Newsday reports that District Court Judge Dennis Hurley has approved a decade-old class action against Nassau County for illegally strip-searching about 23,000 people between 1996 and 1999 to proceed to the damage portion, liability having been established.  Some geniuses over at the local hoosegow decided that it would be a good idea to strip search everyone, regardless of what they did, why they were there or whether there was any reason to believe that they had contraband concealed in any particular body cavity.

For years, the county conceded that it was wrong to strip-search people who weren’t accused of felonies, and correction officers stopped in 1999, jail officials said.

A winding trail of litigation stretches back for years. In 1995, Ray Shain, a Mineola lawyer, successfully challenged the strip-searching policy after he was arrested and charged with harassing his wife in the midst of a divorce.

This has long been a known problem in Nassau County, where the Circuit, in 1999, prohibited strip-searching anyone charged with a misdemeanor or without particularized basis to believe that a strip-search was proper.  The county sheriff, who ran the jail, operated on the “better safe than sorry” theory and strip-searched everybody.

Put aside, since its already decided, whether strip-searching anyone and everyone arrested, regardless of reason, is a good idea.  It’s not.  It’s offensive and outrageous.  It is a singularly intrusive process for people who are neither legally guilty nor give cause to believe that they pose any threat whatsoever.  For anyone who thinks it’s not big deal because “those people” deserve it, I hope your proctologist is having a really bad day next time you see him.

But the cost of this outrage won’t come out of the sheriff’s pocket.  Sure, it was his brainstorm.  Sure, he’s the one who refused to relent and continued to engage in this conduct for 4 years after the issue was raised as to its existence and impropriety.  But he gets to walk away from it, and it falls to the taxpayer.

When I first learned of this absurd and offensive policy, I was outraged.  I was vehemently against it.  But then, I’m not the sheriff, so who cares what I think.  Well, that point is driven home hard when I have to pay the tab for the sheriff’s decision.  And I don’t like it one bit.

It’s not that I do not think that the class should be compensated.  I do.  Very much so.  But what pains me is that the macho and ignorant in government, the ones so full of the power and brilliance, get to make such horrendously stupid decisions and bear no consequence for it. 

Whether my taxes will be raised or my services reduced to pay the bill for the sheriff’s choices, it will happen and I will pay.  There is no other choice.  But this is the problem with the assumption that belies the belief in law enforcement that they can abuse their power and violate people’s rights.  They can do it, and I have to pay for it.  I don’t want to pay for their choices, which means that I get a say in whether it’s okay for them to choose to break the law.

Next time one of you geniuses decides to mess around with other people’s rights, pay for it yourself.