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Well, heck, I'll bite...
Apr. 16th, 2002 06:52 pmDahlia Lithwick is doing her usual good stuff at Slate. Today's sample of Supreme Follies: "Is That Evidence in Your Pants?". Sample paragraph, at her own request:
What, specifically, am I talking about? Ladies and gentlemen, if a police officer boards the bus/train/plane/subway car upon which you are riding, and without having any suspicion of wrongdoing on your part asks to search your bags or your person, you have the absolute right to tell them no. Once more, and you should teach this to your babies (or have your nannies do so): The Fourth Amendment protects you from causeless, suspicionless searches by the government. You can just say no. I agree with Justice Kennedy on this one point, which he makes four or five times this morning: This democracy will be a much healthier one when Americans know their rights and assert them loudly and forcefully toward the police. I can't bring myself to agree with Kennedy's policy prescription, however, which seems to be that we should incarcerate anyone who doesn't know or assert their rights, until we are left with a citizenry consisting of those 400 citizens who are well-informed. So please cut and paste this paragraph into an e-mail and send it to 10 people, along with the threat that something terrible will happen to them if they don't forward it to 10 more. This isn't one of those woo-woo something-special-will-happen-to-you chain letters. ... Something really terrible will happen to you if you don't spread the word. Just ask Christopher Drayton and Layton Brown.
What, specifically, am I talking about? Ladies and gentlemen, if a police officer boards the bus/train/plane/subway car upon which you are riding, and without having any suspicion of wrongdoing on your part asks to search your bags or your person, you have the absolute right to tell them no. Once more, and you should teach this to your babies (or have your nannies do so): The Fourth Amendment protects you from causeless, suspicionless searches by the government. You can just say no. I agree with Justice Kennedy on this one point, which he makes four or five times this morning: This democracy will be a much healthier one when Americans know their rights and assert them loudly and forcefully toward the police. I can't bring myself to agree with Kennedy's policy prescription, however, which seems to be that we should incarcerate anyone who doesn't know or assert their rights, until we are left with a citizenry consisting of those 400 citizens who are well-informed. So please cut and paste this paragraph into an e-mail and send it to 10 people, along with the threat that something terrible will happen to them if they don't forward it to 10 more. This isn't one of those woo-woo something-special-will-happen-to-you chain letters. ... Something really terrible will happen to you if you don't spread the word. Just ask Christopher Drayton and Layton Brown.
