“The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
Justice Louis Brandeis (1928)
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no Warrants shall be issued, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things be seized.” It is a simple, unqualified and unambiguous statement guarantying all Americans protection from potential excesses of their government.
Unfortunately, these and other liberties have been weakened over time by Legislative enactments, case law and decisions of the Supreme Court. Time and again, these erosions of our precious rights have been preceded by well-orchestrated propaganda campaigns seeking to convince the public that some horrible social ill is destroying the fabric of their society. Fanning the flames of these specious arguments are armies of special interest groups, smug in their beliefs that they know what best for the rest of their fellow citizens; the President and our elected representatives in the Congress, who seem to have forgotten their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic …”; and the uncounted legions of government bureaucrats, for whom more regulations equate to greater job and income security.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the solutions proposed invariably require more government and are frequently accompanied by rationalizations as to why citizens may have to relinquish a bit of liberty to preserve the security they have been convinced is at risk. Over time, such consent has become easier and easier to obtain from majorities of a public desensitized by years of acquiescing to such infringements on their liberties. Sadly, however, when ceding their own freedoms, which they have a right to do, they are surrendering those of their fellow citizens in the process, for which they have no entitlement!
While the jury is still out on any number of highly questionable, post-911 measures being promoted by John Ashcroft, many of which will have no impact on protecting Americans at home or abroad from future terrorist attacks, the Supreme Court’s June 27th decision putting public high school students who participate in extra curricular activities on notice that they may legally be subject to random drug tests, absent any form of probable cause, represents a clear and present danger to fundamental American liberties.
For more than a generation, the so-called war on drugs has been served up as domestic public enemy #1. During that time, our government has squandered hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, infringed on the national sovereignty of other nations, incarcerated more than a million people on a glut of newly authorized, drug-related crimes and used the “crisis” as an excuse for enacting regulations permitting state and local law enforcement officials, among other actions, to stop and search vehicles and individuals for illicit substances without requiring any suspicion or probable cause. Despite the vocal protests of a small public minority and a number of civil rights organizations, these regulations have now become accepted policies. In the process, trafficking in illegal drugs has become the one of the most profitable industries on the American landscape and victory in this war remains more illusive than ever!
In its 5-4 decision, Justices Renquist, Thomas, Kennedy, Breyer and Scalia opined that a school’s interest in ridding their campuses of drugs outweighed student’s rights to privacy. If their opinion truly reflects their core belief, why was the decision limited to those participating in extra curricular activities, an issue the Court dodged? More to the point, however, how do they square their ruling with the original intent of the Fourth Amendment?
Lost in the reasonable and politically popular effort to keep kids from using drugs, is a lack of empirical or other evidence that such random student testing policies are effective or the ample evidence that false positive results can be caused from the legal use of over-the-counter or prescription medications. Will those administering the tests make the assumption that any positive test results represent a prima facie case that the student is guilty of using banned substances, thereby denying them of their rights to due process and the presumption of innocence?
With the implementation of the Court’s newly mandated paradigm, what lessons will today’s students take from their educational experience? Clearly, it will now include a loss of respect and reverence for and acceptance of what should be the inviolate protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment … and, by extension, the rest of the Constitution.
As these students mature into adulthood, they are almost surely to be even more willing than their parents to accept what has tragically become an inexorable continuum of governmental encroachments on personal liberties. Will they then be more willing to reign in such First Amendment rights protecting the freedom of speech as a politically correct or necessary tool to combat the next “threat”?
Such a scenario is an unacceptable option! America’s public school system can not be permitted to become an instrument of the State to corrupt or subvert the underpinnings of our political system and, defacto, usurp the most basic covenants promised to our nation’s citizens by its founding fathers and for which thousands of Americans have given their lives to protect. Rather, the educational establishment must, in both in word and deed, be an environment which fosters a thorough understanding of and appreciation for those fundamental principals on which nation was founded.
As for combating substance abuse, perhaps if (i) a significant percentage of the staggering resources and funds which have been expended on the war on drugs were redeployed for sound and progressive education and rehabilitation initiatives (ii) the nation’s obsession on athletic performance and winning at any cost were tempered and (iii) creative, albeit possibly controversial, means were employed to minimize the enormous profit motives currently driving the growing, manufacture and distribution of illegal drugs, the use and demand by the public, as well as the supply, could be radically reduced.
Again, citing Justice Brandeis, “Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.”
