CBP Settles Cavity Search Case
 

From AP:

I'm not sure why the agents need to be retrained, given the insistence of CBP that they were not conceding any fault:

It's truly amazing when there is a settlement this large and some government henchmen can stand there in front of a podium and claim they did nothing wrong. Yes, because the government always pays out nearly a half a million dollars when they did nothing wrong. This kind of thing will keep happening until everyone who was involved is sentenced to length jail sentences.

It's not anything unique to government employees. Lawsuits between private parties often result in these sort of settlements in which neither side admits fault but one pays a substantial settlement. The usual rationalization is "well, it's cheaper than paying the lawyers".

As for the retraining when no fault was admitted ... well, TSA employees are continually refreshing their training, right? :)

So, what's the fallout?
Customs cannot do cavity searches anymore?
Or only in special circumstances?

Not sure. It would be interesting to see what the retraining consists of.

But if I were running a hospital, I wouldn't allow any such searches without a warrant, even if the federals didn't think they needed one. That was a one million dollar mistake for University Med Center.

From the news accounts at the time the woman sued, apparently CBP policy requires both a supervisor's approval and either consent or a court order, for both cavity searches and x-rays.

One has to wonder about the mental capacity of an agent who would do this without either of the above. That is something re-training can't really address.

What cost does government accrue by going to trial? The government lawyers are federal employees paid if they just sit in their office. Government didn't move forward because they would have been found in the wrong.

At least this was a border incident, where they do have more leeway(not that I support this behavior). Remember the mental midgets in New Mexico that cost their city and county $1.6 million dollar, all because they claimed the person "clinched" his butt when being harassed over a stop sign slow and go in a Walmart parking lot.

The victim in that case, David Eckert, certainly clinched a big payout, to the tune of $1.6 million. There was a warrant granted by a rubber stamping judge, but unfortunately for the perps in this case, they had the cavity searches done in a neighboring county where that warrant was invalid.

Local medical centers in the county where the search warrant was issued refused to do the colonoscopy due to the involuntary nature of it, warrant or no warrant.

The cops who were behind this are still on the job, I believe.

For those who want to know more about the case from primary sources (instead of news articles), look here:

https://www.aclutx.org/en/press-rele...avity-searches

It looks like if any of the 110 hospitals do it again, they are really screwed.

Thanks Ari. The ACLU deserves great credit for pressing this issue and obtaining this outcome. The ACLU's advisory-notices to the hospitals do a great job underlining the fact that medical personnel are under no obligation to perform such invasive seach EVEN IF THERE IS A WARRANT:

And if government employees weren't continually screwing up badly enough to require the use of government lawyers, maybe the government might be able to hire fewer of them ....

Wow! Thanks for sharing this. CBP cannot have her strip search, cavity searches or anything else. No one! It's illegal. They're breaking the laws. Nobody who wants to get a strip search and that's not right. CBP had no rights to ask a strip search by those people. Strip search is banned. They aren't allowed to get her a strip search. The answer is no. Leave those people alone and they had respect that. It's her rights. She had it right to keep her privacy. You cannot asking her about illegal drugs or anything else.

Strip searches are not banned and asking about illegal drugs isn't banned.

Did anyone else catch this blatant attempt at blackmail?

Elements of the medical community's complicity in the abuse of people on behalf of government has shown itself yet again, this time being a case of it being done inside the US on behalf of CBP. Glad to see the involved medical community elements held accountable a bit for being involved in the harming of "patients".

Yes, strips searches is banned. They are not allowed to ask a strip search. Its private. They don't have any rights.

I see no blackmail.

Extortion to try to cover up their wrongdoing is quite common, though.

It's extortion and it's classic blackmail, this being a case of the target being told to pony up what CBP wanted or they won't be left alone in terms of having to pay in another way.

It's unnerving to realize that if the cops had played by the rules (warrant issued in the jurisdiction of the twisted hospital), what Eckert was subjected to was apparently legal.

It's also disgusting to know that the medical personnel who assaulted Eckert are likely still licensed and employed. There was no medical justification for the procedures performed, nor did they make sense as a purely exploratory exercise. They assaulted the man repeatedly and watched for their own warped kicks.

And got away with it. Is this really the first time these cops have done something like this?

As I indicated in my earlier post, it's not the first time governmental personnel -- law enforcement in this case -- and medical industry professionals have engaged in this kind of behavior. So much for medical ethics being a primary consideration in how medical industry professionals behaved wit with travelers. But if you think this is bad, what would say about the situations where the presence of young children are used to blackmail their accompanying parent/guardian to "consent" to a cavity search like this?

Extracting "consent" from targets in positions of duress is but another form of classic blackmail used by the powerful over the relatively powerless. And at the border, a lot more seems to be "allowed".

If medical personnel willingly engage in this type of non-consensual and risky medical procedures every time a cops tells them to do it, one wonders why they object to participating in lethal injections? Profit, perhaps???

The billable rates are different, and the payment/debt collection opportunities are different. But I think the real reason is this:

there is more widespread concern about medical professionals facilitating killing (of convicts) on behalf of governmental actors

than

there is about medical professionals otherwise violating the bodily integrity of "suspects" and perhaps even causing tissue and/or psychological damage.

Rather disgusting what some people are capable of doing for even government behind color of professional activity, all the while even thinking it's being done "for the greater good" of some sort.

CBP generally thinks cavity searches are a useful tool for law enforcement (i.e. "the greater good), and so these kind of outcomes are part of the scene.

I think you have a problem with the terms.

I see no blackmail in what was described. They were not threatening to reveal detrimental information. Rather, they were threatening adverse consequences for not waiving their rights. A threat to do bad things to you if you don't do what they want is extortion.

I'm sure I have no problem with the terms. The etymological origin and historical use of the term blackmail have informed me rather well.

Blackmail classically doesn't have as a necessary condition that there be a threat of revelation of detrimental information in the absence of demanded specific performance. A threat of other detrimental action may be sufficient for blackmail to take place.

You're describing extortion.

Extortion as a form of blackmail makes it classic blackmail.

Of course all this depends upon the jurisdiction in which the offense occurs, in some venues they are truly synonymous - in others the specific predicates are (slightly) different. The most common (and commonly known) element of blackmail is the threat of releasing derogatory information but GUW is right, in many jurisdictions it is not the only one.

The IMPORTANT thing is that only in the most exceptionally rare circumstances are government employees held criminally liable for coercion. Coercion is a time-honored and tested tool in the law enforcement/prosecutorial toolkit - the most that ever happens is the evidence resulting from an illegal search are excluded at trial and the government's case falls apart. Possibly the bad actor might suffer some kind of adverse personnel action (such as a letter of reprimand, or a poor annual evaluation) that maybe stalls career advancement, but who knows....?

Small consolation for the aggrieved citizen(s)......

Why can't medical personnel claim apparent public authority in their defense?

Not defending the medical personnel's behaviour in the cases mentioned, but complicity in these cases does seem quite a step below taking part in the deliberate killing of unarmed, and indeed restrained, human beings.

the most that ever happens is the evidence resulting from an illegal search are excluded at trial and the government's case falls apart.


The proverbial "Fruit of the Poison Tree," for the pre-law crowd.