Schools Learn Lessons From Strip Searches

Attorneys advise educators seeking drugs to call police

ctlawtribune.com | Sep 14, 2009

By CHRISTIAN NOLAN

With the new school year underway, students may soon see whether their administrators and teachers did their homework over the summer.

If a student is subjected to a strip search and school officials claim they have an unquestioned right to conduct such searches, then the odds are they weren’t paying attention to a U.S. Supreme Court decision released in June.

Connecticut education law experts say the case, Safford Unified School District No. 1, et. al. v. Redding, offers schools further guidance on how and when they might search a student for drugs, money or other contraband.

“Justifying a highly intrusive search is between difficult and impossible in the school setting,” said Thomas B. Mooney, who heads up Shipman & Goodwin’s School Law practice in Hartford. “If you’re in that serious of a situation, I think you call the police and let them deal with it.”

Middle school officials in Safford, Ariz., took a different approach after a student found with pills told a teacher that her supplier was a classmate, Savana Redding. The pills contained ibuprofen and naproxen, the same ingredients as an over-the-counter Advil and Aleve.

Nothing was found in Redding’s backpack so two female administrators searched her clothing. Stripped to her bra and panties, the 13-year-old was forced to shake her underwear so anything hidden would fall out. Nothing did. The school defended its actions by claiming it was part of a crackdown on drug use.

Redding said it was the most “humiliating experience” of her life and, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, filed suit. Attorneys for the school district countered that the courts have always given educators plenty of leeway to keep order in school settings, and a ruling against them could jeopardize student safety.

But lower level courts said the Arizona administrators overreacted, and the Supreme Court ruled that educators, like other public officials, could not conduct unreasonable searches.

“What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear,” Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. “We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable.”

Door Not Closed

Could such a sequence of events unfold in Connecticut? They already have.

Earlier this year, a principal and a teacher at an Ansonia school were fired after strip-searching four students who were suspected of stealing $70 from a teacher. A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of the students.

The Supreme Court case may have reduced the likelihood of future incidents, as education law attorneys are strongly advising educators to call in police rather than try to conduct intrusive searches on their own.

When police intervene, it becomes “a law enforcement function and you’ve removed the student from the presence of the rest of the student body. So then you’ve reduced the danger hopefully,” said attorney Michelle Laubin, who writes the Connecticut Education Law Blog for her firm, Berchem, Moses & Devlin in Milford.

Laubin said the only drawback is that if officers decide not to search a student, and if drugs or weapons aren’t found, it makes it harder for school officials to take disciplinary action.

Laubin added that some districts have banned strip searches, but others will keep the option open, even after the Arizona case. “I don’t think this closes the door on all strip searches involving drugs and weapons,” she said.

Mooney said that before even considering a search, school officials must be sure they have reliable evidence that a student is hiding something. In a best-case scenario, that means a teacher or school official actually witnessing a student tucking something into his or her clothing.

Even then, said Mooney, educators should try to avoid a search. The teacher might say, “’I saw you stuff the drugs down your pants, c’mon give it to me,’” said Mooney. “And in most cases, the kid would comply.”

And if a student is suspected of having weapons? Mooney said that’s grounds for a search, but he noted that firearms are usually large enough that an administrator wouldn’t have to strip a student to his or her underwear to find them.

No Qualified Immunity

This isn’t the first time that the Supreme Court has ruled on student searches.

In 1985, in New Jersey v. T.L.O., the justices ruled that courts must determine whether a search has reasonable chance of turning up evidence and whether it is reasonable in scope and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the students.

Despite the ruling, districts facing lawsuits often continued to claim qualified immunity, which protects government officials who are doing their jobs from being sued unless they violated clearly established law. Districts often argued that the facts of their case were different from those of T.L.O., in which a principal searched the purse of a 14-year-old accused of smoking in the girls’ bathroom and found marijuana and other drug paraphernalia.

Since 1985, judges around the nation have come to different conclusions about immunity for school officials in strip search cases, which led the Supreme Court in the Arizona case to “doubt that we were sufficiently clear in the prior statement of law,” Souter wrote.

The Safford case removes that doubt. The Supreme Court spared the Arizona administrators from damages because the educators believed they enjoyed qualified immunity. But educators in similar future cases will be vulnerable.

“With this [decision], we have a recent Supreme Court case clearly stating that a strip search under these particular circumstances is impermissible,” said Matthew E. Venhorst, an associate at Shipman & Goodwin’s School Law Practice Group. “In the future, if this were to happen again… the qualified immunity doctrine would not be available in light of this case.”

Kelly Moyher, a staff attorney at the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, said school districts were already fairly well versed on the law even before the Supreme Court decision. Part of that was due to T.L.O. But there was also a 2001 New Haven case where 16 female middle school students were strip-searched during gym class after a classmate reported $40 missing. The girls eventually collected $28,500 each in damages.

“I think that school districts are pretty well prepared to deal with situations like this,” Moyher said. Safford “didn’t make any sweeping changes to the law.”

Mooney, who typically answers two or three questions a year from school administrators about student searches, recalled an inappropriate strip search in 1985 at Terryville High School. He said 30 or more male students were searched for alcohol.

Mooney recommended the district apologize to the students and their parents.

“People don’t always sue to get money. Their sense of principle is offended,” said Mooney. “We made a mistake. We [said we’re] sorry and we never got sued. In Safford they didn’t say that, and they went to the Supreme Court.”•

Freemasons await Dan Brown novel `The Lost Symbol’

Brown goes out of his way in “The Lost Symbol” to present the lodge as essentially benign and misunderstood. Masons are praised for their religious tolerance and their elaborate rituals are seen as no more unusual than those of formal religions.

AP | Sep 15, 2009

by Hillel Italie

WASHINGTON – The lodge room of the Naval Masonic Hall is a colorful and somewhat inscrutable sight for the nonmember, with its blue walls, Egyptian symbols, checkered floor in the center and high ceiling painted with gold stars.

Countless secrets supposedly have been shared in this and thousands of similar rooms of the Masons around the world. Facts of life have been debated, honors bestowed, rituals enacted. You would need to belong to a lodge to learn what really goes on.

Or you could simply ask.

“The emphasis on secrecy is something that disturbs people,” says Joseph Crociata, a burly, deep-voiced man who is a trial attorney by profession but otherwise a Junior Grand Warden at the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the District of Columbia.

“But it’s not a problem getting Masons to talk about Masonry. Sometimes, it’s a problem getting them to stop.”

Despite all the books and Web sites dedicated to Freemasons, the Masonic Order has been defined by mystery, alluring enough to claim Mozart and George Washington as members, dark enough to be feared by the Vatican, Islamic officials, Nazis and Communists. In the United States, candidates in the 19th-century ran for office on anti-Mason platforms and John Quincy Adams declared that “Masonry ought forever to be abolished.”

And now arrives Dan Brown.

Six years after Brown intrigued millions of readers, and infuriated scholars and religious officials, with “The Da Vinci Code,” he has set his new novel, “The Lost Symbol,” in Washington and probed the fraternal order that well suits his passion for secrets, signs and puzzles.

Brown’s book, released Tuesday, has an announced first printing of 5 million copies and topped the best-seller lists of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble online. At Kramerbooks in Washington, about two dozen copies were purchased the morning it went on sale and the store expects to easily sell out its order of 150 books.

In “The Lost Symbol,” symbolist Robert Langdon is on a mission to find a Masonic pyramid containing a code that unlocks an ancient secret to “unfathomable power.” It’s a story of hidden history in the nation’s capital, with Masons the greatest puzzle of all.

Brown’s research for “The Da Vinci Code” was highly criticized by some Catholics for suggesting that Jesus and Mary Magdalene conceived a child and for portraying Opus Dei — the conservative religious order — as a murderous, power-hungry sect.

The Mason response could well be milder. Brown goes out of his way in “The Lost Symbol” to present the lodge as essentially benign and misunderstood. Masons are praised for their religious tolerance and their elaborate rituals are seen as no more unusual than those of formal religions. The plot centers in part on an “unfair” anti-Masonic video that “conspiracy theorists would feed on … like sharks,” Langdon says.

“I have enormous respect for the Masons,” Brown told The Associated Press during a recent interview. “In the most fundamental terms, with different cultures killing each other over whose version of God is correct, here is a worldwide organization that essentially says, `We don’t care what you call God, or what you think about God, only that you believe in a god and let’s all stand together as brothers and look in the same direction.’

“I think there will be an enormous number of people who will be interested in the Masons after this book (comes out),” Brown said.

Crociata and other Washington Masons expressed amusement, concern, resignation and excitement about Brown’s novel. Crociata anticipates a “page-turner,” like “The Da Vinci Code,” and assumes, for the sake of a “good read,” that Brown will make the Masons seem more interesting than they actually are.

Fellow Mason Kirk McNulty can’t wait to read the novel: “Dan Brown is a writer of fiction; he’s not writing an article for the Encyclopedia Britannica. Whatever he says is OK. But it would be better if he says something nice about Freemasonry.”

Mason Michael Seay says some members are “not pleased about all the hoopla,” but sees the attention as a chance to “get our story across.” Lodge member Darryl Carter says he expects some “artistic license” and senses from conversations with other Masons that they expect to benefit from the attention.

“We welcome Dan Brown doing his work because Masonry has not had the kind of popularity that it once did and that a work by somebody of Dan Brown’s caliber could really attract people to Masonry,” Carter says.

The Freemasons date back to the Middle Ages, to associations of workmen who built cathedrals in Britain, though some also believe in a connection to ancient times with the mines where King Solomon took material for his Temple. Freemasonry has endured, and transformed. The British began to accept members who were not stonemasons and by the 1700s, lodges were being called “speculative,” philosophical societies rather than worker guilds.

The Masons, Crociata and others emphasize, are not a political or religious organization. No theology beyond the belief in a divine being is required and no causes are advocated beyond millions of dollars in annual contributions to children’s hospitals, cancer wards and other charities.

“This is the world’s oldest fraternity and it has an old and distinguished history,” Crociata says. “There’s much beauty to be found in its ritual. On the other hand, it’s a fraternity, not a religion. It’s a place to get together with guys that you know, that you trust, that you are willing to trust. A place where you can speak from the heart, if you want.”

No official gathering is taking place at the hall on this recent afternoon, so it’s all right for a reporter to have a look around. The Naval Masonic room has features common to other lodges, such as the Mason emblem, a set square and compass and letter “G” (for both God and Geometry), and some decorative images, such as the Egyptian-styled eyes and snakes painted throughout.

Brown’s book moves quickly among such Washington landmarks as the Library of Congress and the Washington Monument and draws upon the Masons’ very public presence in Washington, dating back more than 200 years.

George Washington used a Masonic gavel and trowel in 1793 as he lay the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol. The same trowel would be included 55 years later when President James K. Polk, a Mason, presided over the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument, and again in 1907 when President Theodore Roosevelt, also a Mason, laid a cornerstone for a Masonic temple.

According to “Freemasons for Dummies” author Christopher Hodapp (his book is so well regarded at the Naval lodge in Washington that it’s kept in a glass cabinet outside the meeting room), membership peaked in the United States just after World War II, when there were close to 5 million Masons.

The number dropped in the 1960s, when the Masons seemed hopelessly antiquated to a rebellious generation, and dropped again in the late 1980s as older members died. Hodapp, himself a Mason based in Indianapolis, says there are now around 1.5 million in the U.S. and 3 million worldwide.

“But it’s picking up again, in part because of people like Brown and (novelist) Brad Meltzer (‘Book of Lies,’ ‘Book of Fate’). Younger men are seeing popular references to it. We’re also seeing people from single-parent households who don’t have that kind of brotherhood feeling you get in the lodge,” Hodapp says.

Meetings at the Naval Masonic room are presided over by a Master who sits in a high-backed chair on the East side of the room, in honor of where the sun rises. On the South and West are chairs for the top aides, the senior warden and the junior warden. Only the North, “a place of Masonic darkness” (a belief related to the lighting of Solomon’s Temple) is not represented.

Every lodge has an altar on which is placed a holy book, or books. A Bible is usually there, but because only a belief in a higher being is required, a Quran or other religious text might be found, depending on the religious faith of the members present. The black and white squares of the checkered floor below the altar represent “good” and “evil,” terms the Masons resist defining too closely.

“As far as what is good and bad for any individual … the idea is to inspire thought on some of the important questions of life on the minds of our members so that they can go home and think about them and draw their own conclusions,” Crociata says.

Would-be members pass through three degrees of acceptance: Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason. In “The Lost Symbol,” Brown describes an initiation ceremony that Hodapp says is essentially accurate. A man is blindfolded, has a dagger pressed against his chest and is instructed to vow that, “uninfluenced by mercenary or any other unworthy motive,” he will offer himself as “a candidate for the mysteries and privileges of this brotherhood.”

Brown is not a Mason, but said that working on the novel helped him imagine a time when religious prejudice would disappear and added that he found the Masonic philosophy a “beautiful blueprint for human spirituality.”

He was tempted to join, but, “If you join the Masons you take a vow of secrecy. I could not have written this book if I were a Mason,” he says.

And now?

“They’ve let me know the door is always open.”

Queens Homes Raided Because FBI Worried About Another 9/11

No materials were found in any of the homes.

Gothamist | Sep 15, 2009

Photograph by edEx on Flickr

Yesterday morning, a number of homes in Flushing, Queens were raided as part of an ongoing terror investigation. Senator Chuck Schumer said, “There was nothing imminent,” and described the raids as “preventive,” but now the Daily News says the FBI was worried the suspects may be involved in a Denver-based terror cell. A source said, “The FBI is seriously spooked about these guys planning another 9/11. This is not some … FBI informant-driven case. This is the real thing.”

According to the Post, the main suspect is “a Queens-born man in his late 20s who has an Afghani father” who lives in Denver, “But the investigation quickly turned to New York as intelligence indicated he was heading here to obtain bomb-making materials.” After driving to New York in a rental car, “The man had been in New York for about a week when the raids were unleashed — and he suddenly hot-footed it back to Denver by plane out of La Guardia, sources said.”

A friend of the suspect said that he had operated a coffee cart in NYC before moving to Denver—and that he had returned to deal with a permit issue. The friend told the Times, “I couldn’t imagine some of the kinds of questions [the authorities] asked… I told them everything I know,” adding, “This is our country. We’re going to be citizens soon. We work here, we live here, we love this country as much as you.” Another man in one of the raided homes said everyone worked too hard to be involved with terrorism. No materials were found in any of the homes.

Now the FBI and Department of Homeland Security have issued an alert to law enforcement agencies about bomb-making materials.

Obama supports extending Patriot Act provisions

AP | Sep 15, 2009

By DEVLIN BARRETT

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration supports extending three key provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of the year, the Justice Department told Congress in a letter made public Tuesday.

Lawmakers and civil rights groups had been pressing the Democratic administration to say whether it wants to preserve the post-Sept. 11 law’s authority to access business records, as well as monitor so-called “lone wolf” terrorists and conduct roving wiretaps.

The provision on business records was long criticized by rights groups as giving the government access to citizens’ library records, and a coalition of liberal and conservative groups complained that the Patriot Act gives the government too much authority to snoop into Americans’ private lives.

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama said he would take a close look at the law, based on his past expertise in constitutional law. Back in May, President Obama said legal institutions must be updated to deal with the threat of terrorism, but in a way that preserves the rule of law and accountability.

In a letter to lawmakers, Justice Department officials said the administration supports extending the three expiring provisions of the law, although they are willing to consider additional privacy protections as long as they don’t weaken the effectiveness of the law.

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote Sen. Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that the administration is willing to consider stronger civil rights protections in the new law “provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important (provisions).”

Leahy responded with a statement saying it is important for the administration and Congress to “work together to ensure that we protect both our national security and our civil liberties.”

The committee has scheduled a hearing next week on the Patriot Act.

From 2004 to 2007, the business records provision was used 220 times, officials said. Most often, the business records were requested in combination with requests for phone records.

The lone wolf provision was created to conduct surveillance on suspects with no known link to foreign governments or terrorist groups. It has never been used, but the administration says it should still be available for future investigations.

The roving wiretaps provision was designed to allow investigators to quickly monitor the communications of a suspects who change their cell phone or communication device, without investigators having to go back to court for a new court authorization. That provision has been used an average of 22 times a year, officials said.

Michelle Richardson of the American Civil Liberties Union called the administration’s position “a mixed bag,” and said that the group hopes the next version of the Patriot Act will have important safeguards on other issues, particularly the collecting of international communications, and a specific bar on surveillance of protected First Amendment activities like peaceful protests or religious assembly.

“We’re heartened they’re saying they’re willing to work with Congress,” Richardson said, adding that is “definitely a sea change from what we’ve seen in the past.”

Xe Worldwide (Blackwater) spreads tentacles to Karachi

The Nation | Sep 15, 2009

By Maqbool Malik

Islamabad – US private security outfit Blackwater has begun to expand its presence in Karachi port city in the backdrop of the Peshawar debacle last month when Craig Davis a suspected operative of the US company was caught red handed involved in objectionable activities.

Well-placed sources told The Nation on Monday that Blackwater, which has been operating in the region including in Afghanistan and Pakistan under different names, is believed to have hired on rent at least seven private houses in posh Defence area of Karachi port city.

Sources were not sure whether the move to hire houses was part of any long-term strategy or as a stopgap arrangement because plans were afoot to hire services of retired personnel of Pakistani law enforcement agencies to oversea various operations including logistical support to handle consignments of the US private security company.

It was further learnt from knowledgeable sources that Blackwater had acquired hundreds of acres of land near Pataro in Sindh in order to launch a supposedly Agriculture Research Institute.

Craig Davis along with some other US citizens came into spotlight in Peshawar after their Pakistani neighbours wrote a letter to the Interior Ministry demanding a thorough probe into their dubious activities.

Later Craig Davis was identified as operative of Creative Associates International Inc; a Washington- based US firm believed to be one the wings of Blackwater, now renamed Xe Worldwide. Davis, who had to leave Pakistan, is learnt to have returned again and resumed his “official” activities.

However, despite frequent attempts, it was not immediately possible to contact the US Embassy to confirm the status of Craig Davis.

Male bass in many US rivers feminized, study finds

AP | Sep 14, 2009

by Seth Borenstein

WASHINGTON – Government scientists figure that one out of five male black bass in American river basins have egg cells growing inside their sexual organs, a sign of how widespread fish feminizing has become.

The findings come from the U.S. Geological Survey in its first comprehensive examination of intersex fish in America, a problem linked to women’s birth control pills and other hormone treatments that seep into rivers. Sporadic reports of feminized fish have been reported for a few years.

The agency looked at past data from nine river basins — covering about two-thirds of the country — and found that about 6 percent of the nearly 1,500 male fish had a bit of female in them. The study looked at 16 different species, with most not affected.

But the fish most feminized are two of the most sought-after freshwater sportfish: the largemouth and smallmouth, which are part of the black bass family. Those two species were also the most examined with nearly 500 black bass tallied.

“It’s widespread,” said USGS biologist Jo Ellen Hinck. She is the lead author of the study, published online this month in Aquatic Toxicology. She said 44 percent of the sites where black bass were tested had at least one male with egg cells growing inside.

Past studies have linked the problem to endocrine-disrupting hormones, such as estrogen from women’s medicines. While the fish can still reproduce, studies have shown they don’t reproduce as well, Hinck said.

Intersex fish are also seen as a general warning about what some experts see as a wider problem of endocrine disruptors in the environment.

The egg cells growing in the male fish’s gonads can only be seen with a microscope after the fish has been caught and dissected.

The study used data from 1995 to 2004, when the government stopped funding the research. The only river basin examined that didn’t show any problems was Alaska’s Yukon River Basin.

The Southeast, especially the Pee Dee River Basin in North and South Carolina, had the highest rates of feminization. In Bucksport, S.C., 10 of 11 largemouth bass examined were intersex. In parts of the Mississippi River in Minnesota and the Yampa River in Colorado, 70 percent of the smallmouth bass had female signs.

Hinck said black bass seem to be more prone to the problem, but researchers don’t know why. She also found one common carp that was female with bits of male testes growing inside.

Four Say Mercenaries ‘Killed Iraqis as Sport’

Courthouse News | Sep 15, 2009

By RYAN ABBOTT

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – Four Iraqi shopowners shot by a Blackwater mercenary say Blackwater founder Erik Prince rewarded and promoted employees who “killed Iraqis as sport” and approved of top executives who bragged about “laying Hajjis out on cardboard.” It’s the latest in a slew of lawsuits accusing the founder of Blackwater, now known as Xe, of condoning brutality and murder.

In their federal complaint, three members of the Al Sa’adi family and a fourth man say Prince is directly responsible for their injuries as well as the cruel and random killing of other innocent Iraqi citizens. The Al Sa’adis say they were assaulted and shot by Prince’s mercenaries on Sept. 9, 2007.

Adil Shikhayiss, 37, says he was shot in the leg.

Mahdi Al Sa’adi, 35, says he was shot in the head.

Ammar Sa’Adi, 33, says he was “assaulted by gunfire” and Ali Al Sa’adi says he was assaulted. All four say they operated and owned a shop that was “seriously damaged” by the gunfire.

The complaint accuses Prince of encouraging senseless violence against innocent civilians by rewarding soldiers who “killed Iraqis as sport.” Such soldiers “tended to rise higher” in Prince’s empire, according to the complaint.

Prince “directly and personally supervises the conduct of his employees in Iraq by means of 24-hour remote monitoring using sophisticated technology,” according to the complaint. “This monitoring is done in what is referred to as the ‘war room’ located in Moyock, North Carolina. Most of Mr. Prince’s employees are wholly unaware of this real-time monitoring.”

They claim that “On or about September 9, 2007, one of Mr. Prince’s employees, a man named Evan Liberty, drove through the streets of Baghdad firing an automatic weapon from a port hole of an armored Blackwater vehicle. Mr. Liberty fired without reason, and fired without regard for who might be struck by the rounds.

“Plaintiffs were among those damaged struck by Mr. Liberty’s wanton shooting. Other victims have filed suit in this District.”

The complaint adds: “Mr. Prince personally intended that his private army of men kill and wound innocent Iraqis, including plaintiffs here.

“Not all men employed by Mr. Prince participated in this private army intent on killing innocent Iraqis, but a substantial number did so. Those who killed and wounded innocent Iraqis tended to rise higher in Mr. Prince’s organization than those who abided by the rule of law.

“Mr. Prince was well aware that his men, including his top executives in Moyock, North Carolina, viewed shooting innocent Iraqis as sport.”

Prince also approved of his top executives bragging about “laying Hajjis out on cardboard” and their collective role in “killing those of Islamic faith,” according to the complaint.

The plaintiffs also complain of “night hunting,” in which Prince’s mercenaries use night-vision goggles to shoot people at random from Prince’s privately owned helicopters after 10 p.m.

The men say Prince knew or should have known all this was happening. They also say Prince or his employees destroyed videographic and documentary evidence.

They accuse Prince of racketeering, war crimes, assault and battery, and destroying evidence. They seek compensatory damages and “punitive damages in an amount to strip Mr. Prince of the substantial revenue he earned from his pattern of constant misconduct and callous disregard for human life.”

Prince, of McLean, Va., is the only defendant. The plaintiffs are represented by Susan Burke with Burke O’Neil.

Jimmy Carter: Wilson comments ‘based on racism’

Associated Press | Sep 15, 2009

by Greg Bluestein

ATLANTA – Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst to President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week was an act “based on racism” and rooted in fears of a black president.

“I think it’s based on racism,” Carter said in response to an audience question at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. “There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.”

The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.

“Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care,” he said. “It’s deeper than that.”

Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, was formally rebuked Tuesday in a House vote for shouting “You lie!” during Obama’s speech to Congress last Wednesday.

The shout came after the president commented that illegal aliens would be ineligible for federal subsidies to buy health insurance. Republicans expressed their disbelief with sounds of disapproval, punctuated by Wilson’s outburst.

Tuesday’s rebuke was a rare resolution of disapproval pushed through by Democrats who insisted that Wilson had violated basic rules of decorum and civility. Republicans characterized the measure as a witch hunt and Wilson, who had already apologized to Obama, insisted he owed the House no apology.

Wilson’s spokesman was not immediately available for comment, but his eldest son defended his father.

“There is not a racist bone in my dad’s body,” said Alan Wilson, an Iraq veteran who is running for state attorney general. “He doesn’t even laugh at distasteful jokes. I won’t comment on former President Carter, because I don’t know President Carter. But I know my dad, and it’s just not in him.”

“It’s unfortunate people make that jump. People can disagree — and appropriately disagree — on issues of substance, but when they make the jump to race it’s absolutely ludicrous. My brothers and I were raised by our parents to respect everyone regardless of background or race.”

South Carolina’s former Democratic Party chairman said that he doesn’t believe Wilson was motivated by racism, but said the outburst encouraged racist views.

“I think Joe’s conduct was asinine, but I think it would be asinine no matter what the color of the president,” said Dick Harpootlian, who has known Wilson for decades. “I don’t think Joe’s outburst was caused by President Obama being African-American. I think it was caused by no filter being between his brain and his mouth.”

Harpootlian said he received scores of racial e-mails from outside South Carolina after he talked about the vote on Fox News.

“You have a bunch of folks out there looking for some comfort in their racial issues. They have a problem with an African-American president,” he said. “But was he motivated by that? I don’t think so. I respectfully disagree with President Carter, though it gives validity to racism.”

Carter called Wilson’s comment “dastardly” and an aftershock of racist views that have permeated American politics for decades.

“The president is not only the head of government, he is the head of state,” he said. “And no matter who he is or how much we disagree with his policies, the president should be treated with respect.”

Can Obama force you to buy health insurance?

Yahoo News | Sep 14, 2009

By Anthony Gregory

Oakland, Calif. – Many liberals lambasted the Bush administration on detention policy and warrantless surveillance, often arguing that they violated the Constitution. Now the Obama administration is pushing ahead with plans to require every American to purchase health insurance.

Doesn’t that also violate the Constitution?

The Constitution created a federal government limited to its enumerated powers. Everything Congress is allowed to do is spelled out in Article I. The 10th Amendment makes it explicit: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Nothing in the Constitution authorizes any federal involvement in healthcare – yet Congress may soon require everyone in America to buy insurance.

Admittedly, the Supreme Court has ruled that the language empowering Congress to “regulate Commerce … among the several States” applies to an ever-broadening range of activity. The “commerce” clause was originally intended to prohibit interstate tariffs, a supposed problem under the Articles of Confederation.

Ironically, consumers today cannot freely buy health insurance from across state lines. If there’s any legitimate application of the “commerce” clause, it would be to overturn such restrictions. But the framers never gave Congress the general power to regulate industry.

In the 1935 case Schecter v. United States, involving farming regulations, the court unanimously struck down parts of the National Industrial Recovery Act for overstepping Congress’s commerce power. Liberal Justice Louis Brandeis informed one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s aides to “tell the president that we’re not going to let this government centralize everything.”

The next year, the court ruled in Butler v. United States that elements of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which inflated food prices by restricting supply, violated the 10th Amendment.

After FDR threatened to pack the court with additional judges friendly to the New Deal, the court lost its spine. In 1937, it upheld the National Labor Relations Act – which greatly expanded the power of labor unions and greatly diminished the freedom of contract – under the “commerce” clause.

In Wickard v. Filburn (1942) the justices even upheld the conviction of a man for growing too much wheat on his farm. The court reasoned that even wheat grown solely for private consumption ultimately had an impact on the economy, turning the “commerce” clause into a regulatory rubber stamp.

The “commerce” clause is now interpreted very broadly. Although in United States v. Lopez (1995) the court struck down a firearms law that exceeded Congress’s commerce power, it ruled 10 years later in Gonzales v. Raich that federal drug policy overrode California’s medical marijuana laws, despite the 10th Amendment.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented: “If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress’ Article I powers … have no meaningful limits.” Indeed, practically nothing is beyond the pale anymore.

Then there is the privacy issue. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), Roe v. Wade (1973), and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) the court found reproductive freedom to be guaranteed as an implicit right to privacy. In Casey, the court reasoned that abortion entailed “the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy,” and that such choices are “central to the liberty protected by the 14th Amendment.”

Why wouldn’t this apply to the right to decide whether to buy health insurance?

Other constitutional concerns emerge. The mass collection of medical data likely to occur under proposed reforms threatens the Fourth Amendment’s “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.” Making it a crime not to buy insurance, and then forcing people to show they have not bought it, arguably clashes with the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.

The Ninth Amendment reserves to individuals all rights not expressly denied by the Constitution. Nothing in the document curtails our right not to purchase health insurance. And being forced to fill out forms to apply for insurance is in tension with the 13th Amendment’s prohibition of “involuntary servitude.”

The quality we could expect from government care may also raise constitutional questions. In early August, a federal panel ordered California to release 40,000 inmates because the health services were so strained, causing one unnecessary prisoner death per week, so as to render the treatment “unconstitutional.” If we all become captive consumers under federal mandate, could we not similarly argue that any shoddiness in our mandated health services is an unconstitutional burden?

Those who find such constitutional arguments unconvincing are often quick to invoke them against policies they oppose. Similarly, some of today’s critics of President Obama and national healthcare brandish the Constitution as a holy document, but were silent when President George W.Bush trampled its many limitations on executive power, and even signed an expansion of Medicare.

A newfound, consistent, and lasting respect for the Constitution, across the ideological spectrum, would renew the health of our republic like nothing else.

Anthony Gregory is a research analyst at the Independent Institute and the author of a forthcoming book on habeas corpus.