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Your
Innocence
Is
No
Protection
by Harry
Browne
December 6,
2003
When the politicians violate the Bill of Rights with the Patriot Act or
some other guaranteed-to-bring-peace-and-security-to-the-world scheme, they
always reassure us by saying:
"If you aren't guilty, you have nothing to fear."
If only that were so. The truth is that innocence is no protection at all
against government agencies with the power to do what they think best
— or against a government agent hoping
for promotion and willing to do whatever he can get away with.
• Tell a businessman he has nothing to fear from the piles of forms
he must file to prove he doesn't discriminate.
• Tell a home owner he has nothing to fear when his property is
seized by the government in a mistaken —
or contrived — drug raid.
• Tell a taxpayer he has nothing to fear when the IRS drags him into
a "taxpayer compliance" audit that eats up a week of his life, costs
him thousands of dollars in accounting fees, and threatens him with
unbearable penalties.
It is the innocent who suffer most from government's intrusions. How many
times have we seen the following pattern?
1. The press and politicians demand that something be done about
violent crime, terrorist acts, drug dealing, tax evasion, or whatever
is the Urgent Concern of the Month.
2. A tough, new, take-no-prisoners law or policy is put into place.
3. After the dust settles, the initial "problem" continues unabated,
because the guilty continue to slip through the net. But the innocent
are left burdened with new chores, expenses, and hazards
— more mandatory reports to file,
less privacy, reduced access to products and services, higher costs,
heavier taxes, and a new set of penalties for those who shirk their
duty to fight in the War on ___________ (fill in the blank).
4. And, needless to say, the ineffectual law is never repealed.
Being innocent doesn't allow you to ignore the government's demands for
reports — or to say "No, thanks" when a
government agent wants to search your records, your place of business, or
your home — or to refuse to observe
regulations that were aimed at the guilty, not you.
When coercion is used to solve social problems, we all suffer. The
coercion fails to achieve its stated aims, but it is wondrously effective at
harming the innocent.
Even worse, every year a few million innocent people suffer special
burdens — greater than those the
government places on all of us. The dismantling of the Bill of Rights has
allowed the government to disrupt their lives, confiscate their property, or
even kill them — even though they've
committed no crimes.
I hope you never become one of them.
Not Even Ministers Are Safe
For example, suppose you're a 75-year-old minister living in Boston.
You've worked all your life to console those who are poor in money or
spirit.
One afternoon 13 men with sledgehammers break down the door and charge
into your apartment. They're wearing helmets, battle fatigues, and boots
— and they're armed with shotguns and
pistols.
They force you to the floor, pin your legs and arms, and handcuff you.
They scare you so badly you suffer a heart attack
— and within 45 minutes you're dead.
Who were these criminals?
They weren't "criminals." They were members of a SWAT team searching for
drugs and guns. There wasn't anything illegal in your apartment, as you
could have told them if they had stopped long enough to ask you.
But they didn't stop and they didn't ask. They didn't have to. They
knew you were a bad guy, and they weren't going to allow you to escape
or to flush your drug inventory down the toilet.
Six weeks after you die, it is revealed that the SWAT team raided the
wrong apartment. You have been completely exonerated. But, unfortunately,
the government can't bring you back to life.
Not one of the SWAT team members — or
the prosecutor who okayed the raid — was
prosecuted or suffered any career damage for causing the death. Compare that
with a pot smoker who is hurting no one but might have to spend several
years in prison if he gets caught.
This isn't fiction. It is the story of the Reverend Acelynne Williams,
and how he died on March 26, 1994.1
Fatal
Attractions
And the tale isn't extraordinary. Donald Scott was
shot to death when a task force of 27 men smashed into his house in Malibu,
California, on October 2, 1992. They claimed Mr. Scott was growing marijuana
— although their only evidence turned
out to be a false report from an anonymous informant.2
Similar stories can be told of other people who were shot without
warning, whose homes were torn apart, or who went to prison for resisting
arrest — people like Harry Davis of Fort
Washington, Maryland; Charlotte Waters of Los Angeles; David Gordon of
Bridgeport, Connecticut; Xavier Bennett, Jr., of Atlanta; Kenneth Baulch of
Garland, Texas; Robin Pratt of Everett, Washington; William Grass of
Kentucky; Albert Lewin of Boston; Manuel Ramirez of Stockton, California;
Charles DiGristine of Titusville, Florida; and Donald Carlson of San Diego.3
All of them were innocent. But all of them had plenty to fear from
government. And now their families will always fear government as much as
any Soviet citizen did.
By ignoring the Bill of Rights, acting on anonymous tips and intruding
without warrants, government agents have put all of us in jeopardy
— the innocent as much as the guilty.
Maybe you haven't been hurt yet by a government agent acting on a
malicious report or on his own ambition. So far, a mean-minded office rival
or business competitor hasn't stooped to giving a false tip about you to the
police or the IRS.
Be thankful. And hope it doesn't happen next year. You might not be given
time to prove your innocence.
The Bill of Rights Is for the Innocent
The outrages I've mentioned violate the Bill of Rights.
Because government schools don't teach much about Constitutional
safeguards, many people think the Bill of Rights is just a
Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card for criminals. And they wonder why we should
protect the rights of killers and thieves.
But the Bill of Rights wasn't written to protect criminals. It was
designed to protect you:
• To make sure a zealous prosecutor can't take
you to court over and over again on the same charge — searching for a
jury that will convict you.
• To make sure the police can't break into your home unannounced on
the mere chance that you might have some drugs or illegal weapons
stashed in your closet.
• To make sure politicians can't confiscate your home or other
property to fulfill some dream of social reform.
• To make sure you don't have to answer questions put to you by the
police — so a ruthless policeman
can't twist your words out of context or browbeat you into confessing
something you didn't do.
• To make sure your attorney can cross-examine any accuser or any
witness against you.
Of course these safeguards protect the guilty as well as the innocent.
But brushing them aside gives government employees the power to do as they
wish — to harass whomever they
claim is guilty.
Why There's So Much Violent Crime
And these safeguards, which are respected less and less every year,
haven't been letting the guilty off. Crime rates haven't skyrocketed because of criminals using the Bill of
Rights to their advantage.
Crime is soaring. . .
• Because the government's War on Drugs has transformed a minor
social problem into an immensely profitable enterprise for those
willing to defy the law;
• Because many of the government's schools have become cesspools;
• Because the government packs the prisons with non-violent
offenders, making it necessary to release the thugs early;
• Because the government diverts law-enforcement resources to
fighting victimless crimes — as
well as to affirmative action, gun control, and other social reforms
— leaving too little with which to
protect your life and property; and
• Because government schools teach young people that inequality of
wealth is unjust — providing a
moral justification for taking from someone more "fortunate" than
oneself.
The government has inspired or abetted a thousand criminals for each one
it has freed on a legal technicality.
Why the Bill of Rights Is Important
When Constitutional safeguards are honored, they rescue innocent people
far more often than they let the guilty slip away.
In fact, new laws that violate the Bill of Rights usually hurt the
innocent more than the guilty.
The truly guilty make it their business to be aware of a new law and
take steps not to let it ensnare them. But the innocent, secure in the knowledge that
their innocence will protect them, suddenly find their property confiscated
through asset forfeiture — or their
liberty destroyed by zealous police or prosecutors trying to pad their
conviction records.
And when the Bill of Rights is ignored and an innocent person is
convicted, the truly guilty are left free to continue committing violence.
That's why the Bill of Rights must apply to all people
— citizens or aliens, innocent or
presumed guilty, nice guys or thugs.
Unfortunately, the Constitutional safeguards are ignored more and more by
Congress, the police, federal officials, and the courts. Disregarding the
Bill of Rights has done nothing to reduce the crime rate, but it has put
your life and mine in jeopardy.
As a result, we have neither physical protection from the guilty nor
legal protection for the innocent.
Until the Bill of Rights is a living document again, I hope the
government doesn't think you're suspicious or covet your property for one of
its programs.
Your innocence probably won't protect you.
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This article was adapted from a passage in
Why Government Doesn't Work,
the complete text of which is now available for downloading at
LibertyFree.com.
1This story in recounted in detail in Reason
magazine, May 1995, page 48.
2The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 1993, page
A11.
3These stories are recounted in
Lost Rights by James
Bovard. |