crime per 100,000 is down almost 6 percent in NYC from 2005 to 2006. Purely coincidental, I’m sure.
Rodney Graves - 01:05pm on 05/05/2008
The Constitution says many things. So, who we call when what the Constitution says doesn’t happen and how soon will things be corrected?
The current government is obviously not going to uphold the Constitution. We can say that the Constitution says until we run out of breath or we can vote the people who violate the Constitution out of office.
Or we can do what Supreme Court Justice Scalia says to do and “get over it”.
ews48 - 03:05pm on 05/05/2008
You can’t have it both ways. Either you have increased security (and as a result increased stop and search)or you don’t.
86000 people were not innocent, 240 people per day were apprehended as a result of these searches. What the heck is wrong with that? It took 19 men to perpetrate 9/11 and four men for 7/7.
Complacency anyone?
ManofFireandLight - 03:05pm on 05/05/2008
Neiman: For good or ill, right or wrong, the Supreme Court of the United States is the final arbiter of what the Constitution and all of it’s amendments mean. That issue was settled under the Marshall court almost before the ink had dried on the Constitution.
If that were not so, the SCOTUS would not now be deliberating the DC gun law, or more accurately, there would be no DC Gun Law.
The Bill of Privileges
At nearly all levels of government in the United States, there now exists a clear and open contempt for the Constitution, most especially the Bill of Rights which are being viewed as the Bill Of Privileges, which can be modified or revoked in an arbitray and capricious manner absent the Constitutionally mandated Amendment process.
All of the Bill of Rights, as I understand them, especially at the time they were written, were inviolable outside the Amendment Process. That is no longer true, as by Legislative or Judicial fiat any or all of them can be modified without the consent of the governed.
I don’t recall the language in the Bill of Rights that permits the Supreme Court or Congress to make any judgments or pass any laws that alter or amend these rights. Although, I’ll bet a few self-made Constitutional experts here will disagree.
Umm… I guarantee you that all those people stopped were subway riders. They had a constitutional right not to take the subway. There are search stations set up during rush hour inside every major transit terminal, and you can refuse the search if you want to (you’ll just have to walk down the street to a terminal where there’s no search station).
Dishonest statistics.
So the cops stopped 86,000 people from carrying something dangerous into the subway last year? That sounds pretty fricken good to me (I ride everyday).
Rob,
If this program has been running for over a year, it has been challenged in court. Since it’s still running, they seem to have passed the test of “reasonable” before one or more courts.
If this truly was an opt-in search, as in you must consent to a search to ride the subway, then I have less of a problem (being forced to pay tax dollars for a public transportation system I can’t ride unless I get groped by a cop is a different matter), but I don’t think you’ve substantiated that all these searches are taking place at subway stations.
Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but I don’t think cops should get to frisk you just because.
You suppose that all judges are “reasonable” appliers of the law. Which is a rather suspect supposition given some of the travesties the American judicial system is responsible for.
It’s an opt-in search if you want to ride… though technically you can still ride if you walk a couple of stations down where there are no cops. The MTA is a private corp. chartered by the city, we pay fares (not income tax) to ride.
I don’t need to do that to point out that the statistics are dishonest. The article you quoted makes it seem like there is a city-wide initiative by cops to search people illegally. (That is all I needed to dispute.) And there is no such initiative. So many people get searched per year precisely because there is an initiative to set up search stations at major transit hubs which have millions of people going through them daily.
As an aside, NY cops are probably the most respectful and legally risk-averse (as in they don’t want to get sued) police officers I have ever met.
Rob,
I find the odds of all judges being reasonable in their reading of the law to be almost as low as the NY-ACLU and Davinski giving us all the pertinent data on such an article.
Note also that violent crime per 100,000 is down almost 6 percent in NYC from 2005 to 2006. Purely coincidental, I’m sure.
The Constitution says many things. So, who we call when what the Constitution says doesn’t happen and how soon will things be corrected?
The current government is obviously not going to uphold the Constitution. We can say that the Constitution says until we run out of breath or we can vote the people who violate the Constitution out of office.
Or we can do what Supreme Court Justice Scalia says to do and “get over it”.
You can’t have it both ways. Either you have increased security (and as a result increased stop and search)or you don’t.
86000 people were not innocent, 240 people per day were apprehended as a result of these searches. What the heck is wrong with that? It took 19 men to perpetrate 9/11 and four men for 7/7.
Complacency anyone?
Neiman: For good or ill, right or wrong, the Supreme Court of the United States is the final arbiter of what the Constitution and all of it’s amendments mean. That issue was settled under the Marshall court almost before the ink had dried on the Constitution.
If that were not so, the SCOTUS would not now be deliberating the DC gun law, or more accurately, there would be no DC Gun Law.