The US Supreme Court has ruled that the October, 2003 strip search of a 13-year-old girl for ibuprofen was unconstitutional. Good to see they got that right, even if it wasn't quite unanimous.¹

Unfortunately, if you read down to the final paragraph of that article, they got the secondary decision in the case wrong:

Where is the accountability if the search is not found to have been conducted "under district policy"?

This notion that something is wrong, illegal, even unconstitutional, but everyone involved can be easily absolved of both individual and collective responsibility, is becoming endemic in the US. It has already caused the country problems and it will cause more - and worse - if it continues to spread.

"Reckless and irresponsible risk-taking has severely damaged both the US and the world economy, but we can't let any companies fail, nor can we discourage the culture of quick and easy credit which made this possible, so we'll just let the people who caused the problems keep all the profits from the times when their risks paid off and throw tax money at them to cover any losses sustained when the risks went bad." Aren't we supposed to be living within our means instead of relying on a constant flow of credit to keep us going from day to day? And when was the last time a Vegas casino let you keep your winnings while forgiving your losses?

"We have determined that the previous administration's use of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' was illegal, but the operatives involved cannot be charged because they were told that it was legal and we're not going to take any action against the people who told them so because that would be dwelling on the past instead of moving forward." I can hardly wait to see a criminal defendant try telling the judge, "Maybe I did it, but that was last year and we should really move forward and not dwell on the past."

"This girl was publicly humiliated by a grossly inappropriate strip search conducted with no real justification to verify that she wasn't carrying an ultimately benign substance, but the people who did it aren't responsible because nobody told them it was a violation of her rights and the district is only in the wrong if it has a policy explicitly authorizing this." Never mind that it should have been obvious that this was the wrong course of action to anyone involved - except, perhaps, a bureaucrat.

It seems that the way to get away with murder - perhaps even literally - in the US today is to find a grey area in which you can act in a totally irresponsible - and, ideally, morally reprehensible - manner without explicitly violating any actual laws and then doing so under the auspices of an organization which has no established policy directly addressing such actions. Since it won't be "clearly established" at the time of your actions that they are illegal, you won't be held personally accountable and the organization will be in the clear as well because it didn't endorse your actions.

Bah!

¹ Clarence Thomas doesn't seem to make any distinction between parents and school officials. Which is kind of interesting, given that US law allows parents to spank their children, but corporal punishment in schools would get you a quick trip to the unemployment line, if not worse.