Obama DOJ argued for the SCOTUS strip search ruling

glenn...

The 5-judge conservative faction held that prison officials may strip-search anyone arrested even for the most minor offenses before admitting them to the general population of a jail or prison, even in the absence of a shred of suspicion that they are carrying weapons or contraband.

i'd been reading about this development since it was announced but if i hadn't read glenn this morning, i would have continued to labor under the misconception that the recent supreme court ruling allowing strip searches was strictly an outcome of the court itself... however, as glenn points out, "the Obama DOJ formally urged the Court to reach the conclusion it reached"...

another thing i didn't know is this...

The procedures endorsed by the majority are forbidden by statute in at least 10 states and are at odds with the policies of federal authorities. According to a supporting brief filed by the American Bar Association, international human rights treaties also ban the procedures.

glenn concludes...

What is needed most — a strong countervailing force to these policies coming from a place other than the neoconservative Right and corporatist oligarchs — is exactly what is missing. That there is such vehement condemnation over this strip-search ruling, almost all of which ignores the fact that the Obama administration was fully on board with it and helped to bring it about, is — as this VastLeft cartoon suggests — a microcosm for how and why that has happened.

here's the cartoon...

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