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Show and Tell Me
Everything
by Lady Liberty
It likely comes as no real surprise to anybody that some of my friends consider
me the "go to" person whenever some question of civil liberties arises. So when
the phone rang last week and a friend told me he needed my opinion on a matter
of rights, I was ready to tell him what I knew, or to steer him in the direction
of an appropriate web site for more information. But every time I think I'm
prepared, it turns out that the forces of authority have gone just a little
further than I could have expected, and I must overcome my disgust just to deal
with some matter that should never have become an issue in the first place.
My friend has a couple of dogs. They're friendly and gregarious animals, so it
made perfect sense that a local teacher would think they could play part of a
lesson plan that would delight the average second grader. Because the dogs like
that sort of thing, and because my friend is a nice guy, he agreed to bring the
dogs in to the school for an hour or so one day. But upon his agreement, he was
advised that he'd have to undergo a criminal background check and provide his
fingerprints to the local sheriff accordingly. And that's where he balked.
"Why do they need my fingerprints?" he asked. Well, the short answer is to
facilitate the background check.
"But why do they need to do a background check?" he wanted to know. I'm well
aware that there are some professions that do require background checks. Whether
for good or for ill (I'm frankly inclined toward the latter), those who deal
with children extensively are among those professions. The elementary school
teacher who had asked about the dogs, for example, would have undergone such a
background check before being hired. But my friend was only going to be in the
school building on a one-time basis and for a brief while, and would be
monitored by the teacher the entire time he was there! So why did they need to
do a background check?
I don't often deal with schools, day care centers, or the like, and so I wasn't
terribly conversant with state law where this kind of thing is concerned. "Hold
on," I told my friend. "Let me find out."
Another friend of mine happens to be a member of one of the local school boards,
so I asked him about the requirements for background checks. He said that all of
the schools do them on permanent employees, and that they're also required to
conduct investigations into regular volunteers (such as coaches) who could have
one-on-one contact with students in an unsupervised setting. I told him why I
was asking, and he advised that state law only provides for the minimum
requirements, and that individual schools and districts could go beyond those
requirements if they so chose, except in matters where they were expressly
forbidden from doing so.
"The school you're talking about has gone a little far, I think," he said. But
it was clear from his explanation that, since the background check requirement
for anyone setting foot in the classroom for any period of time wasn't
prohibited, it was perfectly acceptable for the school to mandate those checks.
My friend still wanted to know, "Do I have to do this?"
No, he doesn't. But the school may be unwilling to make any exceptions to the
rules it has decided to enforce. The question isn't whether or not he has to do
this, but whether or not it's worth doing this.
"Well, once the background check is done, it's done, right?"
Yes and no. Once it's done, his fingerprints and the results of his background
check will remain in the state's criminal database - and later be appended to
federal databases (such as the FBI's fingerprint database and potentially the
nominally civilian-operated MATRIX database). The fact that he's not a criminal,
nor is he charged with or even suspected of a crime, has nothing to do with
whether or not his personal data will be held for potential future
identification purposes, just like that of real criminals.
Of course, it didn't take long for the most damaging possibility of all to
strike him: "What if there's another guy with my same name? What if my
fingerprints or something are just similar enough to some that were taken from a
crime scene? What then?"
Well, in that case, he's in a good deal of trouble, at least for awhile.
Government databases are notoriously error-prone, and getting such errors
corrected is often nigh unto impossible. Much as in the case of perfectly
innocent Americans who have the same name as someone else who happens to be on
the government's "Don't Fly List," my friend could conceivably find himself
detained and questioned on an occasional basis, some occasions of which might
not be very pleasant. (Think it couldn't happen? It already has. A Portland,
Oregon lawyer was detained http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-15/1083923094102200.xml
in connection with the terrorist train bombings in Spain after his fingerprints
were allegedly found; he was later released http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/lateststories/index.ssf?/base/national-24/1085189346219310.xml
after authorities in Spain found the fingerprints were actually those of an
Algerian. Despite his release, the lawyer remains under surveillance.)
"Would you do it?" he wanted to know.
"Not in a million years," I told him.
"Okay," he said. "Thanks for your advice."
I'm always glad to help with this kind of thing in any way I can, and I told him
so. I also referred him to a web site where there are some very nicely written
arguments in favor of privacy, and why capitulating to the demands of
authorities - even when we don't have anything to hide - is a bad idea. (For
those of you who also have an interest, I'm talking about the CASPIAN
http://www.nocards.org/ web site.)
"Man," he said, just before we ended our conversation. "The teacher's gonna be
really mad at me if I don't do this."
Maybe. But nobody ever said that maintaining privacy, dignity, self-respect, or
liberty is necessarily easy. And the fact that a decent, law-abiding guy with a
couple of friendly dogs won't show up for a second-grade class - because doing
so would mean sacrificing some of his most basic principles, not to mention
abrogating some of his unalienable rights - might be a far more important lesson
for the kids to learn anyway. It's just too bad more adults don't get it.
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Lady Liberty is a pro-freedom activist currently residing in the
Midwest. More of her writings and other political and educational
information is available on her web site, Lady Liberty's Constitution
Clearing House [http://www.ladylibrty.com/]. E-mail Lady Liberty at
ladylibrty@ladylibrty.com.
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