Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site alice.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!ark
From: ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: San Quentin strip searches -- a new twist
Message-ID: <3365@alice.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-Feb-85 15:23:56 EST
Article-I.D.: alice.3365
Posted: Sun Feb  3 15:23:56 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Feb-85 04:49:10 EST
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 56

unmvax!cliff posted the following fascinating article:

	SAN FRANCISCO (October 20, 1983)

	Female inmates of San Quentin prison will have to endure strip
	searches and showers under the scrutiny of male guards, says a
	Federal judge who ruled that privacy is secondary to security.

	U.S. District Judge Spencer Williams yesterday dismissed a
	class-action suit brought by three inmates who complained it
	was humiliating to be naked in front of male guards at the
	maximum-security facility.  They also complained some of the
	male guards verbally harassed them.

	Williams said use of male guards didn't violate the inmates'
	constitutional right to privacy and said security needs
	justified the physical observation and hands-on searches by
	correctional officers, including men.

	The ruling protects men's employment rights in correctional
	facilities, said California Attorney General John Van de Kamp."

That article is fascinating because of its source: page 68 of the March
1985 issue of Playboy magazine.

That by itself would not be particularly interesting.  What makes it
fascinating is the surrounding context that Cliff fails to post.  The
news article is taken from a larger essay called "What else do women
want?" by John Gordon.

After quoting the aforementioned article, Gordon goes on to say:

	Unless I am terribly mistaken, the reaction of most readers of
	this or any other publication is probably one of incredulity,
	even shock.  Uniformed men being licensed to grope and abuse
	naked women, against their will, in the name of "men's
	employment rights"?  Can such things be? ... Where are 60
	minutes, Nightline and the various evening news shows?  How is
	it that they all failed to notice, and tell you about, such an
	enormity?

Here comes the fascinating part:

	They didn't tell you about it because the news item quoted,
	though reprinted in its entirety, was transcribed with one
	slight alteration:  My word processor was instructed to run it
	through its find replace function, replacing the word male with
	female and men with women, and vice versa.

And now you know that Cliff isn't telling you the whole truth.

Now that you know what the newspaper article Cliff posted really
says, do you feel any differently about it?


				--Andrew Koenig