Why No One Cares

I've been trying to figure out why so few people in this country care about civil liberties. (I was going to add "anymore," but that's assuming they ever did, and I'm not convinced that's true.) Almost every day, it seems, there's a new law, executive order, policy shift, or Supreme Court decision that violates our ostensibly sacred Constitutional rights or the dictates of international law, all in the name of national security or law enforcement. Police officers spy on law-abiding Muslim students, pepper-spray non-violent protesters, conduct stop-and-frisk and "suspicionless" searches (talk about an Orwellian phrase), and Taser people at traffic stops. The no-fly list is so monstrous as to be useless, and electronic strip-searches have become ubiquitous. The DHS monitors social-networking sites for criticism of its policies. (Hi, guys!) The FAA is changing its rules to allow unmanned drones in U.S. airspace. The NSA is building a "spy center" in the Utah desert five times the size of the U.S. Capitol. Nowadays, even indefinite detention and targeted assassination elicit responses ranging from vociferous support to an apathetic shrug. Not to worry, though: apparently a private meeting in the Oval Office qualifies as "due process." Of course, government officials would prefer to keep their Constitution-shredding policies as quiet as possible and will relentlessly pursue anyone who tries to tell the American people what their own public servants are doing. But at least we still have the right to free speech...as long as we stay within the confines of the "free speech zones" the authorities so graciously provide for us.

What's happening here? I wait for the outrage, but it never comes. Some of the above items made it into the headlines of major news outlets for a day or two before they disappeared. Each story follows a predictable pattern:

1. The administration enacts the policy quietly, usually on a Friday afternoon to avoid press scrutiny.
2. Civil libertarians react with an angry and/or bewildered: "Say, what?"
3. Supporters of the policy (wealthy defense contractors, politicians angling for re-election, etc.) fear-monger about terrorism, opine that "everything changed on 9/11," and marginalize said civil libertarians as radical, unhinged, anti-government whack-jobs or long-haired hippie Occupyers who can't face reality.
4. The story vanishes from the headlines and the public consciousness, quickly normalized and incorporated into the National Security State.

Not a peep of protest from anyone in a position to do anything, Democrat or Republican. The halls of Congress resound with the usual chest-pounding and saber-rattling by politicians eager to shore up their anti-terrorism bona fides. Cite the Constitution and discuss implications as much as you like, your words will fall on deaf ears. Sometimes a lawsuit works its way through the courts, only to be quashed by the uber-conservative judiciary. Maybe a celebrity or other public figure comes up against the policy, makes a YouTube video detailing their experiences, and it briefly makes headlines again. But read the articles closely: most of the People on the Street^TM interviewed for the article have already accepted the new normal. They are quoted saying things like: "Well, as long as it keeps us safe..." or "I'm not doing anything wrong, so what's the big deal?" The blind trust boggles my mind.

I was thinking about this pattern again recently when I read about the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders that a person arrested, even for a minor offense, may be strip-searched at will, regardless of whether prisons officials "suspect the presence of contraband." Justice Anthony Kennedy, once again the deciding vote, apparently thinks courts shouldn't "second-guess" the decisions of corrections officers. I'd love the opportunity to ask Justice Kennedy and the other four pro-strip-search justices of that illustrious body a series of questions:

1. Who should second-guess the decisions of corrections officers, if not you? What the hell are courts for, anyway?
2. Do you believe corrections officers should be given the same free rein we've given to law-enforcement officers, national security agencies, private military companies, etc.?
3. How can I get in on that action?
4. Are there any government entities which should be subject to oversight?
5. Have you ever been strip-searched? Would you consent to a strip-search before deciding to inflict the procedure on other people, many of them innocent?

Of course, I know the answers to these questions, but I'd love to ask them just the same. What I don't know is what, if anything, will happen next. I certainly don't expect much in the way of checks and balances from either of the other two branches of government. In fact, Barack Obama's Justice Department urged the Court to rule in favor of the strip-search law. Congress, meanwhile, is populated by self-serving politicians desperate to keep their jobs and therefore averse to taking any unpopular stand. And let's face it, civil libertarians are a distinct minority.

The humiliation suffered by Albert Florence, the plaintiff in the case (and innocent of the crime for which he was arrested, by the way!), is heartbreaking. And now all arrestees will be subject to the same treatment, without the requirement of "probable cause" and without any legal recourse. This includes not just men and women charged with murder, rape, assault, or drug offenses, but also those detained for trespassing or protesting or living in this country without legal documentation. The threat of a degrading strip search in front of an audience will no doubt be an effective tool for intimidation, along with the others I've already mentioned. Is there any line that, if crossed, will finally make people sit up and take notice?

Why don't people care? The first and easiest answer is fear. The collective PTSD from which this country has been suffering since the 9/11 attacks clearly hasn't abated. Since that day, the American people have seen existential threats around every corner. But I think the answer is a little more nuanced than that. The truth is, most people's lives will not be affected by the Florence ruling or by the PATRIOT Act, illegal wiretaps, indefinite detention, or any of the other manifestations of the National Security State. The vast majority of People on the Street^TM will never be more than a little inconvenienced by our massive military, intelligence, and law-enforcement apparatus (aside from economically, of course), while those directly affected are, for the most part, powerless to do anything about it. And it's easy to discount the rights of powerless minorities: prisoners, the poor, immigrants, Muslims. Americans who loudly proclaim their love of the Constitution in the abstract often start to equivocate when it comes to specifics. "Free speech!" is soon qualified with "...as long as you don't burn a flag or criticize Israel or join a protest march..." People who soliloquize about freedom and small government and personal liberty aren't always prepared to extend those privileges to everyone. Why do red-light cameras make some people angry enough to join an anti-government militia and fight the coming police state, while extraordinary rendition and extrajudicial assassination barely register? Because those things are happening to somebody else. Somebody who probably deserves it, right?

Albert Florence didn't.