William Marsden in The Windsor Star:
“In contrast (Lila: to the US Supreme Court in its 2012 ruling on strip-searches), the Canadian Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that “strip searches are inherently humiliating and degrading for detainees regardless of the manner in which they are carried out and for this reason they cannot be carried out simply as a matter of routine policy.” The court added: “Police must establish reasonable and probable grounds justifying the strip search.”
Not so in the U.S., where police and prison guards – and in some cases even school officials – have carte blanche. This led recently to the repeated strip and cavity search of an El Paso woman who was crossing the Mexican border back into the U.S. After a police dog barked at her, police took her into a room and strip and cavity searched her, according to her lawsuit. When they found nothing, they took her to a local hospital, where she was again strip and cavity searched, forced to take laxatives and given a CT scan. Ultimately, police found nothing and released her. The hospital later sent her a bill of more than $5,000 for the procedures.
Incidents of privacy violations happen with such frequency, Americans appear to have lost their capacity even to blink. Strip searching has become regular fodder for comedians. Network TV commentators were more interested in “procedure” and claimed the outcry from India was “cultural.”
More than 60 years ago, the Nazis implemented strict procedures for the murder of more than six million Jews.
In the minds of thousands of Germans who aided and abetted in these state crimes, following procedures – or orders (it amounts to the same thing) – had the effect of absolving them of personal responsibility and, probably in many cases, guilt.
How many people in the U.S. are strip searched each year? Figures aren’t available. But consider this: according to the FBI, in 2011 there were 3,991 arrests for every 100,000 people. That means there is the potential for at least 12.8 million strip searches. That, of course, is if procedures are followed. This week’s report on the NSA’s bulk surveillance programs questioned whether the idea of “balancing” security needs against basic human rights is always a legitimate excuse. “Some safeguards are not subject to balancing at all,” the authors concluded.
“When government infringes the right of privacy, the injury spreads far beyond the particular citizens targeted to untold numbers of other Americans who may be intimidated,” the report noted, quoting the 1976 Church Committee investigation into intelligence gathering.”