Ä [7] ALT.POLITICS.LIBERTARIAN (1:375/48) ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ALT.POLITICS.LIBERTARIAN Ä Msg : #5529 [179] From : an25970 1:2613/335 Fri 29 Apr 94 23:20 To : All Subj : Clinton's War on Freedom ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ From: an25970@anon.penet.fi Organization: Anonymous contact service [reprinted without permission] San Antonio Express-News Saturday, 23 April 1994 page 10D (Commentary) Slick Willie's Constitution Marianne Means As part of an all-out effort to look tough on crime, President Clinton is proposing some convoluted legal gyrations to circumvent our fundamental constitutional protection against random police searches of private residences without a warrant. It may be good politics. The last thing a Democratic president wants in this era of violence and fear is to be charged with being a softie. But as law it stinks, and it is dangerous to boot. This is the kind of too-clever-by-half tricky maneuver that earned the president the nickname Slick Willie. He endorsed an indirect and dubious method of reaching a popular political goal that the courts will not let him reach by a more direct route. He treats the Constitution as an inconvenience, although surely he cannot have forgotten all those fundamental legal principles he used to teach as a professor at the University of Arkansas law school. The president is willing to make low-income public housing residents second-class citizens in the name of stamping out crime. He would have them waive their rights to allow the police to rummage through their private possessions at will in entire buildings without demonstrating probable cause. This is a policy that ignores the Founding Fathers' concern that abusive, unchecked police power can pose a major threat to democracy. And if you think the police don't need such limitations, check out the current corruption shakeup in New York City, where 14 police officers are charged with selling drugs, protecting dealers and intimidating their victims. If the Clinton waive-your-rights policy can be forced on low-income folks, it can ultimately be stretched to the rest of us. The Constitution does not have one set of rights for the well-off and another, inferior set for the poor. His policy is predicated on the false notion that undercutting the Constitution is the only way to fight crime. Yet there are other ways, and some may even be a lot more effective. Even the president himself proposes some of the alternatives, such as more police patrolling common areas in public housing projects and quicker police response to specific illegal incidents. A week ago, Clinton disagreed in his radio address with a Chicago judge who forbade police to sweep into the low-income, crime-riddled Robert Taylor Homes withoiut warrants and search the buildings, apartment by apartment, for weapons and drugs. The judge refused to suspend the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prohibiting unreasonable searches and siezures, calling such sweeps "a greater evil than the danger of criminal activity. " Clinton ordered the Justice Department to figure out a way around this constitutional awkwardness. Within a week, his minions had complied, issuing a new public housing policy that encourages tenant leases to include clauses which require consent in advance to unannounced police intrusions. The immediate target is Chicago, but it would apply to all public housing projects across the country. This was justified as no different, really, from typical renter lease clauses that allow owners' agents to enter private residences in an emergency, such as a plumbing problem. Horsefeathers. Maintenance inspections legitimately occor only on some identifiable schedule or when there is probable cause to believe a specific crisis exists at a specific location, such as water dripping from a neighbor's ceiling or smoke belching from a window. These inspectors do not paw through people's personal possessions, nor do they show up at will because of events elsewhere in the neighborhood. Nor, according to White House briefers, is this waiver of rights supposed to amount to coercion, definately a constitutional no-no. It would be entirely voluntary. Sure. Prospective tenants, poor families who badly need scarce affordable shelter, could refuse to sign the pertinent clause, and they could also be denied an apartment if they do so. The White House further encouraged tenant associations to vote en masse to approve such lease clauses in order to demonstrate their voluntary nature. Yet nowhere does the Constitution suggest that a majority can take away the rights of neighbors in the minority who may not want to lose those rights. It very firmly spells out the opposite. Clinton seems untroubled by these constitutional niceties and may in fact not care very much whether he can impose his will or not. It is the politics of the matter that he cares about. He has positioned himself in opposition to the American Civil Liberties Union, the chief legal vehicle through which challenges to the policy would come to the courts. For a Democrat dedicated to maintaining a moderate image, this is a good political place to be. No Democrat with political ambition has forgotton how George Bush destroyed his 1988 presidential rival, Democrat Michael Dukakis, by dubbing him a "card-carrying member of the ACLU," which certified Dukakis as a liberal, a word Bush regularly pronounced with scorn. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi. --- * Origin: COBRUS - Usenet-to-Fidonet Distribution System (1:2613/335.0)