Is the ‘conservative’ U.S. Supreme Court caught in a web of its own contradictions? According to Le Monde columnist Jean-Sébastien Stehli, a recent court decision that allows citizens to be strip-searched for almost any reason is no way to run a democratic society.
For Le Monde, Jean-Sébastien Stehli starts off this way:
By a five to four vote, conservative judges on the Supreme Court decided that any citizen can be forced to permit a strip search, even in the case of a minor offense – and even if there is no reason to suspect a felony or crime. Henceforth, explained one of the dissenting judges, a bike with a faulty bell or broken turn signal can lead to the offender being strip searched. The Supreme Court held that there is nothing excessive or degrading about being forced to lay bare before a representative of the state. Such a loose conception of freedom is difficult to grasp. Up to now, case law dictated that police were only permitted to conduct a body search when, for example, there is cause to suspect the person of hiding weapons or drugs. Ten states, including Florida and Michigan (not exactly bastions of leftism), forbid strip searches without serious cause.
For the U.S. Supreme Court, the humiliation of a citizen by the government (and what situation is more humiliating for a person than to be obliged to undress in front of a representative of the state? This resembles pre-Kruschev KGB tactics) is just a peccadillo. A government that can undress its citizens for not wearing a seatbelt has license to undress whoever it chooses. And to think that conservatives supposedly stand for a less intrusive government. It seems that, in fact, their idea is of a government that intrudes less into the pockets of the wealthiest. That is their notion of democracy.
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