The Right to be left alone: In Defense of the Right to Privacy and Humanity
I refer to the provocative and lucid article of Naomi Wolf, “How the US uses sexual humiliation as a political tool to control the masses” which appeared on the Guardian overwhelmingly disparaging and heavily criticizing the outrageous ruling of the US supreme court.
As she stated:
“Believe me, you don't want the state having the power to strip your clothes off. And yet, it's exactly what is happening”.
The crux of the matter is as follows:
“In a five-four ruling this week, the supreme court decided that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor, at any time. This horror show ruling joins two recent horror show laws: the NDAA, which lets anyone be arrested forever at any time, and HR 347, the "trespass bill", which gives you a 10-year sentence for protesting anywhere near someone with secret service protection. These criminalizations of being human follow, of course, the mini-uprising of the Occupy movement.
“Is American strip-searching benign? The man, who had brought the initial suit, Albert Florence, described having been told to "turn around. Squat and cough. Spread your cheeks." He said he felt humiliated: "It made me feel like less of a man."”
One of those jurists who voted for the majority, justice Anthony Kennedy explained “that this ruling is necessary because the 9/11 bomber could have been stopped for speeding. How would strip searching him have prevented the attack?”
Wolf’s retort is so logically instructive:
“Did justice Kennedy imagine that plans to blow up the twin towers had been concealed in a body cavity? In still more bizarre non-logic, his and the other justices' decision rests on concerns about weapons and contraband in prison systems. But people under arrest – that is, who are not yet convicted – haven't been introduced into a prison population.”
Further she firmly asserted the: “Our surveillance state shown considerable determination to intrude on citizens sexually.”
Worst, this sexual exploitation and sexual dehumanization was also used to a massive degree to the “militants, the terrorists and Al Qaeda”. Who would forget those brutal pictures of sexual brutality and extreme inhumanity in the Abu Ghraib?
In Guantanamo prison, “where young female guards stood watch over the forced nakedness of Muslim prisoners, who had no way to conceal themselves.”
And then there's the sexual abuse of prisoners at Bagram, where American GI’s exploited and oppressed those detainee as if they are human beings but like toys and mere objects! Who would forget the photos of the dogs, while those US soldiers are torturing systematically those prisoners while at the same time they are having their animalistic and bacchanalian orgy in a grand and utterly disgusting manner?
Yes, I concur to Ms. Wolf that:
“Believe me: you don't want the state having the power to strip your clothes off. History shows that the use of forced nudity by a state that is descending into fascism is powerfully effective in controlling and subduing populations.
“The political use of forced nudity by anti-democratic regimes is long established. Forcing people to undress is the first step in breaking down their sense of individuality and dignity and reinforcing their powerlessness. Enslaved women were sold naked on the blocks in the American south, and adolescent male slaves served young white ladies at table in the south, while they themselves were naked: their invisible humiliation was a trope for their emasculation. Jewish prisoners herded into concentration camps were stripped of clothing and photographed naked, as iconic images of that Holocaust reiterated.”
Then, she talked about the issue of “patted down”. This is nothing more than a “sexually perverse intrusiveness of the state during an airport "pat-down", which is always phrased in the words of a steamy paperback ("do you have any sensitive areas? … I will use the back of my hands under your breasts …").”
This is a sham judgment, indeed a frivolous ruling! Undeniably, this pronouncement of the court is the heights of absurdity and idiocy!
They have the guts and the balls to call their land the land of the free! Shame on them! They are now the empire of the slaves! The world as a whole must stand up as One to counter this attack upon Man!
The central substantive issue here is the Humanity of Man and his inherent rights as against the enormous and overwhelming powers of the state.
Ms. Wolf also offered us a grim analysis of this ruling. She said that:
“The most terrifying phrase of all in the decision is justice Kennedy's striking use of the term "detainees" for "United States citizens under arrest". Some members of Occupy who were arrested in Los Angeles also reported having been referred to by police as such. Justice Kennedy's new use of what looks like a deliberate activation of that phrase is illuminating.”
It seems to me and there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the conservative faction in the US supreme court not only raped the constitution but undeniably violated viciously all their magnificent jurisprudence defending the constitutional and human rights of the citizens, including the foreigners.
This stupid and detestable ruling of that bloody moronic court completely demolished and destroyed the constitutional rights of the citizens as embodied and enumerated in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.
It is my fervent contention and firm position that the government has no rights whatsoever to invade the privacy of the individual neither to crush his physical rights over his body.
Each individual is a part and parcel of the sovereign whole. Hence, it follows that the moment the state violated and dishonor a citizen’s body, that government is also violating and tearing the whole body politic.
The duty of a true government is to respect and protect the individuality and autonomy of each citizen.
The right to privacy of the individual does not only entail his rights to be left alone; but it also includes the rights of the said person not to be harass, dishonor, to be violated physically and/or humiliated by the state’s unreasonable and unjust intrusion to his body and person.
Further, it is my considered view and so holds that this preposterously outrageous ruling by that kangaroo court, clearly reveals the sharp division not only of the ideas and the temperament of the justices involved, but incontestably their class biases, personal prejudices, politico-moral orientations and socio-economic backgrounds.
The ruling of this ridiculous court is also a reflection of American society as a whole. Inasmuch that the American proclaimed to the world that they are united, that is not the case! That is not true! That is a big and a blatant lie. There is no shadow of doubt that they are a fragmented and utterly divided empire.
I would also argue that the ruling clearly shows the legal and moral decadence of one of their so-called vital institutions. Imagine the scene, a citizen went to the court to demand that the state defend, protect and respect his rights; what happened was a complete legal fiasco! The court, not only sided with the state but also trampled, reduced, abused, diminished and legalized the bastadization and prostitution of his rights based on this so-called ‘majority’ ruling.
Ms. Wolf asked such a categorical question:
“Where are we headed? Why? These recent laws criminalizing protest, and giving local police – who, recall, are now infused with DHS money, military hardware and personnel – powers to terrify and traumatise people who have not gone through due process or trial, are being set up to work in concert with a see-all-all-the-time surveillance state. A facility is being set up in Utah by the NSA to monitor everything all the time: James Bamford wrote in Wired magazine that the new facility in Bluffdale, Utah, is being built, where the NSA will look at billions of emails, texts and phone calls. Similar legislation is being pushed forward in the UK.
“With that Big Brother eye in place, working alongside these strip-search laws, – between the all-seeing data-mining technology and the terrifying police powers to sexually abuse and humiliate you at will – no one will need a formal coup to have a cowed and compliant citizenry. If you say anything controversial online or on the phone, will you face arrest and sexual humiliation?
“Remember, you don't need to have done anything wrong to be arrested in America any longer. You can be arrested for walking your dog without a leash. The man who was forced to spread his buttocks was stopped for a driving infraction. I was told by an NYPD sergeant that "safety" issues allow the NYPD to make arrests at will. So nothing prevents thousands of Occupy protesters – if there will be any left after these laws start to bite – from being rounded up and stripped naked under intimidating conditions.”
I agree with the incisive contention of our bold correspondent that one of the reasons why these inhumane and barbaric acts are happening because it will benefit those “warlords”,” war-businessmen”, those military hawks and private military contractors (such as Blackwater USA) “who profited from endless war and surveillance – but now I see the struggle as larger.”
As one internet advocate said: "There is a race against time: they realise the internet is a tool of empowerment that will work against their interests, and they need to race to turn it into a tool of control."
Consider the following report of Chris Hedges:
"There are now 1,271 government agencies and 1,931 private companies that work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States, the Washington Post reported in a 2010 series by Dana Priest and William M Arken. There are 854,000 people with top-secret security clearances, the reporters wrote, and in Washington, DC, and the surrounding area 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2011."
Indeed, “this enormous new sector of the economy has a multi-billion-dollar vested interest in setting up a system to surveil, physically intimidate and prey upon the rest of American society.”
I condemn to the highest possible degree with outrageous, ridiculous and patently illegal ruling of the US supreme court. This ‘law’ is void ab initio. Void from the beginning for the very reason that it does not contain any resemblance of propriety or even the slightest color of legality due to its being oppressive, discriminatory, and capricious. Indeed, the ruling is a grave violation of human rights and the constitutional rights of the people as a whole.
However, I still believe in the other half of America, the good America, the America of the working class, the America of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther Kings, jr., Frederick Douglass, etc.
I still believe in the American Declaration of Independence that: we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they have unalienable rights that includes the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and if the government or the state negate and/or subvert these rights; it is the moral, the constitutional, legal and human rights of the citizens and all the people as a whole to launch or wage an insurrection or revolution to right and restore those inherent rights.
Why? It is because the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
In the immortal words of Patrick Henry:
“As for me, give me liberty or give me death”.
Subang Jaya, Malaysia
April 9, 2012
I refer to the provocative and lucid article of Naomi Wolf, “How the US uses sexual humiliation as a political tool to control the masses” which appeared on the Guardian overwhelmingly disparaging and heavily criticizing the outrageous ruling of the US supreme court.
As she stated:
“Believe me, you don't want the state having the power to strip your clothes off. And yet, it's exactly what is happening”.
The crux of the matter is as follows:
“In a five-four ruling this week, the supreme court decided that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor, at any time. This horror show ruling joins two recent horror show laws: the NDAA, which lets anyone be arrested forever at any time, and HR 347, the "trespass bill", which gives you a 10-year sentence for protesting anywhere near someone with secret service protection. These criminalizations of being human follow, of course, the mini-uprising of the Occupy movement.
“Is American strip-searching benign? The man, who had brought the initial suit, Albert Florence, described having been told to "turn around. Squat and cough. Spread your cheeks." He said he felt humiliated: "It made me feel like less of a man."”
One of those jurists who voted for the majority, justice Anthony Kennedy explained “that this ruling is necessary because the 9/11 bomber could have been stopped for speeding. How would strip searching him have prevented the attack?”
Wolf’s retort is so logically instructive:
“Did justice Kennedy imagine that plans to blow up the twin towers had been concealed in a body cavity? In still more bizarre non-logic, his and the other justices' decision rests on concerns about weapons and contraband in prison systems. But people under arrest – that is, who are not yet convicted – haven't been introduced into a prison population.”
Further she firmly asserted the: “Our surveillance state shown considerable determination to intrude on citizens sexually.”
Worst, this sexual exploitation and sexual dehumanization was also used to a massive degree to the “militants, the terrorists and Al Qaeda”. Who would forget those brutal pictures of sexual brutality and extreme inhumanity in the Abu Ghraib?
In Guantanamo prison, “where young female guards stood watch over the forced nakedness of Muslim prisoners, who had no way to conceal themselves.”
And then there's the sexual abuse of prisoners at Bagram, where American GI’s exploited and oppressed those detainee as if they are human beings but like toys and mere objects! Who would forget the photos of the dogs, while those US soldiers are torturing systematically those prisoners while at the same time they are having their animalistic and bacchanalian orgy in a grand and utterly disgusting manner?
Yes, I concur to Ms. Wolf that:
“Believe me: you don't want the state having the power to strip your clothes off. History shows that the use of forced nudity by a state that is descending into fascism is powerfully effective in controlling and subduing populations.
“The political use of forced nudity by anti-democratic regimes is long established. Forcing people to undress is the first step in breaking down their sense of individuality and dignity and reinforcing their powerlessness. Enslaved women were sold naked on the blocks in the American south, and adolescent male slaves served young white ladies at table in the south, while they themselves were naked: their invisible humiliation was a trope for their emasculation. Jewish prisoners herded into concentration camps were stripped of clothing and photographed naked, as iconic images of that Holocaust reiterated.”
Then, she talked about the issue of “patted down”. This is nothing more than a “sexually perverse intrusiveness of the state during an airport "pat-down", which is always phrased in the words of a steamy paperback ("do you have any sensitive areas? … I will use the back of my hands under your breasts …").”
This is a sham judgment, indeed a frivolous ruling! Undeniably, this pronouncement of the court is the heights of absurdity and idiocy!
They have the guts and the balls to call their land the land of the free! Shame on them! They are now the empire of the slaves! The world as a whole must stand up as One to counter this attack upon Man!
The central substantive issue here is the Humanity of Man and his inherent rights as against the enormous and overwhelming powers of the state.
Ms. Wolf also offered us a grim analysis of this ruling. She said that:
“The most terrifying phrase of all in the decision is justice Kennedy's striking use of the term "detainees" for "United States citizens under arrest". Some members of Occupy who were arrested in Los Angeles also reported having been referred to by police as such. Justice Kennedy's new use of what looks like a deliberate activation of that phrase is illuminating.”
It seems to me and there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the conservative faction in the US supreme court not only raped the constitution but undeniably violated viciously all their magnificent jurisprudence defending the constitutional and human rights of the citizens, including the foreigners.
This stupid and detestable ruling of that bloody moronic court completely demolished and destroyed the constitutional rights of the citizens as embodied and enumerated in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.
It is my fervent contention and firm position that the government has no rights whatsoever to invade the privacy of the individual neither to crush his physical rights over his body.
Each individual is a part and parcel of the sovereign whole. Hence, it follows that the moment the state violated and dishonor a citizen’s body, that government is also violating and tearing the whole body politic.
The duty of a true government is to respect and protect the individuality and autonomy of each citizen.
The right to privacy of the individual does not only entail his rights to be left alone; but it also includes the rights of the said person not to be harass, dishonor, to be violated physically and/or humiliated by the state’s unreasonable and unjust intrusion to his body and person.
Further, it is my considered view and so holds that this preposterously outrageous ruling by that kangaroo court, clearly reveals the sharp division not only of the ideas and the temperament of the justices involved, but incontestably their class biases, personal prejudices, politico-moral orientations and socio-economic backgrounds.
The ruling of this ridiculous court is also a reflection of American society as a whole. Inasmuch that the American proclaimed to the world that they are united, that is not the case! That is not true! That is a big and a blatant lie. There is no shadow of doubt that they are a fragmented and utterly divided empire.
I would also argue that the ruling clearly shows the legal and moral decadence of one of their so-called vital institutions. Imagine the scene, a citizen went to the court to demand that the state defend, protect and respect his rights; what happened was a complete legal fiasco! The court, not only sided with the state but also trampled, reduced, abused, diminished and legalized the bastadization and prostitution of his rights based on this so-called ‘majority’ ruling.
Ms. Wolf asked such a categorical question:
“Where are we headed? Why? These recent laws criminalizing protest, and giving local police – who, recall, are now infused with DHS money, military hardware and personnel – powers to terrify and traumatise people who have not gone through due process or trial, are being set up to work in concert with a see-all-all-the-time surveillance state. A facility is being set up in Utah by the NSA to monitor everything all the time: James Bamford wrote in Wired magazine that the new facility in Bluffdale, Utah, is being built, where the NSA will look at billions of emails, texts and phone calls. Similar legislation is being pushed forward in the UK.
“With that Big Brother eye in place, working alongside these strip-search laws, – between the all-seeing data-mining technology and the terrifying police powers to sexually abuse and humiliate you at will – no one will need a formal coup to have a cowed and compliant citizenry. If you say anything controversial online or on the phone, will you face arrest and sexual humiliation?
“Remember, you don't need to have done anything wrong to be arrested in America any longer. You can be arrested for walking your dog without a leash. The man who was forced to spread his buttocks was stopped for a driving infraction. I was told by an NYPD sergeant that "safety" issues allow the NYPD to make arrests at will. So nothing prevents thousands of Occupy protesters – if there will be any left after these laws start to bite – from being rounded up and stripped naked under intimidating conditions.”
I agree with the incisive contention of our bold correspondent that one of the reasons why these inhumane and barbaric acts are happening because it will benefit those “warlords”,” war-businessmen”, those military hawks and private military contractors (such as Blackwater USA) “who profited from endless war and surveillance – but now I see the struggle as larger.”
As one internet advocate said: "There is a race against time: they realise the internet is a tool of empowerment that will work against their interests, and they need to race to turn it into a tool of control."
Consider the following report of Chris Hedges:
"There are now 1,271 government agencies and 1,931 private companies that work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States, the Washington Post reported in a 2010 series by Dana Priest and William M Arken. There are 854,000 people with top-secret security clearances, the reporters wrote, and in Washington, DC, and the surrounding area 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2011."
Indeed, “this enormous new sector of the economy has a multi-billion-dollar vested interest in setting up a system to surveil, physically intimidate and prey upon the rest of American society.”
I condemn to the highest possible degree with outrageous, ridiculous and patently illegal ruling of the US supreme court. This ‘law’ is void ab initio. Void from the beginning for the very reason that it does not contain any resemblance of propriety or even the slightest color of legality due to its being oppressive, discriminatory, and capricious. Indeed, the ruling is a grave violation of human rights and the constitutional rights of the people as a whole.
However, I still believe in the other half of America, the good America, the America of the working class, the America of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther Kings, jr., Frederick Douglass, etc.
I still believe in the American Declaration of Independence that: we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they have unalienable rights that includes the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and if the government or the state negate and/or subvert these rights; it is the moral, the constitutional, legal and human rights of the citizens and all the people as a whole to launch or wage an insurrection or revolution to right and restore those inherent rights.
Why? It is because the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
In the immortal words of Patrick Henry:
“As for me, give me liberty or give me death”.
Subang Jaya, Malaysia
April 9, 2012