by Richard “Tut” Carter, Sr
About a decade ago I was a part of a gathering of a number of critical-thinking prisoners at SCI-Dallas, PA and someone mentioned that, sometimes before society introduces new restrictions of citizen’s liberties and freedoms, such policies are first tested within our prisons system. If they work successful inside prison then they introduce those policies in free-society. When I listen to the current debates over new body search procedures they remind me of the legal debates I know in different lawsuits my team aided in litigating against the Prison System over the years. Sometimes the best lesson plans unveil themselves in real life parallels.
I remember when some prisoners invoked religious-rites which led the faithful to resist offensive rules. Those rules were made conditional for attending contact visits with family or, leaving lock-down in RHU, Inter Alia. As much as I sympathize with all them folks who are now complaining about losing their right to freedom of privacy when they fly – they are the same folks that called for tougher new restrictions, such as body cavity searches where prison guards need not have a search warrant nor probable cause to invade the privacy-rights of incarcerated citizens.
The call by a chosen few for Law and Order in our nation today is calling for tougher new restrictions on American citizens. Supposedly, as the means of restricting terrorist and America born sympathizers from attacking Americans at home and abroad. While I am certainly not implying that the nation shouldn’t try every “reasonable” tactic and social-strategy to protect us from dangerous and heartlessly “evil” angry souls. Where my disagreement is, using practices which takes away American’s liberties, in the same mind as I once opposed similar practices within our prison system –
When a nation feels that it has to resort to punishing the innocent with the guilty in order to protect the innocent – the innocent begins to feel that personal freedoms are no longer valuable civil-liberties in the mind of the government. The irony here is self-evident, when one side of society allows for the disenfranchisement of those they choose to treat differently—they allow for themselves to be also treated differently than the ruling class of Americans.
Who will refute the similarities of debates of old which were led by prisoners and, where now today the same issue of personal privacy rights resurfaces in free society. Definitely that prisoner at Dallas was right, what society tests inside our prisons where inmates traditionally park US liberties as citizens at the front gate – and after they perfect how to get citizens to accept the fact that they lost important personal constitutional liberties – then those same oppressive policy is applied to the nation. To board an airbus and fly in this so-called free society citizens must submit to offensive body searches. What’s next? Body cavity searches?
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