Ethicalego Speaks

Oakland California and Washington D.C. officials propose a Consent-to-Search law that allows police searches of homes without a warrant. They have little respect for Americans’ constitutional Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
This proposal is another example how when given an opening the government always tries to extend its powers abusively into human rights areas. Ideas of community policing already allowed government intrusion where constitutionally it did not belong. Now cities use this precedent to intrude more into the peoples’ rights.
This misuse of policing authority is similar to misuse of the military. Like military people in the ranks, police officers on the street endure citizens’ displeasure about unpopular decisions administrators and elected officials make.
The city of St. Louis installed a Consent-to-Search for guns program in 1995 based on standards of the community policing according to information in the Oakland, California police proposal. Police officers knocked on doors in violent areas and asked parents or guardians’ permission to search for weapons a juvenile may have hidden. They confiscated all found weapons with the promise not to follow with prosecution unless the gun connected to a crime. Later they ended this program abruptly without explanation.
Now, Oakland California and Washington D.C. propose similar programs. Oakland promises they will remove the gun and not level a criminal charge unless the gun was involved in a shooting or homicide. A Washington spokesperson says they will grant immunity if they find evidence during the searches about other crimes.
Those conditions set the stage for potential police mischief. Police may have evidence too weak to get a search warrant that a juvenile committed a crime. This law will allow them to ask the parent for consent-to-search for a gun. The parents may grant permission from respect for the officers believing the claim they are looking for stashed guns for safety reasons and with no intent to prosecute anybody. In fact, the result will be an intentional warrantless search for evidence of a crime.
What is the harm of police asking for this consent-to-search or conducting the search if the parents have nothing to hide? Why not cooperate with the police and get those dangerous guns out of the hands of children and off the street?
Do I care that it gets a kid involved in a shooting is off the street? No, I would be pleased they removed him or her from the community. Do I care the police used parents respect for them as an end run around their child’s constitutional protections? Yes, I do, because this erosion of trust and compromise of constitutional protections reduces those protections for all of us.
There are many problems with this tactic. First, this police officer request will intimidate many people to agree to a warrantless search that they prefer not to take place. Second, this tactic violates the privacy, the inviolability of the home and the dignity for everybody living there. This is especially true when they find no weapons and nobody living there committed a crime. They are guilty only of living where criminals have more control in the community than law enforcement agencies.
Some stranger rifling through belongings and inspecting the most private areas of someone’s home is repulsive and humiliating. People have the right and the need for dignity even if they live in a violent area of a city. Government officials violate this right just by asking them to surrender constitutional protections without a reasonable suspicion they committed a crime.
In addition, government treats citizens unequally when it forces some of them to make this choice, but not residents in other areas. Some of the most horrific gun violence happened in suburban schools. Nevertheless, I did not read about requests to install a consent-to-search law there.
We need new ideas for limiting juvenile crime, violence and gun possession. Nevertheless, it is irresponsible for Oakland officials to suggest that residents sacrifice their rights as part of a violence suppression program that promises little success. It is unethical for them to do this while California Governor Schwarzenegger plans to divert money from schools to balance the state budget.
Schwarzenegger’s plan will make marginally performing schools worse. It will make a life with academic success and jobs less likely for struggling students in those schools and a life of crime and gun violence more likely.
Government officials have an ethical duty to honor the spirit and letter of constitutional protections when they approve new laws and policy. They should have quashed this proposal from the start. I hope, Oakland City Council will reject this proposal. If not, Oakland residents should exercise their right to search for officials that are more responsible.