Crimes against humanity: strip searches, laptop seizures

25.03.2009
Monday's New York Times has a doozy of a story about whose case is coming before the Supreme Court on April 21. The outcome of that hearing could determine a lot about your privacy rights, or lack thereof.

Six years ago, then-13-year-old Savana was strip searched by officials at her middle school. What were they looking for? Automatic weapons? Switchblades? Bindles of cocaine? Internet porn?

No. She was strip searched because somebody was convinced she was trying to sneak in a bottle of Ibuprophen.

Redding did not have a drug problem (or an Advil addiction). She had no record of troublemaking whatsoever. But the strip search so humiliated her that she didn't return to school for two months and finally transferred to another school. And it so angered her parents that they sued. So far, the courts have agreed with them, and the school district has appealed. That's why her case is now headed up to the nine craggy old cranks in billowy black robes.

Here's the money quote, the one that still burns me every time I read it.

The school district does not contest that Ms. Redding had no disciplinary record, but says that is irrelevant.