FC: Tim May on the worrisome trend toward "signing away rights"

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

----- Forwarded message from Tim May -----

From: Tim May
Subject: The trend toward "signing away rights"
To: cypherpunks
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 20:24:13 -0800
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.548)

I'm watching a New York television news show reporting on one of the 
recent cases where people sign away their rights. This is about 
requests sent out by schools that parents of students sign a pledge 
that alcohol, loud parties, and late night activities will not be 
permitted at their homes and that schools and local police will be 
permitted to inspect the houses without warrants for violations. The 
news report says that most parents have signed the pledge. So, what of 
parents who don't? What of parents who send back the note with a "FUCK 
YOU!" message? Probable cause? The kid faces hassles in the state-run 
school?

(Voluntarism is not the issue, as there is no voluntariness involved 
when a state-financed, state-run school, working with the police, sends 
out such notices.)

For several weeks I have seen television shows--usually on the NBC 
fascist network, but sometimes on ABC--where it is assumed that "9/11 
changed everything," that the Fourth Amendment no longer applies, that 
the 5th and 6th Amendments no longer are what they were. (The First is 
not mentioned, I expect because even television liberal whores know 
this is important to them. The Second is treated as having been defunct 
since Colonial times, with only criminals having guns.)

Last night had a plot device on "The Practice" (a generally bad 
show...I ought to stop watching) where nearly all residents in an 
upscale burbclave had signed a pledge--reminiscent of my opening 
point--where owners of cars would invite the police to stop their cars 
and search them without a warrant of any kind, without even today's lax 
probable cause. Obedient citizen-units would place a bumper sticker on 
their vehicles giving up their Fourth Amendment expectations of being 
secure in their papers and possessions. Those who didn't have the 
bumper sticker, well, there are a _lot_ of cops out there with nothing 
better to do between donut breaks than to stop cars without stickers 
for "suspicious reasons."

(I wonder what would happen if a bumper sticker said "I support the 
Fourth Amendment. Just in case you don't, I have a gun.")


--Tim May
"They played all kinds of games, kept the House in session all night, 
and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers 
actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members 
before the vote." --Rep. Ron Paul, TX, on how few Congresscritters saw 
the USA-PATRIOT Bill before voting overwhelmingly to impose a police 
state

----- End forwarded message -----



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