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The Disturbing Legacy of the Wars on Drugs and Terror

As I was reading the section of Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow where she recounts the systematic weakening of Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment protections by Supreme Court decisions in the 1980s, decisions which facilitated the Reagan administration’s “War on Drugs,” it occurred to me that We, the People, have allowed the creation of all the necessary apparatus for a police state.

(The Fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. The Eighth Amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment. The Fourteenth requires equal treatment under the law.)

In addition to the weakening of these protections, the diversion of Federal funds from social programs to (drug) law enforcement, prison construction, and the outfitting of state and local police with military grade weaponry, which began in earnest under the Reagan administration and continued under the (G. H. W.) Bush and Clinton administrations, built up a massive infrastructure ostensibly needed to protect law-abiding Americans from the scourge of drug-related crime.

Then came the “War on Terror” which followed the horrific attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The (G. W.) Bush administration invested heavily in upgrading surveillance and intelligence gathering capabilities, including domestic surveillance capabilities, in an effort to identify and apprehend terrorists before they struck. Systems to allow better sharing of information and coordination between Federal, state, and local law enforcement were implemented. The Department of Homeland Security was created. And, as part of the PATRIOT Act, the right to due process and legal recourse was substantially weakened for those suspected of being terrorists or aiding terrorists. Most Americans were supportive of these measures (though many probably weren’t aware of the details). For most, the fear of further terrorist attacks overrode any nagging concerns about the risk of law enforcement and government security agencies abusing the expanded powers they’d been given.

There were successful challenges in the courts to some of the more egregious infringements on civil liberties allowed under the PATRIOT Act, particularly infringement on First and Fourth Amendment protections. This led to changes to the wording of some parts of the Act, but key provisions relating to surveillance were extended in 2011. Then, in 2015, other portions of the PATRIOT Act which had expired were restored by passage of the USA Freedom Act and will remain in effect until at least 2019, barring further successful court challenges.

In 2013, President Obama announced the end of the War on Terror, but this did not signal any dismantling of domestic law enforcement and security infrastructure. It was more of a re-branding and reduction in scope. Efforts to combat terrorism were to be focused on specific enemies, rather than trying to conduct a global campaign against terrorism everywhere all at once.

Likewise, the Obama administration dropped the term “War on Drugs” in 2009, but funding for drug law enforcement policy has continued unabated and the vast infrastructure created to implement that policy remains largely intact.

Today, the United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and is the leader in prison population (over 2 million). Nearly 7 million are under correctional control if you add in those on probation or parole. Even those bastions of freedom, Russia and China, imprison a smaller percentage of their population and have fewer people in prisons. Only the tiny African archipelago nation, the Republic of Seychelles, has a higher incarceration rate than we do, though their prison population is minuscule by comparison, of course.

What occurred to me as I was reading Michelle Alexander’s book and contemplating how much authority, discretion, and firepower has been given to Federal, state, and local law enforcement is that without most of us intending to, or even realizing we were doing so, we’ve given tacit approval to the creation of what is potentially the most sophisticated system of state-sponsored repression and social control ever devised by man. All that’s missing is someone willing and able to use it as such.

(I should note that Alexander would argue, and convincingly I think, that it is already being misused against African Americans, Latinos, and other people of color.)

Really, I thought, all you would need to take the next step is to have a large enough number of angry Americans rally around an opportunistic demagogue and put him into the White House. Someone just as hate-filled and bigoted as they are. Someone unscrupulous enough to ignore or circumvent what remains of our constitutional protections and use this massive law enforcement apparatus against those he deems undesirable. Someone skilled enough at manipulating the media and popular opinion to convince enough people that his actions were necessary to protect “real” Americans from some supposed menace, like, say, Muslims or immigrants.

And then I thought of Donald Trump.


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