Russ Feingold catches another reason not to fly

The definition of "search" has been expanded so that airport screeners are allowed to turn on your laptop computer and browse through the contents. Now, since I wrote a novel where a computer program can power spaceship engines and weapons, I probably shouldn't be suggesting it's ludicrous to search a computer's contents looking for weapons. But I also don't think technology has unraveled the tenets of imaginary physics yet, either, so yes, I'm saying it's ludicrous to allow airport screeners to "search" laptop computers in this fashion.

The definition of "seizure" is still the same — government agents steal your stuff on the pretext of their searches, however flimsy it may be.

Sen. Russ Feingold is no friend of the First Amendment — he's the co-author of the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection and Repeal of Free Speech Act — but he has read the Fourth Amendment, and he's raising the alarm about airport screeners who have been confiscating laptop computers from non-terrorists.

Feingold's statement says when he asked about this, the response from the Secret Police Department of Homeland Security made reference to a 2007 policy that has not been revealed publicly — "and the policies that have been revealed are truly alarming."

The policies allow DHS to evade the probable cause requirement for seizing a laptop by blurring the distinction between a search and a seizure – defining a “search” to include detaining laptops for an unspecified period of time, taking them off-site, and taking written notes on their contents that can be retained indefinitely.

The policies contain no restrictions on DHS agents’ disclosure of personal information learned through these searches.

Feingold deserves credit for drawing attention to the many ways that civil liberties are being violated in the name of liberty. His critics have a ready answer: Freedom is slavery not free.

Ten essential books

I walked into Target for cat food and dog food, but of course I always browse through the bread and circuses. Fun to see Sandra Bullock's sweet movie While You Were Sleeping is down to $5.50 and I almost bought it, but seeing as I own it on VHS and the VCR(s) still work fine, what would be the point?

But I got curious passing the paperback aisle, and I walked down to see if they had any "classics" on sale. Target's not the first place you think of when you're jonesing for literature. But sure enough, they had one row of one rack - 10 books in all - and the selection was so interesting that I wrote 'em down.

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Animal Farm - George Orwell
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
1984 - George Orwell
Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkein
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

(Odd that the authors were in alphabetical order but they split up the two Orwell books.)

Needless to say, it's thrilling to see three warnings against totalitarianism among their 10 classics - and all of these books have strong individuals in them. I suppose some sort of sales research led to these particular books landing on that precious shelf space - but if so, that's a very good sign. Even in this era of collectivism, classic books celebrating the individual are still selling.

23 years overdue, but accurate

Within 200 yards of the home where George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-four are 32 surveillance cameras.

"According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily."

Read all about it.

and war is peace and ignorance is strength

When I Googled this quote in disbelief, I found it at the New York Times Web site along with a lot of comment from late March of this year, so I'm late coming to it, but I have to do my part in getting it more widely read:

"We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

The quote is from "a forum about crime in the cities, sponsored by The New York Post," in March 1994. The speaker is New York Mayor Rudolph Giulani. No one who believes this should be president of the United States (although one might argue that most presidents believe it in their heart of hearts).

Orwell watch: A new definition of 'reasonable search'

This one's straight out of 1984 and Animal Farm: It's OK for storm troopers to ransack the wrong home and hold the wrong suspects at gunpoint, naked, if the officers took reasonable precautions to protect themselves.

The whole L.A. Times story can be found here. The U.S. Supreme Court Monday let stand an appeals court ruling that said it was OK to roust a white couple out of bed in their search for black suspects who had moved out of the home three months earlier and had no connection to the couple:

Mistakes sometimes happen when police conduct home searches, the Supreme Court said Monday in throwing out a lawsuit brought by a white couple in Southern California who were rousted from bed and held naked at gunpoint by deputies looking for several black suspects.

The search of Max Rettele and his girlfriend, Judy Sadler, in their bedroom may have been an error, and it was certainly embarrassing to them, the justices said. But it did not violate their rights under the 4th Amendment, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures," they added.

Police obtain search warrants based on probable evidence, not "absolute certainty," the court said in an unsigned opinion. "Valid warrants will issue to search the innocent, and people like Rettele and Sadler unfortunately bear the cost." ...

The couple's "constitutional rights were not violated," the court said in Los Angeles County vs. Rettele. The deputies "believed a suspect might be armed…. In executing a search warrant, officers may take reasonable action to secure the premises and to ensure their own safety and the efficacy of the search."

As for the innocent victims, "the resulting frustration, embarrassment and humiliation may be real, as was true here," the court said in its seven-page opinion. Nonetheless, "when officers execute a valid warrant and act in a reasonable manner to protect themselves from harm, however, the 4th Amendment is not violated."

Thus, the meaning of the term "unreasonable search" has been reconfigured to protect the state, rather than the individual. A state search of innocent, unconnected parties is reasonable if the state was acting in a way that would be OK if the innocent parties were guilty. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and reason is chaos.

I suppose this kind of insane ruling is the end result of a society where random drug tests are acceptable behavior and innocents entering an airplane or a stadium are frisked for contraband and weapons.

The couple's lawyer says they have moved out of Southern California and are living in Kansas now. The Supreme Court's 8-1 decision (only Souter dissented) shows they didn't go far enough away. The law-abiding are no longer safe or free in this country.