GoodGame
Red, White, & Blue, baby!
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2004
- Messages
- 13,725
I think you're confusing the intent of the actions under the law. The intent is not to dominate, create military discipline, create a police/terror state etc, but you insist on reading that all into the law in question. The intent was simply to protect. In this case, to prevent a suspected harmful distribution of drugs.
Agreed, they had a very poor judgement call that there was a threat (based on another teen's testimony) and probably took the search beyond what was reasonable---but it's hard to judge without having the statement of the teen who narced out the girl. For the sake of arguement, lets say that nearly nothing that one student narcs out another is worth a strip search unless it's a deadly weapon (dagger/firearm).
Anyways, the trust arguement, while idealistic, doesn't go far, because violence in the classroom does exist. It's not a pink unicorn.
Anways, to answer your paradox, it's very simple---it's government property. We tend to surrender rights on government property---firearms in court, searches at the airport, etc... A public school, where people's children might conceivably be at risk for harm, is no different.
And I fail to see how an educational professional can't be given the necessary training that a cop has, to the context of a school. People, especially government employees, are cross-trained all the time. It seems a lame rationale to say that a professional can't be cross-trained and empowered.
Imho, it's not that there needs to be a choice between absolute trust, or absolute vigiliance, but there needs to be a protocol blueprint defining the limits and responsibilities, which is why this case was a big fail. Like FP says, this is just a precedent. And the precedent isn't doing much to set the protocol. So really this judgement isn't doing much but pointing to one extreme example.
