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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!js2j
From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: a good example
Message-ID: <1109@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Aug-85 17:32:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.1109
Posted: Thu Aug 29 17:32:14 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Aug-85 07:17:56 EDT
References: <4229@alice.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 31

> I saw a news article today about a woman who was strip-searched
> for a dog license violation, and was all set to be incensed until
> I read further.
[she was supposed to go to court about her dog...]
> However, she never showed up in court.  Some time later, she was
> stopped because her car was out of registration.  When the cop
> did a routine license check, he discovered that she was wanted
> for failure to appear in court and took her to the police station.
> 
> At the station, further checking disclosed that she had been arrested
> on drug charges twelve years earlier.  The police department has a
> standing policy in that town: if someone is arrested who has ever
> before been arrested on drug charges, the prisoner is strip-searched
> for concealed drugs.
> 
> Now, I'm not going to try to argue about whether this particular
> policy is right or wrong -- I can see arguments on both sides.
> Rather,  I am presenting this article as a warning against
> jumping to conclusions.  The situation described in the first paragraph
> is utterly absurd.  Once the facts are known, the situation becombs
> at least plausible, at least if you take the view that not
> showing up for a court date is a much more severe offense than
> not registering a dog.

     Unless you're one of those unreasonable persons who think that
unreasonable search without probable cause is unconstitutional, unethical
and immoral.     
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
    "Roads?  Where we're going, we won't need any roads!"