Anyone familiar with this blog knows I take several pet projects on, and then beat them like a drum; especially policing tactics which are burdensome/dangerous/lethal. The latest rants are naturally focused on the TSA's aptly-named "Rapiscans" and the junk-touching called "security".
Luckily, Andy Samberg and crew are here to provide me a little comic relief. It's that or peasants n' pitchforks, if ya' know what I mean.
Old school Ice Cube says "Damn, Justice Stevens. Daaaaaammmmmn."
I know in this day and age of pea-brained Tea-baggers that it sometimes gets obscured that you can be both liberal and a patriot and still serve your country. Case in point, Justice John Paul Stevens. World War II veteran. Devout patriot. Raging lefty. Supreme Court Justice for over three decades.
Among Justice Stevens' many recent contributions to the rule of law in America are his scathing criticisms of an Executive Branch gone amok, deploring the politicization of the Bench, the influence of money into electoral politics (his dissent in Citizens United will stand the test of time in terms of both correctness and rhetorical skill), defending an organic notion of Constitutional interpretation, and absolute defense of habeas corpus, The Great Writ.
Lesbian Vampire Killers give Justice Stevens two Fangs Up for his vociferous critique of Bush v. Gore.
Add to the list of things Justice Stevens has now begun to champion: The death penalty, as applied in 21st Century America, is unconstitutional per the 8th (and presumably 5th and 14th) Amendment. The New York Timespreviews an excellent essay forthcoming by Justice Stevens on December 23rd, in the most recent Sunday online edition.
Justice Stevens defended the promise of the Supreme Court’s 1976 decisions reinstating the death penalty even as he detailed the ways in which he said that promise had been betrayed.
With the right procedural safeguards, Justice Stevens wrote, it would be possible to isolate the extremely serious crimes for which death is warranted. But he said the Supreme Court had instead systematically dismantled those safeguards.
Justice Stevens said the court took wrong turns in deciding how juries in death penalty cases are chosen and what evidence they may hear, in not looking closely enough at racial disparities in the capital justice system, and in failing to police the role politics can play in decisions to seek and impose the death penalty.
These damn things give me the creeps, the "backscatter, full-body x-rays" employed by the TSA. There is absolutely no discernible reason for using these, much less the punitive sexual assault by private, TSA employees when one refuses to be fully irradiated.
The boo-birds have chirped in on this one ad nauseum. However, the best explanation, for the layman and lawya's, is Jeffrey Rosen's Op-Ed in the WaPo on Sunday.
FWIW, I think he nails the "tailoring prong" on this perfectly. The below excerpt pretty much sums up the argument, but the entire piece is worth your read.
Courts evaluating airport-screening technology tend to give great deference to the government's national security interest in preventing terrorist attacks. But in this case, there's a strong argument that the TSA's measures violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
Although the Supreme Court hasn't evaluated airport screening technology, lower courts have emphasized, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in 2007, that "a particular airport security screening search is constitutionally reasonable provided that it 'is no more extensive nor intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives.'
BTW: Sorry these are coming out a day or two late, but after 8 days off, I absolutely got hammered back at the office...and not in that "holy shit, my paralegal is really hot and wore me out" sort of hammering. Alas.
