Loss of Personhood = Loss of Citizenship?

Many years ago in the early 1980s my father had triple bypass surgery at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. At that time "Peter Bent" was considered one of the top hospitals in the country.

After Dad came out of recovery and was sent to the Cardiac Care ICU, we were allowed to visit him two at a time for no more than 15 minutes. While my younger brother and I were sitting with him, we saw a stretcher bearing an obviously just operated upon patient being conveyed to the unit by a group of young persons we assumed were either interns or medical students. The group was boisterous, loudly talking and laughing. One of its members jumped up to take a ride on the stretcher bearing the patient. Joe and I looked at each other in horror, then back at the group, which had by then seen us. The hitchhiker quickly jumped off and the group quieted down until it was out of our line of vision, whereupon we could hear whispered giggling and shushing. Fortunately Dad was pretty much out of it and unaware of the episode.

We reported the incident to whoever was in charge of the unit, but did not sign a formal complaint because we did not want our father to suffer retribution. When Dad finally was released from the hospital, he was sent home with not one but two staf infections that slowed his recovery for many weeks and resulted in a prolonged stay in his local hospital.

The response of the TSA and administration officials to the public's complaints about the new airport security measures, including their response to the humiliation of a man with an ostemy bag that was dislodged during a "pat down," reminds me of that incident. Officials react with abysmal indifference, reiterating the public has no choice, this is the way it must and shall be. Like those young hospital interns, to the TSA, the bloated bureaucracy of Homeland Security and our government officials, we are not proud citizens of the United States of America, once the greatest democracy on earth, we are faceless nonentities.

This is NOT a Democrat vs. Republican or Liberal vs. Conservative issue. It is about sacrificing our freedom for the illusion of safety. The same institutions that permit powerful corporations to gamble our pension funds on esoteric financial instruments, that reward wealthy companies that ship our jobs overseas, that raid the Social Security trust fund to conceal their irresponsible fiscal policies, that leave our energy, transportation, military and water supply infrastructures vulnerable to physical and cyber attacks and refuse to screen the freight imported into the country because it is "too hard," have no scruples about blatantly disrespecting our persons and taking umbrage at our protests.

I have heard many, many liberal voices supporting the new TSA protocols. Why are both the left and the right so damn selective about the constitutional rights that matter to them?

Note: This is NOT an attack on TSA security personnel at the gate, most of these folks have treated me courteously in my encounters with them. It is about the post 9/11 attitude of this country's institutions, which have increasingly seen American citizens as part of the problem rather than the key to the solution.

Airport Security - Necessary Sacrifice of Rights or Gratuitous Violation of the Fourth Amendment?

See a related article in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR2010111206580.html?tid=wp_featuredstories&sid=ST2010111206598

Bad, bad passengers resenting good, good TSA. Take off your shoes. Surrender your personal belongings for inspection. Pose for the machine that images your naked body through your clothing for inspection by anonymous security personnel in another room or submit to a "full body" pat-down that includes your most private parts. If you are asked to remove your bra or wig, just DO IT. Protest or refuse and face removal from the area and the potential of serious fines.

Just wondering - are cavity searches next?

Every time passengers submit they are permitting the NSA to violate their Fourth Amendment rights: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Airport security personnel effectively have been granted a blanket warrant that covers every person who travels by common air carrier.

For some, perhaps most of us, the sacrifice is worth the added security of airline travel. For others, it is a security travesty the sole aim of which is to make us ever more fearful, ever more obedient to the institutions that control our lives.

Parents are forced to stand by without protest as their children are either photographed naked or patted down in a way guaranteed to traumatize them. Business people can be forced to permit the confiscation of computers and cell phones which might or might not be returned to them. Persons who value their personal dignity are forced to surrender it.

Do the TSA protocols make air travel more secure? Questionable. The 2009 Christmas underwear bomber probably would have passed through the imaging machine without protest, his nasty cargo undetected. The famous shoe bomber would have checked his shoes, then picked them up at the other side of security and continued on his nefariously intentioned way.

Both these individuals, like the 9/11 terrorists, would have been picked up with efficient, adequate intelligence screening and vigilant security checks. But that is HARD. Sooo... while we spend billions on a Homeland Security Department that spins out tentacles into ever greater aspects of American life, the genuine bad guys just think up new ways to elude the net.

Could it be that the thing the "powers that be" fear most is an American populace that is not "dumb, docile and dependent?"

How did we get to the place where corporations have more access to Constitutional Rights than individual citizens?

God help us all.

Bill of Rights: VII, VIII, IX, X

These seem more open to different interpretations that I through VI.

Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Bill of Rights: III, IV, V and VI

The Amendments that protect individual rights (I and II were previously posted) are often particularly vulnerable to subversion and even assaults by public opinion. Guarding them is essential to maintaining a free society. It also requires constant vigilance.

III is a direct response to British actions prior to and during the Revolutionary War.
Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

I do not see how The Patriot Act conforms with Amendment IV.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Under a system in which the accused are offered advantageous plea bargains in exchange for evidence against others, justice is frequently sacrificed to expediency and high conviction rates for ambitious prosecutors.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

If the legal system is over worked, under-staffed and under-funded and those charged are pressured into making plea bargains rather than confronting the powerful represented by underpaid public defenders, how real is the guarantee of a speedy, public trial by jury? Even those who can afford private counsel often face impoverishment paying for their defense in trials that can last for weeks or even months. Prolonged trials also place a heavy burden on the citizens serving on the juries.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

On Speach, Religion, Assembly and Bearing Arms

Below are the first and second amendments to the U. S. Constitution. The language does not APPEAR to be ambiguous, does it? In fact the writing is far more straightforward than we are accustomed to reading in legal documents.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Food for thought.