Arrest-Proof Yourself by Dale C. Carson, Wes Denham Page B
Authors: Dale C. Carson, Wes Denham
Tags: General, Self-Help, Political Science, Law, Law Enforcement, Political Freedom & Security, arrest, Practical Guides, Detention of persons
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glazer. I’m an old cop and not an abstract thinker, so I’m going to stick to the nitty-gritty and propose what I call Dale’s Bill of Rights in language everybody understands.
DALE’S BILL OF RIGHTS
1. To have records of arrests not leading to convictions made permanently unavailable to anyone, including judges before sentencing, except law enforcement agencies. Let’s make “innocent until proven guilty” actually mean something.
2. To have records of GPS tracking devices, gate security systems, computer monitoring software, and employment telephone recordings made permanently unavailable to anyone except law enforcement agencies. Where you go, who you call, and what you do are your business.
3. To have any and all psychological tests, assessments, job interviews, school interviews, and admissions documents made permanently unavailable to anyone—period. Dissemination of this stuff just speeds your check-in to the social service plantation.
4. To be free from involuntary counseling, psychoanalysis, personality profiling, and use of mind-altering pharmaceuticals. So what if you’re a little weird? Stay free.
5. To be left alone. To not have government employees, ex-spouses, enemies, and Nosy Parkers able to know everything you do, day in and day out, world without end, amen. It’s your life. Maybe it’s glorious, maybe it’s grubby, but it’s yours and no one else’s, at least not without a court order!
Well and good, you say, but these plantation horrors could never happen to me. Think not? To illustrate how these situations can become real, read Scenario #1 on the next page. This fictional account illustrates how incarceration on the electronic plantation could happen not to a ghetto kid, barrio thug, or trailer trash redneck, but to a nice, hardworking, ordinary guy.
SCENARIO #1
SEÑOR CRANE GOES INSANE
Our hero is a 35-year-old construction crane operator who, thanks to an ability to swim long distances under water, ran into the surf in Santiago de Cuba and swam under a barrage of machine gun bullets from Cuba’s Guardia de la Costa. He arrived freezing but unharmed in the Guantánamo Naval Base, considered U.S. territory. Thanks to special immigration laws, he quickly became an American citizen and moved to a large southern city.
Here he was happy for steady work with good pay as a construction crane operator. Every day it was up the high crane with a lunchbox and a jar to pee in, then eight hours lifting loads, then home. He was proud of his safety record of never having dropped a load or caused an injury. He had married a “real American,” blonde and blue eyed, and had helped put her through college and law school. She had made partner in a large law firm, and now they lived in a style that allowed him to drive a luxury car that astounded his truck-driving coworkers. He had twin daughters of whom he was foolishly fond.
At first his wife liked the fact that he was big, strong, Latin, and a real working guy, unlike her other boyfriends. After 10 years of marriage, however, her attitude changed. At the last Christmas office party, he had had, as usual, nothing to say to the suits who drank scotch, gossiped about judges, and speculated about who juiced who in the last election. They couldn’t understand his accent, and anyway they were uninterested in construction. His wife said that he had embarrassed her, that he was a nobody, and that he was hurting her career.
The next day she served him with divorce papers. He moved out of their magnificent house and into a studio apartment with a chair, a bed, and a TV on cinder blocks. To console him, his construction buddies took him out to a gentlemen’s club—really just a glorified strip joint. He had some drinks, ogled the dancers, and had a so-so night. His buddies assured him that the divorce wouldn’t be too bad, since this was a “no fault” divorce state.
They were right. The divorce was simple, but the child-custody proceedings were
DALE’S BILL OF RIGHTS
1. To have records of arrests not leading to convictions made permanently unavailable to anyone, including judges before sentencing, except law enforcement agencies. Let’s make “innocent until proven guilty” actually mean something.
2. To have records of GPS tracking devices, gate security systems, computer monitoring software, and employment telephone recordings made permanently unavailable to anyone except law enforcement agencies. Where you go, who you call, and what you do are your business.
3. To have any and all psychological tests, assessments, job interviews, school interviews, and admissions documents made permanently unavailable to anyone—period. Dissemination of this stuff just speeds your check-in to the social service plantation.
4. To be free from involuntary counseling, psychoanalysis, personality profiling, and use of mind-altering pharmaceuticals. So what if you’re a little weird? Stay free.
5. To be left alone. To not have government employees, ex-spouses, enemies, and Nosy Parkers able to know everything you do, day in and day out, world without end, amen. It’s your life. Maybe it’s glorious, maybe it’s grubby, but it’s yours and no one else’s, at least not without a court order!
Well and good, you say, but these plantation horrors could never happen to me. Think not? To illustrate how these situations can become real, read Scenario #1 on the next page. This fictional account illustrates how incarceration on the electronic plantation could happen not to a ghetto kid, barrio thug, or trailer trash redneck, but to a nice, hardworking, ordinary guy.
SCENARIO #1
SEÑOR CRANE GOES INSANE
Our hero is a 35-year-old construction crane operator who, thanks to an ability to swim long distances under water, ran into the surf in Santiago de Cuba and swam under a barrage of machine gun bullets from Cuba’s Guardia de la Costa. He arrived freezing but unharmed in the Guantánamo Naval Base, considered U.S. territory. Thanks to special immigration laws, he quickly became an American citizen and moved to a large southern city.
Here he was happy for steady work with good pay as a construction crane operator. Every day it was up the high crane with a lunchbox and a jar to pee in, then eight hours lifting loads, then home. He was proud of his safety record of never having dropped a load or caused an injury. He had married a “real American,” blonde and blue eyed, and had helped put her through college and law school. She had made partner in a large law firm, and now they lived in a style that allowed him to drive a luxury car that astounded his truck-driving coworkers. He had twin daughters of whom he was foolishly fond.
At first his wife liked the fact that he was big, strong, Latin, and a real working guy, unlike her other boyfriends. After 10 years of marriage, however, her attitude changed. At the last Christmas office party, he had had, as usual, nothing to say to the suits who drank scotch, gossiped about judges, and speculated about who juiced who in the last election. They couldn’t understand his accent, and anyway they were uninterested in construction. His wife said that he had embarrassed her, that he was a nobody, and that he was hurting her career.
The next day she served him with divorce papers. He moved out of their magnificent house and into a studio apartment with a chair, a bed, and a TV on cinder blocks. To console him, his construction buddies took him out to a gentlemen’s club—really just a glorified strip joint. He had some drinks, ogled the dancers, and had a so-so night. His buddies assured him that the divorce wouldn’t be too bad, since this was a “no fault” divorce state.
They were right. The divorce was simple, but the child-custody proceedings were
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