Thursday, August 17, 2006

Finding Out the Hard Way Can Be an Endless Affair

Last week, Joshilyn Jackson, a novelist who lives in Georgia and whose sweetness is as self-evident as the rindy-ness of an unpeeled orange, was arrested and jailed because her maiden name was on her Social Security card and her married name was on her driver's license. I'll give you a second to read that again and think about how ridiculous it is before I tell you that it wasn't even true. She had a legally acquired and properly matching Social Security card in a nearby safe deposit box. Nevertheless two police officers from Austell, Georgia (which, according to its web site, "has the friendly, relaxed atmosphere of a small, southern town") pulled Joshilyn from a van full of Sunday School teaching materials, handcuffed her, impounded her car, and took her to jail.

This was not a case of mistaken identity. There was no hardened felon named Josh Jackson hiding from US Marshals in a seedy motel room with a collection of black market rocket launchers and underage hookers. The first cause of her arrest was a clerical error at the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the mistake itself is probably understandable. Mistakes happen. Incompetence happens. What didn't used to happen is moms getting thrown in jail because a low-level state functionary with a Band-Aid on his pinky missed a keystroke. As Joshilyn points out, police officers used to be able to make a judgment call about what action to take when such a discrepancy turned up on the dashboard See-N-Say. Now, thanks to "tougher anti-terrorism laws," the officers explained to her, they no longer have such discretion.

The absurd details of her incarceration (which, believe it or not, include being forced to watch Gigli in her jail cell) are, like everything she writes, good reading. But after you feel Joshilyn's pain, it's a short leap to the next, inevitable thought.

Every day the government asks us to give it more power. More power to eavesdrop and to search and to detain. They will say, perhaps without much evidence, that bad guys are likely to have problems with their documents and if we just arrest everyone who fits that profile the numbers of incarcerated might include a few terrorists in mid-plot. Sloppy ones, but perhaps dangerously sloppy. They will say it is necessary. And we might very well say yes, because we're feeling vulnerable.

But let's think about what, I guess, we've already given up. Right now, we live in a country in which they've arrested a PTA mom for the quaintly Eastern Bloc reason that her papers were out of order. They jailed a soccer mom because of alleged irregularities in her documents and the arrest was not an error, but policy. Maybe that doesn't sound outrageous to you and if it doesn't that's okay. Write me an angry note about how I'm a chicken liberal who's always chattering on about how the sky is falling on civil rights or whatever. But trust me, because she's a better person than all of us together, if they want to arrest Joshilyn Jackson, they want to arrest you. Or they want to be able to arrest you if it turns out to be convenient.

I'm not going to traffic in silly, Godwin-invoking hyperbole over a minor event, but as the government creeps slowly into our cars and our phones and our computers, it's worth remembering that totalitarianism doesn't have to look like we imagine it. In dictatorships people eat at restaurants and get married and more or less get on with their lives. In fact, the only fundamental difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is that in a dictatorship leaders take power, and in a democracy leaders have to ask for it. That's no small thing, of course. The idea that the weak can say no to the strong is probably the most radical notion in the history of political thought. But in theory a dictator could choose to grant as many rights to his subjects as he liked. And in theory people living under a democracy could choose to surrender as many of those rights as they wanted. Reason tells you that neither of those things should be likely to happen.

Yet our leaders are constantly asking us to grant them more power anyway. They do this because, like people who use narcotics, individuals who wield power will always want more. And if we never said no to them, the difference between other people's dictatorships and our democracy would be rhetorical. People who willingly surrender their rights don't have any more freedom than people whose liberty is stolen from them.

Actually if we never said no to our government, the difference between their dictatorships and our democracy would be that the people who live under dictatorships would be blameless.

Joshilyn's suspended license arrest will not go down in the annals of miscarried justice. She is not Anthony Porter who sat ten years on Illinois's death row for a crime he didn't commit. Joshilyn is a woman of above average means and cleverness and notoriety and this misunderstanding is already on its way to being straightened out and the bail check she wrote for $1,083 will be returned in full and her criminal record will be scrubbed clean with bureaucratic bubbles, although the memory of Ben Affleck wooing a lesbianized Jennifer Lopez will no doubt leave emotional scars.

Maybe her story doesn't give you a little chill. Maybe you think that if a few random and innocent citizens have to suffer the humiliation of a mugshot and fingerprinting and a few hours in lock up it's a small price to pay for the alleged security we're receiving in return. Maybe you think it's okay that a few dolphins get caught in the tuna net. Maybe you don't think the government has crossed any line. I won't try to convince you otherwise. But what I'd like you to do, no matter your political persuasion, is quietly ask yourself where you think that line should be. Is it when they arrest a novelist, not arbitrarily, but because of something she wrote? When they detain people on the street for not being able to produce a state-issued ID? When they start telling you where you can drive your car and when? When it's finally you and not a stranger they pull over and handcuff and fingerprint?

By our definition of democracy there ought to be lines somewhere, lines that an elected government should never be able to cross, but I'm not sure we spend much time thinking about where they are. (Maybe we all just expect the Constitution will draw those lines for us, but it seems like every politician has a proposed amendment or a signing statement that says the Constitution is written in chalk.) Anyway figure out where you think that line is and you don't have to tell anybody but just file it away in your head. Remember it. Because if we never say no to our government, our leaders, be they Republicans or Democrats, will eventually cross that line. I promise you they will cross it. Not because they're bad people. Not because they're incompetent. But because they think we will give them the power to do it.

And do one other thing. When they cross that line, wherever you think it is, promise me you'll be mad as hell.

24 comments:

Marcus Sakey said...

Kevin, someday we're going to share a pitcher of beer and a long lament about the current state of the world.

But that's a side note.

Great post, man. I found it particularly interesting the way you looked at the limits and definitions of democracies and dictatorships. I studied political science at Michigan, and one of the things I found both sad and scary is that the form of government which can do the most good for the greatest number of people is not democracy; it's dictatorship. Not the rule of the many, but the rule of the one.

Granted, I'm talking about a benevolent dictator, which is, by and large, like talking about the Sno-Cones in Hades. But still, at least theoretically, that's the way to effect the most change for the greatest benefit. A single individual with a distinct, humanitarian point-of-view and the juice to implement it.

The thing I wonder is if in the dark corners of some of our politicians minds (and I'm talking about pols of both stripes), there isn't a little too much recognition of that particular theory--and if some of them don't think of themselves as that ideal benevolent dictator. The problem being, of course, that the politician who wants you to yield power to him or her is also the last one you actually should yield it to.

After all, it could be argued that more evil has been done in the name of the greater good than for any other cause in human history.

Anonymous said...

Great and important post, except for all the excuses you are making for writing it. The mere fact you feel you have to make them shows what times we are living in. Democracy right now must defend itself.

I am just going to read Cast of shadows. After this entry, I am even more curious.

Anonymous said...

>When they start telling you where you can drive your car and when?

What do you have against HOV lanes?

Anonymous said...

As someone who, in less than a week, is going through airport security and boarding a cruise ship, I am concerned that neither my e-ticket nor my ship pass shows my middle initial, a letter than appears on everything from my drivers license (M) to my passport (fully spelled out as Margaret). I have checked with airline AND cruise line and been assured three times this will not stop me from boarding, and at least all the documents have my first name spelled correctly...all one word, no e at the end. Still, I have birth certificate and SS card tucked in my wallet, just in case, along with the name of my attorney :o)
However, all this does not stop some guardians of our security from over-reacting and so I'll breathe deeply once I'm on the boat.
Funny thing...my high school history teacher told us in the mid-'60's that our government was actually a benevolent dictatorship...this before even a hint of terrorism other than the homegrown war protests and VietNam. It's been interesting for me to see how right he was, although benevolent is not necessarily how I'd characterize the current policies. I know some (like no knives on planes)are necessary. I don't mind those. But just how many will be put into practice because someone wants to see how far they can play the 'protection' card? I could be arrested for the books in my suitcase someday while criminals walk due to the CSI syndrome?
Good post. Not everyone thinks of the possibilities until they're directly involved.

Anonymous said...

Gigli? Daaaaammn. No crime warrants Gigli. *shudder*

Anonymous said...

Kevin, my neck is sore from nodding so hard as I was reading your post. Beautifully said.

Kevin Guilfoile said...

> What do you have against HOV lanes?

HOV lanes are a Marxist assault on the sovereignty of the individual. They should call them MAO lanes.

Marcus, we need to get that pitcher and discuss that and more. Of course the concept of a benevolent dictator is closely related to our ongoing discussion of Chicago politics.

AB, I hope you enjoy CoS. It's available in Swedish under the title Skuggfigurer and if you read that one, you'll have to tell me how the translation is. It has an awesome cover, at least.

Tasha, I think we just missed each other at the Notre Dame Literary Festival earlier this year. Let's try to say hi at the Midwest Literary Festival next month.

Anonymous said...

Kevin, I do have the translation but not the original, so I can't make comparisons. I am sure it's good.

Anonymous said...

This is superbly written.

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Kevin, good writing, and you ain't no chicken liberal, you ain't no chicken little. Here in Australia I've just read a news story that our federal treasurer has announced the 'war on terror' could last 50 years. Meanwhile, the first person here to be convicted and jailed under new anti-terrorism laws has just had his conviction quashed on appeal. It's been said that after being arrested in Pakistan, and without a lawyer present, he admitted certain things to Australian federal police after US interrogators had threatened him with castration and the sexual assault of his wife, and a Pakistani investigator had assaulted him. Also, he was afraid of going to Guantanamo Bay. God knows why. Of course there's more to this story than I'm saying here (apparently he's admitted in media interviews to receiving money from al-Qaeda) but nonetheless, times are a bit scary.

Elizabeth Krecker said...

"Maybe that doesn't sound outrageous to you and if it doesn't that's okay." This isn't about being Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal -- none of us can be outraged enough about Josh's arrest over a government paperwork snafu.

I can barely imagine living her experience: the trauma to my son, the explanations to my employer and my son's dad, never mind my parents. Heck, I don't even have a lawyer...who would I call? Josh's arrest should go down in the anals of miscarried justice. It's not funny, it's morally outrageous and it portends a grave future indeed.

Anonymous said...

thanks for the reminder. have you read your fellow blogger's article on "Truth, Lies a nd Duct tape?" I heard her speak in Toledo the night before the Iraq invasion, very gutsy lady==our local library tried to get her to give a softer speech so she wouldn't offend the community!

Kevin Guilfoile said...

Thanks Eric and John and Elizabeth.

Jay, I have read Sara's terrific essay. Thank you for the reminder.

Anonymous said...

I keep thinking of the opening sequence in Terry Gilliam's Brazil. You know, the one that starts with a bureaucratic error and ends with "This is your receipt for your husband."

Rewatched Brazil a while back. What jumped out at me was how familiar the "hilarious" world of that movie seems, in this era of our war on terror. That wasn't so funny.

Excellent topic for a post.

Thomas Litchford said...

Has anyone else wondered why she showed the cops her social security card? Last time I got pulled over, all they wanted was my license, registration, and insurance information.

Anonymous said...

I suppose they must have asked for it, Tom.

Kevin Guilfoile said...

Has anyone else wondered why she showed the cops her social security card? Last time I got pulled over, all they wanted was my license, registration, and insurance information.

They didn't ask for it. If you read Joshilyn's account of what happened, she was notified by mail that her SS card and her driver's license didn't match and she went to the SS office to remedy that. But th eproper person in the DMV never got the news, apparently, and suspended her license without notifying her.

The police arrested her after running her license.

There are actually two separate injustices here, which has people a bit confused. The first is the fact that she was arrested for something she didn't do. The second is that even if she DID have such a discrepancy in her paperwork, the government shouldn't be suspending people's driver's licenses and arbitrarily detaining them over such an obvious oversight.

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