We have, among others, Dr Pessimist Anticant, the Scottish thinker whose charm lasts only so long as he chooses to remain "vague, mysterious, and cloudy", and Mr Popular Sentiment, the novelist whose "good poor people are so very good" and "hard rich people so very hard", and Sir Abraham Haphazard, Attorney-General, with his bill to institute the bodily searching of nuns for Jesuitical symbols.
If Rodriguez could convict herself through a confession obtained during a refused but, carried out nonetheless, invasive bodily search--all in the name of "public safety --I wonder have we not effectively safety --Id our rightsafety --Iopes of being kept "safe"?
In June, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against D.C. Metropolitan police on behalf of a photojournalist, a legal observer and two other individuals, charging unconstitutional arrest, excessive force, and invasive bodily searches of protesters.
When I hear these cases I begin to wonder about the potential abuses of government power when security services and law enforcement personnel can question us under medical duress--including medication and invasive bodily searches--without a warrant, while we attempt to refuse, and without reading our rights to us or supplying a lawyer if we ask for one.
But subjecting people to baseless stops and bodily searches, or worse, to stops based purely on the color of someone's skin, would be a dangerous step toward the kind of Orwellian world my "recommendations" would bring, and that's pretty scary.
However, all the while Florence was making its way through the courts, law enforcement officials were playing fast and loose with the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on searches and seizures, especially as it relates to violations of bodily integrity and roadside strip searches.
"The governor can't order the state to search people's bodily fluids for no reason," said Howard Simon, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Florida.
Will we construct a new sign language with gestures for expletive-laced searches, threads of bodily harm, inappropriate suggestions about where someone should go, frequently-repeated stock phrases (Winning!)?
In the explicit act of violating bodily sovereignty, there is an active search for the conquest of power and control in a space where these have become vulnerable.
