USA - House is still dismantling the Fourth Amendment

[old hippie 56]

House Approves Strip Search Bill

A bill approved by the U.S. House on Tuesday would require school districts around the country to establish policies making it easier for teachers and school officials to conduct wide scale searches of students. These searches could take the form of pat-downs, bag searches, or strip searches depending on how administrators interpret the law.

The Student Teacher Safety Act of 2006 (HR 5295) would require any school receiving federal funding--essentially every public school--to adopt policies allowing teachers and school officials to conduct random, warrantless searches of every student, at any time, on the flimsiest of pretexts. Saying they suspect that one student might have drugs could give officials the authority to search every student in the building.

DPA supporters and others who opposed this outrageous bill called their members of Congress this week to express their disapproval. However, House leaders circumvented the usual legislative procedure to bring the bill to a quick vote. It did not pass through the committee process, but went straight to the House floor. There, it was passed by a simple voice vote, so constituents cannot even find out how their Representative voted.

The bill moves next to the Senate, but it is unlikely to be considered there this session.

Bill Piper, DPA's director of national affairs, said, "It looks like this bill was rushed to the House floor to help out the sponsor, Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY/4th), who is in a tight re-election race. This vote lets him say he's getting things done in Washington. But I would be surprised to see a similar push in the Senate."

HR 5295 is opposed in its current form by several groups, including the Drug Policy Alliance, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the ACLU, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Parent Teacher Association, the American Association of School Administrators, and the National School Boards Association.

DPA will be watching the bill so that if and when it does come up again, this wide array of opponents can mobilize to stop it.

Source: DPAlliance

Reputation Comments on this post:

ridiculous but its important to know the truth and you have kept swim informed.

[N0ly]

And i hope they do stop it. schools can already search you without a warent if you are in school and on campus. or at least the school i went to. if you did not allow them to search you they would arrest you. my friends thought i was funny to call the snitch line and give them my name and say i had illegal substances. so every other week or so the police would come get me and i would get searched. nothing was ever found of course. trust me if they think you have anything they wont stop until you let them search you. not to mention the police officers with the k-9 unit walking around school. my school was not very fun.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

If there is still some sanity left in this country it'll be overturned. So no guarentees.

[Nagognog2]

They have a little game they play in Washington. I call it: Let's Hide The Bill.

It's played like this: You write a piece of legislature that makes it illegal to rape 6 month-old babies. Then you write 99 more pages of legislature making it legal for the police to remove your intestines to search for drugs, and to torture your wife to make you confess to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby in the 1930's.

Now your congressman and/or senator are told to sign this bill - or else the Republikans will claim you are a baby-raper.

Think I'm kidding? Guess again.

Reputation Comments on this post:

your wit is always appreciated

[Beeker]

Geez, I'm glad I grew up in a time when High Schools had a smoking section and getting caught with weed was a trip to the weekend detention like 'Breakfast Club.'

[Trebor]

WHen I was in school they would search lockers, mainly for fireworks but some drugs would be found. If the school had spent as much time helping us learn, I might be abl;e to do math better as it was normaklkly during math the searches were dione. I hated that place, so much.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

My school had metal detectors at the main entrance and had random locker searches every few weeks or so. Some guys were always pinched for weed or crystal every time.

[El Calico Loco]

The conspiracy nut in me suspects that public school is designed the way it is to indoctrinate kids into a controlled way of life; if they grow up with fascism, they'll be accustomed to it as adults.

No, I didn't enjoy public school. Like, at all.

I recommend The Underground History of American Education. It was written by John Taylor Gatto, a former Teacher of the Year in New York. He uses quotes taken directly from those who designed and built the US public education system to show that it was intended not to educate, but to dumb down. It is available online.

It's depressing to read.


ECL

[old hippie 56]

Down here in Texas, the teachers have been accused of teaching the assement tests. Mostly, so the school will post a high score which means more money. When swim graduated back in the seventies, the schools were ok, but now they are more concerned with violating what little freedoms the kids got left. His step-son quit this year due to a bunch of bullshit pretaining to a fight. He got jumped in the bathroom by three football players, two went to the er, step-son went to jail. Swim asked the judge why the other kids didn't go to jail? No comment. Ball players rule in Texas, you reckon?

[Riconoen {UGC}]

He put two football players in the ER? Damn that's one tough son of a bitch.

[El Calico Loco]

Originally Posted by old hippie 56

Down here in Texas, the teachers have been accused of teaching the assement tests. Mostly, so the school will post a high score which means more money. When swim graduated back in the seventies, the schools were ok, but now they are more concerned with violating what little freedoms the kids got left.

A friend of mine is a teacher in Tejas. He's said similar things. He's really tired of all the politics and bullshit.

I've read that public schools were pretty good when they were controlled locally - now that they are dictated to by Washington, there are too many bureaucrats (who make ridiculous salaries and never interact with the kids) and too much politics.

I remember one case from Oklahoma, a few years back; the legislature had set aside a cool million to put air conditioning in the Oklahoma City public schools. Mind you, Oklahoma is very hot - I can't imagine trying to learn while sweating my ass off in a stuffy classroom. Mysteriously, the AC never did get installed. No one seems to know what happened to the money. It was Just Gone.

I suppose it's in the nature of bureaucracies to become bloated and useless.


ECL

[Nagognog2]

During the Vietnam War, any kids who dared speak out against the USA back where I was from would find themselves fed to the school psychiatrists. It was not a school of learning - it was a factory-line to produce good, obedient little soldiers for the government meat-grinder.

One kid just plain couldn't learn to read (his name was Johnney of Why Can't Johnney Read? fame). His mother demanded an explanation. So they said he had ADHD and ordered him to take seconal and ritalin! He wouldn't. So they told the mother the kid was banned from school and if she made any noise, her kid would be committed to the state mental hospital forever. That would mean a lobotomy.

Mustn't expose the failure of the super-expensive educational system. He never did learn how to read.