The whole point of acting is to try and not look like you’re acting.

Friday night, the wife and I decided to stay home since neither of us felt that great. My wife is a huge fan of CSI: Miami. I never thought I’d like the show since it stars David Caruso. Turns out, I was right, I didn’t like it. He delivers all his lines with the presence and panache of an inebriated Bill Shatner. And why is his character named Horatio? Who the hell names their child that? This episode had one really stupid line that I don’t even think Jack Nicholson could have pulled off:

Random cop #1: Seems we’ve got our fish.
David Caruso: No, [lame attempt at dramatic pause and a sigh delivered with all the poise and efficacy of Carrot Top] we’ve got our shark.

Yeah, no wonder he was replaced by Ricky Schroeder.

So, why the hell am I talking about CSI: Miami? Because of these two scenes (annotated of course):

The scene is a little girl has been found dead at a Celebration Station (or some other place where parents take kids to play skee ball) and the police have detained the patrons of the place for interviews and fingerprinting:

Scene 1:

Random Guy#1: I’m in my third year of law school and I know that it’s illegal for you to detain us.
Random Cop#1: [Doing his best Sly Stallone from Judge Dread] But you should want to cooperate with us as is your moral obligation to society, citizen. Now get back in line.
Random Guy#2: Is that true? We’re free to go?
Random Cop#1: [takes piece of tape and gets hair sample from Random Guy#2’s sweater and pushes him away] No, not for you. You’re a suspect now.

Random Guy#1 was correct. The police had no authority to detain anyone in that particular instance. A nifty resource for your rights with respect to police can be found here. Yeah, it’s the ACLU but they do get some things right.

You have the right to ask if you are free to go. You can ask the police if you are under arrest or if you are being detained. If they answer no to both questions, you can walk. Of course, once you try to walk they’ll probably arrest you anyway.

Scene 2:

Random Guy#2 from the above is arrested. The police then go to his car with him and have him open it so they can search it.

Random Guy#2: Don’t I have rights that protect me from this sort of search.
David Caruso: [again not quite as convincing as a porn starlet feigning ecstasy but slightly more convincing than a soap opera actress staring blankly at the camera at the end of a scene] You’re in violation of parole yada yada yada so we’re searching your car anyway.

Again, paraphrased from the ACLU: Unless agents have a warrant or you consent, they are not legally allowed to search. Even if you’re arrested in your home, they can only search ‘the immediate area’ in which you were arrested, which is typically interpreted as the room you were in.

It’s no wonder that the citizens of our country aren’t more upset by violations of our civil rights since the masses are shown these violations in our popular television programs. What’s actually worse is that these shows actually make these violations seem OK. I mean, who wants to see a child murderer go free? The cops did the right thing here. They caught the bad guy (actually, in the show the guy arrested didn’t turn out to be the perpetrator). Who cares if they threw civil liberties to the wind! They got their man! And this is perfectly acceptable.

I think the real kicker is that they could have had these scenes with no mention of ‘rights.’ Random Guy#2 could have asked ‘so, we’re free to go?’ and the cop could have just said ‘no.’ But the show actually brought it to our attention that the perps had rights and that the cops violated them. Quite curious if you ask me.

I had a friend once who speculated (jokingly) that the government was in cahoots with space aliens. And what better way to get our citizens used to the idea than by having a television show about it. He further speculated (again jokingly) that The X Files was funded by the government to ensure that when ‘the truth out there’ was actually known, no one would be that shocked by it. Maybe it’s time to speculate that the VRWC is actually using government funds to pay for these television programs to get citizens used to the idea that their rights don’t matter. I’m joking a bit to the extreme obviously.

It still is scary that the show minimizes the importance of our civil liberties. I’m awaiting the follow up story in which the case is thrown out of court once the ACLU attorneys get their hands on David Caruso.

Adieu!

Posted in uncategorized on December 23rd, 2002 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |