‘We the Prisoners’: The Demise of the Fourth Amendment

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

“Our carceral state banishes American citizens to a gray wasteland far beyond the promises and protections the government grants its other citizens… When the doors finally close and one finds oneself facing banishment to the carceral state—the years, the walls, the rules, the guards, the inmates…the incarcerated begins to adjust to the fact that he or she is, indeed, a prisoner. New social ties are cultivated. New rules must be understood.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic

In a carceral state—a.k.a. a prison state or a police state—there is no Fourth Amendment to protect you from the overreaches, abuses, searches and probing eyes of government overlords.

In a carceral state, there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite.

In a carceral state, there are only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.

With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, “we the people”—the prisoners of the American police state—are being pushed that much further into a corner, our backs against the prison wall.

This concept of a carceral state in which we possess no rights except for that which the government grants on an as-needed basis is the only way I can begin to comprehend, let alone articulate, the irrational, surreal, topsy-turvy, through-the-looking-glass state of affairs that is being imposed upon us in America today.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we who pretend we are free are no different from those who spend their lives behind bars.

Indeed, we are experiencing much the same phenomenon that journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates ascribes to those who are banished to a “gray wasteland far beyond the promises and protections the government grants its other citizens” : a sickening feeling, a desire to sleep, hopelessness, shame, rage, disbelief, clinginess to the past and that which is familiar, and then eventually resignation and acceptance of our new “normal.”

All that we are experiencing—the sense of dread at what is coming down the pike, the desperation, the apathy about government corruption, the deeply divided partisanship, the carnivalesque political spectacles, the public displays of violence, the nostalgia for the past—are part of the dying refrain of an America that is fading fast.

No longer must the government obey the law.

Likewise, “we the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law.

While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled.

For instance, in a recent 5-3 ruling in Utah v. Strieff, the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for police to stop, arrest and search citizens without reasonable suspicion or probable cause, effectively giving police a green light to embark on a fishing expedition of one’s person and property, rendering Americans completely vulnerable to the whims of any cop on the beat.

In a blistering dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted the court: “This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants—even if you are doing nothing wrong… So long as the target is one of the many millions of people in this country with an outstanding arrest warrant, anything the officer finds in a search is fair game for use in a criminal prosecution. The officer’s incentive to violate the Constitution thus increases…”

Just consider some of the many other ways in which the Fourth Amendment—which ensures that the government can’t harass you, let alone even investigate you, without probable cause—has been weakened and undermined by the courts, the legislatures and various government agencies and operatives.

Americans have no protection against mandatory breathalyzer tests at a police checkpoint, although mandatory blood draws violate the Fourth Amendment.

Ignorance of the law is defensible if you work for the government.

Police officers can use lethal force in car chases without fear of lawsuits.

Police can perform a “no-knock” raid as long as they have a reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence would be dangerous or futile.

Police can carry out warrantless searches on homes, cars, persons and property based on a “reasonable” concern that a suspect (or occupant) might be attempting to flee or destroy evidence.

Police can forcibly take your DNA, whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime.

Police can subject Americans to virtual strip searches, no matter the “offense.”

Police have free reign to use drug-sniffing dogs as “search warrants on leashes.”

Police can conduct sobriety and “information-seeking” checkpoints.

Police officers are free to board a bus, question passengers, and ask for consent to search without notifying them of their right to refuse.

Police can arrest you for minor criminal offenses, such as a misdemeanor seatbelt violation, punishable only by a fine.

Refusing to answer when a policeman asks “What’s your name?” can rightfully be considered a crime. No longer do Americans, even those not charged with any crime, have the right to remain altogether silent when stopped and questioned by a police officer.

Police may stop any vehicle as long as they have reasonable cause to believe that a traffic violation occurred. A vehicle can be stopped even if the driver has not committed a traffic offense.

Police officers can stop cars based only on “anonymous” tips. Police can also pull you over if you are driving too carefully, with a rigid posture, taking a scenic route, and have acne.

What many Americans fail to understand is the devastating amount of damage that can be done to one’s freedoms long before a case ever makes its way to court by government agents who are violating the Fourth Amendment at every turn. This is how freedoms, long undermined, can give way to tyranny through constant erosion and become part of the fabric of the police state through constant use.

Phone and email surveillance, databases for dissidents, threat assessments, terror watch lists, militarized police, SWAT team raids, security checkpoints, lockdowns, roadside strip searches: there was a time when any one of these encroachments on our Fourth Amendment rights would have roused the public to outrage. Today, such violations are shrugged off matter-of-factly by Americans who have been assiduously groomed to accept the intrusions of the police state into their private lives.

So when you hear about the FBI hacking into Americans’ computers without a warrant with the blessing of the courts, or states assembling and making public terror watch lists containing the names of those who are merely deemed suspicious, or the police knocking on the doors of activists in advance of political gatherings to ascertain their plans for future protests, or administrative government agencies (such as the FDA, Small Business Administration, Smithsonian, Social Security, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Mint, and Department of Education) spending millions on guns and ammunition, don’t just matter-of-factly file it away in that part of your brain reserved for things you may not like but over which you have no control.

It’s true that there may be little the average person can do to push back against the police state on a national level, but there remains some hope at the local level as long as we recognize that the only way the police state can truly acquire and retain power is if we relinquish it through our negligence, complacence and ignorance.

Unfortunately, we have been utterly brainwashed into believing the government’s propaganda and lies. Americans actually celebrate with perfect sincerity the anniversary of our independence from Great Britain without ever owning up to the fact that we are as oppressed now—more so, perhaps, thanks to advances in technology—than we ever were when Redcoats stormed through doorways and subjected colonists to the vagaries of a police state.

You see, by gradually whittling away at our freedoms—free speech, assembly, due process, privacy, etc.—the government has, in effect, liberated itself from its contractual agreement to respect our constitutional rights while resetting the calendar back to a time when we had no Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the government.

Aided and abetted by the legislatures, the courts and Corporate America, the government has been busily rewriting the contract (a.k.a. the Constitution) that establishes the citizenry as the masters and agents of the government as the servants. We are now only as good as we are useful, and our usefulness is calculated on an economic scale by how much we are worth—in terms of profit and resale value—to our “owners.”

Under the new terms of this one-sided agreement, the government and its many operatives have all the privileges and rights and “we the prisoners” have none.


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kokoda
kokoda

Regardless of the militarily weaponized police, we outnumber them.

James the Wanderer

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.

Wasn’t that JFK? Funny how that quote is rarely taught in public schools these days. Can’t start giving the peons ideas.

BUCKHED
BUCKHED

A weaponized police force considers itself impervious to harm when they are in their armored vehicles . 75 cents worth of bullets renders their armor useless . The engine bay isn’t protected . Neither are the electronic goodies in the back .

The courts keep poking the American people . The poke back won’t be nice on day .

Ghost

Bucked, I’m sorry but I had to report you. Having once been a Classified Document Custodian for a big military industrial complex corporate welfare contract, I can’t help but notice all the RED FLAGS in your comments about the vulnerable points in the armor of Security Personnel. It is almost as if you are sending some sort of messages to other like-minded trouble-makers about how to assault an armored public safety vehicle.

(I want you to think about the Orwellian Newspeak implications of calling an armored assault vehicle manned with a SWAT team a “public safety vehicle.”)

Anonymous
Anonymous

Actually, those things -the military surplus ones and most of the latest non military ones- are pretty much impervious to most civilian owned bullets, even 50 caliber stuff.

But if things ever reach a point like that, armored vehicles in general and indiscriminate use against civilians in battle situations, we will have deteriorated to the point that it doesn’t make much difference since which side the majority of the military goes with will determine the outcome.

Let’s hope we never see that.

anarchyst
anarchyst

Our present condition in this country, the lack of trust , which seems to be endemic in today’s culture can be traced back to our second “prohibition”–the “war on (some) drugs”.
When drug testing was instituted, the seeds of mistrust were sown. No longer could you take one’s word whether (illegal) drug use was part of their life, but one was forced to “pee in a cup” to PROVE one’s “purity”. Of course, the testing labs loved this one as it was a whole new market established and funded by government fiat.
This falls into line with changes in police and court practices. SWAT teams, along with “dynamic entry”–smashing everything in sight without good reason and terrorizing the occupants, became commonplace and were routinely used to violate 4th amendment rights of citizens against illegal search and seizure. The subsequent militarization of law enforcement, fostering an “us vs. them” attitude against the citizenry has done absolutely no good. Police, in many areas are a “occupying force”–not unlike Israeli forces in Gaza.
Rubber-stamp warrants based on questionable police tactics, using “drug informants”–those who had been “caught” with illegal drugs themselves, were routinely used to make more drug “busts”.
Informants were paid with drug money, were many times unreliable, and caused much grief and harm against innocents. All they had to do is claim that a person or residence had drugs; that was good enough for the “drug warriors.
The courts chimed in with the Supreme Court carving out a “drug exception” to the Fourth Amendment. This not only gave police “carte blanche” to pretty much do whatever they wanted, without fear of repercussion, the ugly head of “asset forfeiture” was raised. As is the case now, “law enforcement” can take a person’s cash with impunity (and now in Oklahoma, debit cards) without the person being charged or convicted of any crime.
One sad aspect of the second “drug war” was that of pain management. Doctors are routinely investigated for prescribing “too many pain medications” (opiates) by drug warriors who are not doctors themselves. This has resulted in the undertreatment of many patients because doctors fear being brought up on drug charges themselves. It is well known in pain management circles that those patients in need of proper pain control do develop a “tolerance” and dosages need to be increased. The drug warriors have seen to it that proper pain management will be punished.
This erosion of Constitutional rights has been going on for a long time.

Ghost

“now in Oklahoma, debit cards”? explain please.

Excellent argument, I think!

anarchyst
anarchyst

Due to unconstitutional “asset forfeiture”, police can now contrive a traffic stop, ask for permission to search. If refused, they will come up with any reason to search anyway, and then scan prepaid and regular debit and credit cards and just take the money. Legalized robbery? Absolutely yes…

Wip
Wip

Maggie

There are electronic card readers that the police can use to swipe cards during traffic stops. They can swipe a card and take all the money out of the associated account.

Ghost

I know that now. I looked it up after I posted my query.

Now, Nick and I seem exceedingly smart for deciding to open multiple bank accounts last year in order to spend our money out quicker.

I can imagine getting stopped for a ticket and them discovering that overdue book at the library in Oklahoma.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Why are people giving them their credit and debit cards instead of just their drivers licenses and vehicle registrations?

Do they have some kind of law involved that lets police take them without permission?

yahsure
yahsure

Even cops/politicians need to walk out their front door eventually. Tyrants all want an unarmed populace that doesn’t question anything.(fear and ignorance)

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