EDITORIAL: Over the Limit
drcnet.org
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
It's not clear who should be more surprised -- the St. Paul
resident who thought she had admitted census workers to her home,
only to find out they were police on a drug bust -- or the police
officers, who thought they could get away with it, but instead
now find themselves facing criticism and possible discipline.
It's not hard to find drug war participants testing the limits of
propriety. The Office of National Drug Control Policy didn't
expect the credits for TV show content component of their ad
campaign to turn into a scandal (though they must have had some
inkling it could, having kept it very quiet until a reporter
brought it out). Nor did ONDCP expect to get flack over its use
of "cookies" in the Internet portion of the ad campaign, or to
have to stop using them.
More serious, however, are those police squadrons, often "SWAT"
teams, who batter down doors in the middle of the night, or the
early morning, because an informant of questionable reliability
-- often being paid to come up with something, anything -- said
there was drug activity. Sadly, these squadrons have for the
most part avoided such criticism, because the practice of "no-
knock" warrants and drug war paramilitarism has become
commonplace and accepted into standard police procedures.
It takes the death of an innocent, such as the Rev. Accelyne
Williams in Boston, to even get the issue raised, and changes in
such procedures, let alone disciplinary action for reckless
tactics that endanger residents' lives, are all but unknown. The
enforcers and their bosses find the element of surprise more
important, evidently, than the safety or well being of the
homeowners, their terrified children or their neighbors.
The heart of the problem is that the drug war is a war where the
enemy can be anyone, in plain view anywhere, and is hiding
everywhere. Unlike true crimes, where there is a complaining
victim, this enemy has only collaborators who wish to remain
hidden as well. To find their hidden targets, drug enforcers
feel they must employ highly aggressive or deceptive tactics,
such as breaking down doors, hiring paid informants or
impersonating census workers, trying to be anywhere and
everywhere themselves.
In this atmosphere of war -- no, of siege -- the ability of many
enforcers to make rational and ethical decisions is damaged, and
the standards of conduct in our police forces have deteriorated
as a result. Combine this with the ideological zealotry promoted
by drug war leaders, and the resulting "anything goes" climate
tends to lead to improprieties, turning into outrages, over and
over again.
That's why cops can impersonate census workers, or the national
drug control office can buy TV program content, violate the
privacy of Internet surfers or collaborate with China's murderous
criminal justice system, without, in all likelihood, giving it a
second thought, and certainly with no expectation of anyone
calling foul.
We must, therefore, continue to call foul, continue to press for
privacy and due process, tighten the limits on the drug police
and rein in the drug war once and for all. Because only in a
police state can the enforcers be everywhere as they would like,
and the drug war must be stopped before it reaches that point.
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