U.S. Supreme Court upholds humiliating strip searches

Albert Florence stood against a biting wind in a darkened parking lot outside the car dealership where he works, striking back against the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s gut-wrenching, because it doesn’t make any sense,” Florence said of the court’s 5-4 ruling that his civil rights were not violated when he was strip-searched twice in 2005. This terrifying ordeal occurred when he spent six days locked up in county jails for an unpaid fine that he had, in fact, paid. ( nj.com, April 7)

Florence, an African-American married father of four, angrily noted that the April 2 decision on the treatment of noncriminal detainees appeared to fall along political lines. “I read it. … It seems political, which in all honesty, I think it is,” Florence said.

Florence described his ordeal as “humiliating.” “It made me feel like less of a man,” he said. (Guardian (UK)

The Supreme Court decision has put its imprimatur on recent actions by the U.S. government to deny civil and human rights to anyone whom they suspect of not falling in line with U.S. policies.

Writing in the New York Times, Naomi Wolf, a well-known political activist and author, states that the U.S. government “has shown considerable determination to intrude on citizens sexually. There’s the sexual abuse of prisoners at Bagram — Der Spiegel reports that ‘former inmates report incidents of … various forms of sexual humiliation. Inmates were raped with sticks or threatened with anal sex.’ There was the stripping of Bradley Manning in solitary confinement. And there’s the policy set up after the story of the ‘underwear bomber’ to grope U.S. travelers genitally or else force them to go through a machine — made by a company, Rapiscan, owned by terror profiteer and former DHA czar Michael Chertoff — with images so vivid that it has been called the “pornoscanner.” (guardian.co.uk)

Wolf puts it quite directly: “History shows that the use of forced nudity by a state that is descending into fascism is powerfully effective in controlling and subduing populations.”

An ominous phrase in the recent Supreme Court decision was Justice Anthony Kennedy’s use of the term “detainees” for “United States citizens under arrest.” Some members of Occupy who were arrested in Los Angeles also reported having been referred to by police with the same term. Justice Kennedy’s new use of what looks like a deliberate activation of that phrase is illuminating.

“Ten years of association have given ‘detainee’ the synonymous meaning in America as those to whom no rights apply — especially in prison. It has been long in use in America, habituating us to link it with a condition in which random Muslims far away may be stripped by the American state of any rights. Now the term — with its associations of ‘those to whom anything may be done’ — is being deployed systematically in the direction of … any old American citizen.” (guardian.co).uk)

As for Albert Florence, he has vowed to continue his fight. He has other lawsuit claims pending for wrongful arrest and wrongful detention. He and his lawyer are also considering their options at the Supreme Court level. They intend to petition the high court for a rehearing of the case, a request some lawyers say is rarely granted.

“I don’t give up on anything,” Florence said. At the same time, Florence said he worries about the strip-search rule that’s been sanctioned by his case. “I worry more so for my kids,” he said. “It’s something that I think we all — and I’m not talking about any particular race, or any particular class of people — but we all … should kind of come together and try and fight this thing.” (nj.com, April 6)