While I was beginning my work this morning, at 3:26 a guard asked me for my identification. He wanted me to blow into a gadget that would measure whether I had been drinking any alcohol. It’s not an unusual question here. As a long-term prisoner, it’s one that I’m ready to receive from a guard at any time, even when I’m asleep.
At Taft Camp, the prisoners are well behaved, and as far as I know there isn’t much in the way of contraband, alcohol, drugs, or problems that complicate life in other federal prisons. While I was in Lompoc Camp, I wasn’t comfortable with the excessive amounts of contraband because I understood that even prisoners who didn’t participate in wrongdoing could find themselves swept up in an investigation. Here at Taft Camp, those in the population don’t make problems by having “pruno”, “hooch”, or other types of alcohol that can cause problems. But whatever others do, I keep to myself, live a disciplined schedule, and wouldn’t object to being called upon by guards to provide alcohol tests, urine tests, or to submit to locker searches every day. In fact, I’d prefer it.
Submitting to searches is a normal part of my life. After more that 22 years of confinement, I’ve become completely indifferent to the Constitution’s fourth amendment protection against unreasonable searches by the government. In my life, there isn’t such thing as an unreasonable strip search. I know that prison guards can search through my belongings, demand that I stand for a strip search, or even for a cavity search, or require that I provide specimens of urine, breath, saliva, blood, or anything. The strange thing is, I don’t mind anymore–submitting to searches is simply part of my life and since I live as an open book, I don’t even care. I have no expectations for a right to privacy in prison.
As I read reports about the increasing threats from terrorists on airplanes, and the technology that is available to provide authorities with full-body scanning of all passengers, I didn’t identify with the concerns about invasive searches. Certainly, I would submit to each search voluntarily, and if it’s necessary to protect citizens from terrorists, I would think that all Americans would submit to such precautions. If the passenger didn’t want to walk through the scanner that would reveal everything on this person, then he would have the choice of not boarding an airplane. But to me, it seems ridiculous that he wouldn’t want to provide authorities with this tool that would increase safety on public flights for all citizens.
I realize that prison has conditioned me. I’ve been ordered to strip naked and bend over for guard inspections more than 1,000 times. I don’t know what a right to privacy means, but I know the world has changed sine I’ve been a prisoner, and I’m totally willing to live the rest of my life as an open book in every sense of the word.
This morning I ran 10 miles and I followed with 400 pushups.
[consecutive running log: 3,420 miles over the past 386 consecutive days]
[pushups total: 800]
Saturday, 2 January 2010
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