RoR: Forum

Very well said!

How close to the precipice do we get before we tumble over and people wake up wondering, "How'd we get to be a dictatorship!"?

NSA throws out probable cause and privacy.
EPA hits companies and individuals that contributed to Republicans with harsh, even impossible to meet regulations.
You can be thrown in jail for lying to a federal official (and you aren't allowed to tape any interrogation/questioning sessions).
IRS shifts from general expropriations to punishing those with the 'wrong' ideology.
Justice Dept. intimidates and snoops on the press.
With the Patriot Act we lost the right to have search warrants issued by a court and we are back were we were before the American Revolution where a British Officer could write a search warrant while standing on the citizen's door step, then execute it. AND you can be jailed if you tell anyone that you were subjected to a FISA warrant.
With the National Defense Appropriations Act we no longer have a clear right to public trial, a speedy trial, or even any trial - no more habeous corpus. We can be 'disappeared' and detained indefinitely, and that act appears to toss Posse Comitatus out the window as well.

People can say that much of this will be challenged by the Supreme Court when some future president attempt to exercise these powers. But by then, Obama may have appointed one, or even two more Supreme Court Justices. If one is a replacement of a Conservative justice, that check and balance will not work.

We don't appear to have many legal rights left, just the current state of 'good intentions' ("Don't worry. I would never use that law.")

Post 1

Thursday, June 20, 2013 - 4:41am

I understand and appreciate the main point. That is why we need to start with a footnote and reconsider some basic assumptions. By "security professionals" you seem to mean government police.

Private security eclipsed public policing some time in the 1970s. The first figures I have showing that were published in the early 1980s. Moreover, for most of American history, private companies were the key providers. While Abraham Lincoln's hiring Pinkerton was laudatory, the abuses of Burns as head of the FBI were egregious injustices finally solved only by the reformer J. Edgar Hoover. From there, the story takes some turns...

In 1944, the United States was involved in a two-front war that ultimately involved guided missiles and atomic bombs. And still, in Yellow Rose of Texas, Roy Rogers played an insurance investigator, not a sheriff or marshall. Most of us are old enough to remember Surfside 6 before Miami Vice and Hawaiian Eye before Hawaii Five-O. It was in the late 1960s during the reign of Nixon's "law and order" politics, in response to protests over civil rights, and the war in Viet Nam, that Los Angeles launched the first SWAT unit. In the 1950s and 1960s, public policing including federal policing swelled.

However, as I said, by the 1970s, those who needed pro-active safety and security were again coming to private businesses. The personnel and capital investment in the private sector security reached about 2 to 1 over public policing in the USA before 9/11 -- and three to one in California. Only one-third of the security professionals were on the public payroll. Public capital investment in policing was only half or less of private expenditures for security equipment and hardware.
RotatingHeadline_ASIS

ASIS International formerly branded as the American Society for Industrial Security

Following 9/11 more resources were poured into government. However, following the 2008 mortgage crash and related problems, cities were hard pressed to pay for policing and some again turned to private contractors. I not know where the numbers are now. However, it remains true that security professionals are not assumed to be public police. If you accept that premise, you surrender to the flashing lights and blazing guns of "reality" television.

Today, we have at least fifty different federal police departments. The US Postal Service has tanks. Clearly, they are not to be ignored. However, they are not the mainstream or the default value.

On a different note entirely, however, you have few "Constitutional rights" on private property. Your employer can limit your practice of religion or assembly -- and most likely needs no warrant to search your property. As the lady said, "check your premises."

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 6/20, 4:58am)

Post 2

Thursday, June 20, 2013 - 1:22pm

Michael,

... you have few "Constitutional rights" on private property. Your employer can limit your practice of religion or assembly -- and most likely needs no warrant to search your property.

Not so. Your constitutional rights don't change with property lines. It is the existence of property, with the attendant boundaries, that make it possible to have non-conflicting rights. My right to preach my beliefs or assemble with my friends doesn't mean that I can violate the property rights of another. I can't take over someones movie theater, against their will, to hold some kind of political rally. When someone says that I cannot engage in certain practices on their property, or as an employee during my working hours, that isn't a violation of my rights. It is simply a voluntary agreement - I can accept it or reject it. If I accept it, it becomes a contract.

It is because I do have a full set of rights, many of which are recognized in the constitution, that I can negotiate agreements with others... and those agreements might entail my limiting the exercise of this or that right in exchange for what I consider to be fair compensation.

Post 3

Friday, June 21, 2013 - 8:13pm

Steve, I agree 100% with the fundamental premise that our natural rights include rights to and about property. However, the US Constitution is about your relationship to the federal government. In point of fact, for example, while the federal government could not establish a national religion, state governments actively supported particular churches. Massachusetts collected taxes for the Congregational Church until 1839. Similarly, it was only in Brown v. Mississippi (1936) that the US Supreme Court extended ("incorporated") the Fifth Amendment to the states. Before that, the states could and did torture people for confessions.

While our right to property is indeed protected by the fundamental principles underlying the Constitution, as a private security guard working for your employer - or the mall you visit - I can and will search your belongings without your permission. The US Constitution is irrelevant. We tend not to do that for other reasons. (Unlawfully detaining another person - even making them wait - is a separate crime.) But the US Constitution has nothing to do with it.

Speaking to the point here, though, the fact is the private security is the default mode. Prof. Machan's complaint against Homeland Security, the NSA, and the others, is valid. I only noted that they are not the entirety - or even the majority - of what he called "professional security." And in point of fact professional security (private security) is not broadly constrained by the US Constitution, any more than you are.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 6/21, 8:14pm)

Post 4

Friday, June 21, 2013 - 10:17pm