-Artemio Guerra

Over the holidays I watched Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey, Jr., a fine way to blow off steam after a stressful period of finals. Between the awesome fight scenes and Victorian Era pyrotechnics, I could not avoid thinking about the themes covered in the past semester of Law and Literature. Sherlock Holmes: disabled by his addiction, working outside the law. Scotland Yard: the rigid and sterile British police, begrudgingly patronizing Holmes’s genius. For Holmes, who exists outside the law, stories unfold and mysteries are solved by his obsessive attention to detail. On the other hand, Scotland Yard’s adherence to procedure always misses fundamental clues and lags behind Holmes’s quick eye and mind.

I think Sherlock Holmes is Mexican. According to recent studies about 90 percent of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. that entered the country in the past ten years are undocumented. Most Mexicans in New York are forced to live outside the law. There are complex historical and economic realities behind the issue of undocumented migration from Mexico to the U.S. and the law has never been able to address those realities. Outside the law Mexicans in New York will solve the mystery of what globalization and neo-liberalism did to the land of Moctezuma while our legal system will continue to miss the point. Working in sweatshops Mexicans turn fear and suffering into poverty wages that are split between New York and Puebla. The journey north begins in a distant village, abandoned by the Mexican government, where most men have already gone north. A relative already in the United States saves about $7,000 to pay a coyote for the crossing. After a brush with death in the dessert you are transported in a filthy truck as far away from the border as possible. Then you take domestic flight from L.A. or San Diego to Newark, La Guardia, or Kennedy and a week after the journey began you find work in a construction site, a restaurant, or a garment shop. Once in New York City to be able to afford high rents Mexican immigrants live in communes of extended family and friends and take over entire buildings with more than 10 people leaving in each floor or apartment. Most undocumented immigrants I have worked with organize “tandas” or lending circles that help workers save money to bring other relatives to the U.S. or invest the money back home. Housing advocates call these “overcrowded apartments” and our housing laws will have these building condemned but these are really complex communities with social controls established by immigrants themselves, schedules for cooking and cleaning, and a rotating leadership for collecting and accounting rent payments on a weekly basis. Undocumented immigrants will continue to live outside the law and will continue to conduct their lives and grow profound rots in the U.S. regardless of our definitions.

by Bernard Ozarowski

District 9 is the feature film debut from South African director Neil Blomkamp. Blomkamp grew up in South Africa under apartheid, which was, simply put, the legally enforced racial segregation system that subjugated the black majority of the population beneath the white minority. Of particular note in South African apartheid history was the ordeal of District Six. District Six was an area of Cape Town largely made up of a Muslim populace. The government decided that the populace needed to be moved, forcibly, for a variety of reasons. The government stated that the close proximity of the races developed tension, that District Six, which had once been rather well cultured, was a slum, that it was full of vices, such as prostitution, and that it bred criminal behavior. Over the course of about a decade the majority of the District Six population was moved to Cape Flats and their homes were bulldozed and the property seized by the government.

District 9 takes place in present day Johannesburg, South Africa and deals with the arrival of alien visitors to the planet Earth. (I should note at this point that if you have not seen the movie, which I would heartily recommend, there are many spoilers from here on out.) Upon arrival the aliens ship stops over the city and simply holds there. When the South Africans enter the ship they find that the aliens inside are sickly and on the verge of death. For a number of years, the ship had arrived in 1982, the aliens are allowed some form of freedom and are allowed to move around without restriction. Gradually, however, social pressure and racism lead the government to first segregate the aliens to District 9 then losing the right to leave the area at all. Blomkamp shows interviewed citizens blaming the aliens from everything from economic failures to their wife leaving them (because, of course, the aliens abducted her).

The citizens go further even, derogatorily deeming the aliens ‘prawns’ after their vague resemblance to Parktown prawns, an insect that had plagued South Africa. Blomkamp shoots all of this in documentary style, integrating faux-news footage with expert interviews and archive footage, to give the film a steeped in reality appearance. Almost organically, Blomkamp shifts the focus of the movie to Wikus van de Merwe who will be our protagonist. Van de Merwe is something of a nebbish pencil pusher, with a racist streak to him, working for Multinational United, the alien task force. He is completely blind to the plight of the aliens and sees them as inferior to himself. He is assigned with leading the relocation of the aliens in District 9 to a new camp called District 10. This is a character who, clearly, has minimal field experience and is uncomfortable even speaking to military types.

In the course of clearing District 9, van de Merwe ignores even the most rudimentary laws in place to protect the aliens. The MNU operatives are required to get signatures from the aliens acknowledging the need to move, or at least inform them they will be forcibly moved in 24 hours if they will not sign off. One alien knocks the clipboard from van de Merwe and he remarks that smashing the clipboard will suffice as a signature. He pressures another alien to acquiesce into moving by threatening to have his child taken away and killed. He also performs a series of in-the-field abortions, burning an alien breeding house where their eggs develop. Van de Merwe’s actions are a symbol here for the politics of the situation trumping the legal protections and those legal protections trumping any sort of moral protection for the aliens. Clearly, based on the fact that they have an intergalactic means of transportation, advanced weaponry and mechanized suits, the aliens are intelligent and culturally developed. But the political situation has not allowed the aliens a voice, they are subjugated because they are different and make an easy scapegoat for any societal ills because they have no voice.

It is not until van de Merwe is exposed to a chemical that begins to turn him into one of the aliens that his views change. He is captured by the government, to be experimented on and dissected and escapes. The government uses propaganda to turn him into a pariah. After his escape, van de Merwe retreats to District 9 seeing it as his only hope to find somewhere the government will not hunt him down. Back in District 9, van de Merwe forms an uneasy, self-interested, alliance with one of the aliens and many action scenes ensue. It is not until near the end of the movie when van de Merwe realizes he has formed a bond with his alien ally. He sees the alien attempt to explain to his son that they must move to District 10, and van de Merwe admits that the new location is “like a concentration camp.” By the film’s climax, van de Merwe has had his impediment, his blindness to the aliens’ plight and the aliens’ culture, has been corrected.

It is interesting, if tragic, that the end of the film sees massive celebration by South Africans about the departure of the alien mothership. Wikus van de Merwe, part and parcel of the problem, is the only one who begins to see the plight of the aliens – and that is only because he began to become one. There is no growth in society after van de Merwe’s ordeal, no change. Blomkamp’s recognition of notions that the political trumps the legal world and the legal trumps the moral is left fully intact and reflected in South African society.

Brett Katz

As the NFL season comes down to its the uglier side of the league. With Braylon Edwards, the New York Jets wide receiver pleading no contest to assault charges stemming from a bar fight, and surely facing a one-game suspension (most likely next season) we are distracted from the game on the field to focus on the mayhem off of it. This season has been filled with disciplinary turmoil, ranging from Michael Vick’s return to the league after serving two years in prison on dog fighting charges, to Donte Stallworth’s one-year suspension and thirty-day prison sentence for felony DUI vehicular manslaughter. This was the season of Marshawn Lynch, who was suspended four games for both a hit-and-run accident and a weapons charge in which police found a 9 mm handgun in a backpack in his trunk. And this was the season of Shawne Merriman, and Tom Cable, neither of whom were charged with a crime or suspended for any period of time despite allegations of spousal/girlfriend abuse. By and large most people who committed acts in contravention of the personal conduct policy were suspended. However, the two people involved with the most public examples of spousal/girlfriend abuse were not suspended and faced no discipline. What all this adds up to is the underlying question about integrity, and whether the league loses some of it when it does fail to punish those who deserve to be?

As we approach the close of the season, the league can only hope to put many of these issues behind them and begin to hope that its personal conduct policy will eventually phase out much of this behavior. The question though is what behavior it is that the league is actively seeking to eliminate. The message being sent by the league in punishing Vick, Stallworth, Lynch, and presumably Edwards is that the league wants to be tough on players, and that the right to play is not coextensive with legal rights. This is a novel idea, and one worthy of praise, however the failure is in the execution. By not punishing players (and coaches) for violence against women, the league fails to police one of the more pressing issues. I admit, I have no knowledge about the rate at which domestic violence occurs among professional football players, it may be impossible to measure for sure, but the perception among fans is that those numbers are high. Shouldn’t the public perception be enough to drive the league to work harder to prevent this type of behavior? If the league was concerned about PETA and would impose such a heavy suspension against Vick in fear of protest and public damnation, how could the league not work to curb one type of violent behavior (most) commonly associated with professional athletes. So far, the league has largely ignored this issue, and if they continue to do so, they will begin to lose the integrity they are working so hard to preserve by administering their own system of justice.

Even if police and district attorney’s choose not to file charges, the league is not bound by that decision. The most effective way to curb the behavior may be to be over-inclusive in who they punish. Fines and suspensions for complaints and/or convictions may be the only way to get the message though that violence against women will not be tolerated. The NFL should be proactive about curbing this behavior without the need of public intervention. It should not take a protest by an activist group to alert the league that they need to address it. If the league works hard to curb this kind of behavior perhaps these kinds of incidents won’t overshadow the magic that happens on the field, and this season will be remembered as the season the league got tough on violence against women.

An Italian jury found Amanda Marie Knox guilty of sexual assaulting
and murdering Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher.  The two girls were
studying abroad in Italy and lived together in an apartment. The
prosecution alleged that Knox and another accomplice attempted to lure
Kercher into a sex orgy.  When Kercher protested, they allegedly
sexually assaulted and murdered her by repeatedly stabbing her body
and slitting her throat.  Knox her accomplice then staged a break in
to cover their tracks.  The prosecutions evidence is tenuous at best.
Mixed samples of Knox’s DNA and Kercher’s blood were found on the
apartment’s bathroom sink. Not surprising considering the two women
lived together and shared common living spaces.  The prosecution also
lacked the murder weapon.  Although, Knox’s DNA was found on the
handle of a knife found in the girl’s kitchen drawer, which the
prosecution alleged was the murder weapon, it is questionable whether
that knife was actually the murder weapon.  The knife found was a 6.5
inch knife, which did not match two out of three of the wounds on
Kercher’s body that were made by a 3 to 3.5 inch knife. Apart from
this knife, there was no other forensic evidence directly indicating
that Knox was present at Kercher’s murder.  The defense claims that it
is impossible for Knox to have sexually assaulted and violently
murdered Kercher without leaving DNA or other trace of herself in the
bedroom or on the victim’s body.

So why did a jury convict Knox to 26 years in jail?  Her story may be
more of a cautionary tale of how a stranger in a strange land can
easily fail the reasonable person test on the basis of idiosyncratic
behavior.

Knox spent the night at her boyfriend Raffaele’s house the night of
the murder.  Knox returned to her house in the morning and discovered
the bathroom she shared with Kercher to be covered with blood.
Kercher’s door was locked and Knox attempted to unsuccessfully reach
her on her cell phone.  Despite the ominous signs Knox did not call
the police.  Instead, Knox returned to her boyfriend’s apartment and
informed him of her morning’s events over breakfast.  Then the police
were called.  A reasonable person would have immediately called the
police after finding their bathroom covered in blood. Equally damning
is Knox and Raffaele’s behavior the day after the murder.  Store
cameras captured Knox and her boyfriend shopping for thong underwear
and engaging in public displays of affections.  The store owner claims
Raffaele was excited about having wild sex with Knox that evening.
The store’s video was released to the public and televisions and
websites replayed their strange behavior ad nauseam.  Knox’s further
morally incriminated herself by doing cartwheels during her
interrogation by police.  Italian newspapers coined her “Foxy Knoxy”
and described her as “Luciferina with the face of an angel.”

Is Knox a little crazy? Extravagant? Idiosyncratic? I think so.  An
Italian public and jury also thought so for those were the only
reasons they needed to sentence Knox.

- Laura Alos

By: Daniel Buckley

For: Law and Literarature

I recently read an article in the New Yorker by Lauren Collins
entitled “Number Nine – Sonia Sotomayor’s high-profile debut.” The
article gives you pretty much all that you would expect from it – a
comprehensive rundown of her personal history with a focus on her
appointment and the “controversies” surrounding it. What I feel the
article was attempting to get at, as is suggested by the title and the
conclusion, is that Sotomayor is the first Supreme Court Justice to
reach a level of celebrity in her appointment to the Supreme Court.

I also saw an interview with Sotomayor on C-SPAN about a week ago in
which she talked about celebrity and accessibility and how they relate
to educating the public about the inner workings of the Supreme Court
and the civil and criminal systems in place in the United States as a
whole. Sotomayor seemed to be saying that she embraced the
opportunity to convey such information to the public and, the reporter
added, that her minority-representation status would further this
ability.

Of course, if there were a judge capable of doing these things, it
would be a Supreme Court Justice. Particularly one with media
following. And I, for one, would really like to get behind the idea
of the general public caring about Supreme Court Justices and the way
that they judge. Or about the criminal justice system. Or about
anything that I’ve studied in law school for the past two and a half
years. But at the end of the day, the general public just doesn’t
care. That’s why the only thing that people really know about
Sotomayor’s career, even though she was just appointed, is the “wise
Latina” comment. Most people outside of the legal or political world,
when told that I want to be a public defender, think that I want to
work for the DA’s office – I guess they think I mean I want to “defend
the public.” (Not that they say “DA’s office,” they just talk about
Law & Order.) God forbid I try to explain right to counsel.

But just because I think that the public doesn’t actually care about
Sotomayor as a judge doesn’t mean that I think it doesn’t care about
the law or judges at all. On December 5th, I had my Trial Advocacy
Final, which was a mock civil trial. We had judges (trial attorneys),
we had jurors (paid random people), and we had witnesses (paid
actors). We had openings, directs, crosses, closings, and exhibits
throughout. I, for one, had done quite a bit of work. And as my
partner and I wrapped up, I felt confident that we had won our case.
We won, all right, but it had little to do with me.

This was a class that relied on feedback, so we were allowed to stay
in the room as the fake jury deliberated. They didn’t talk about
their favorite Supreme Court Justice. They didn’t talk about our
arguments. They didn’t even talk about the law. They talked about
Judge Judy and what she would think was fair.

So, Lauren Collins, call Sotomayor a celebrity Justice all you want.
But until she’s a bitter, old hag screaming at people in a fake
courtroom on network television, I doubt most Americans will have any
idea of who she is as a judge, and much less of what impact it has on
them.

by Laura DeRossi

On December 1, 2009, John Gotti walked out of a courtroom as a free
man.   For a fourth time, a jury failed to come to a decision
regarding the charges against the head of the Gambino crime family.
Four separate groups of twelve people failed to find that a known
mobster was guilty (or not guilty) of federal charges of racketeering
and murder conspiracy.
This failure to convict a known criminal shows the problems of the
jury system, and the difficulty in getting twelve members of the
public to agree on a person’s fate.  With mobsters it is often even
more complex.  Often having enormous resources, both legitimate and
illegitimate, mobsters inspire hatred, admiration and most
importantly, fear.  While there is a logic to having members of the
public, which the accused is assumed to have wronged, decide the fate
of the accused, there are also significant problems with this system.
As shown by the Gotti trials, juries can fail.  While I am not privy
to the evidence supporting the charges against Gotti, I have little
doubt that Gotti is guilty of something, if not the current charges.
I am sure the majority of the jury members felt the same way.
However, when trying a man of such substantial notoriety as John
Gotti, the government and the jury have a problem.  There are myriad
stories of the mob reaching out to jurors, attempting to influence
them with money or threats.  Even when a juror is not approached, he
or she is often convinced that others have been.  Therefore, the jury
system will never properly function so long as the accused holds such
influence over the very people who are supposed to impartially decide
his fate.
The Gotti trial is an example of the failure of the jury system.
While I do not know of a better system available, the one currently in
place too often fails to provide the justice that is sought by those
within the system.  There is no morality in a system that allows for
jury tampering, or a system that fails to provide justice when a known
criminal is present in the courtroom.

The movie War of the Roses provides the most compelling example of how
the law consumes lawyers and the personal costs that accompany the
prestige and wealth of life at a large firm.This movie shows that the
law can have profound affects, not only on lawyers themselves, but
also on those close to them in their private life. The initial allure
of the money, power, status and prestige transformed their lives. The
larger house more expensive possessions were initially attractive.
However, maintaining such a lifestyle had consequences for Mr. Rose.
He was transformed into the mechanical, impersonal, cold, and
spiritually dead-yet wildly successful and prominent attorney type of
lawyer described by Melville in Bartleby. Yet, his success as an
attorney comes at the cost of his own humanity, his ability to
properly prioritize his family and his marriage, which leads his wife,
to file for divorce. This movie serves as a warning for all attorneys
to keep in mind the things that are most important in one’s private
life while pursuing career goals and objectives.

By Assaf Ben-Atar

Millions of moviegoers flocked to see the recently released movie
Avatar because of its technical forays into artificial computer
generated animation.  The plot surrounds a human named Jake Sully, who
goes to work for a corporate military entity that seeks to mine and
harvest a natural energy resource called “unobtanium.”  The resource
is located underneath the home/habitat of the “Na’vi” creatures and
thus Jake is sent, via an avatar system, to embody his own Na’vi and
assist the corporation in removing the natives from their home.  In
the process, Jake falls in love with one of the Navi women, and is
forced to choose between his employer’s assignment and his moral
compass.

Despite the generic plotline, the artificially animated imagery that
exists while Jake is his avatar system provides a wonderful visual
contrast that illustrates the “disconnect” between two worlds: the
private-moral and the public-professional.  While in an avatar, and
thus encompassing a body of the Na’vi creature, Jake has his own
private world.  Jake is essentially a spy, but the corporation he
works for does not supervise or control his actions.  During the hours
in which he is in the Avatar system, Jake is free, and develops his
own conclusions regarding the morality of his company’s objective to
mine the unobtanium no matter the consequences to the creatures that
live in their natural habitat.  Jake builds personal and private
relationships with the creatures, and decides that the moral course of
conduct is to maintain the happiness of the Na’vis by permitting them
to remain in their homes.  Therefore, Jake is unable to detach or
withdraw himself from the consequences.

However, other corporate employees (with specialized specific
jobs/tasks) fail to comprehend the remote consequences of their
professional actions when they engage in a violent act against the
Na’vi creatures.  They are desensitized because they perform their
jobs by sitting behind desks and looking at computer screens.  This
allows them to avoid personal guilt and participate in the violent
atrocities.  Jake, who has a more general employment task, sees the
larger picture, and understands that corporate profits are not worth
the additional consequences.  The incredible irony here is that
although Jake is in the artificial avatar setting, the other desk
employees are far more disconnected from the reality of their
employment actions. The dichotomy that exists within the movie Avatar
is analogous to the problematic nature of the modern legal profession:
where professionals specialize in minute detailed matters, and detach
themselves from reality by sitting at a desk all day.  By doing so,
lawyers occasionally fail to recognize the greater consequences of
their employment actions.  This idea that private-moral life is apart
and split from public-professional life often explains why human
rights violations occur and transpire.

By Danny Chahel

October 31, 2009 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
assassination of India’s former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. In
every state throughout India, tributes were paid to Gandhi and Indians
of all faiths reflected on her service to India. Nearly every major
newspaper in India carried a headline story detailing Gandhi’s fifteen
years as India’s Prime Minister. What received far less attention was
another grim anniversary: the massacre of thousands of Sikhs in the
1984 anti-Sikh riots, also referred to as the anti-Sikh pogroms, which
took place immediately following Indira Gandhi’s assassination.

A brief history of the events leading to Gandhi’s assassination and
the anti-Sikh riots is necessary. On June 3, 1984, Indira Gandhi
launched Operation Blue Star. The purpose of this four-day military
operation was to remove separatists who were amassing in the Golden
Temple, the holiest Sikh religious shrine. The justification for the
Operation, which was responsible for between 500 and 1000 Sikh
civilian deaths, was questioned by many and vehemently denounced by
the entire Sikh community. First, many questioned the timing of the
Operation, which coincided with a Sikh holy day commemorating the
martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, Sikhism’s fifth Guru who founded the
Golden Temple in the late sixteenth century. At the time of the
attack, thousands of Sikhs were visiting the Golden Temple to pray.
Second, many disagreed with Indira Gandhi’s view that military force
was her only remaining option to effectively deal with the
separatists. Third, many criticized the government for imposing a
media blackout in Punjab, the State in which the Golden Temple is
located, prior to the attack. Fourth, many took issue with the fact
that a large portion of the immense Golden Temple complex was damaged
and that hundreds of pieces of priceless Sikh art and artifacts were
stolen or destroyed. Finally, many argued that the Indian Army
committed human rights violations during the Operation, including
executing individuals whose hands were bounded and inappropriately
disposing of bodies to reduce the official death toll.

Although many Sikhs felt that Indira Gandhi was ultimately responsible
for the civilian casualties at the Golden Temple and that she should
be held accountable, a majority of Sikhs felt that more violence was
not the answer and instead chose to engage in peaceful protest.
Unfortunately, as retaliation for Operation Blue Star, two of Gandhi’s
Sikh bodyguards assassinated Indira Gandhi at her home in India on
October 31, 2009. One of the assassins was shot and killed at the
time of the assassination and the other assassin was arrested.
Additionally, the uncle of one of the assassin’s was also arrested as
a conspirator in the assassination. There was no evidence whatsoever
to suggest that other Sikhs were involved in the assassination.
Unfortunately, some Indians felt the entire Sikh community was
responsible for Gandhi’s death.
As soon as news of her assassination was released to the public, armed
groups began prowling the streets and targeting innocent Sikhs. Shops
and factories owned by Sikhs were set ablaze and predominantly Sikh
localities were raided. By nightfall the mobs became better organized
and Sikhs, including women and children, were forced to hide in the
homes of compassionate friends and neighbors. In and around Delhi,
some mobs stopped buses and trains, pulling out Sikh passengers to be
lynched or doused with kerosene and burnt. To quote Khushwant Singh,
a prominent Indian novelist and journalist, “I felt like a refugee in
my [own] country.” The violence lasted for three days and in total
over 3,000 Sikhs were killed. Additionally, thousands of Sikh-owned
homes, businesses, and vehicles were destroyed.

The government, which was at the time led by the Indian National
Congress political party, has been widely criticized for doing very
little to stop the riots. For example, the Indian Army was nowhere to
be found during the three days of violence. Similarly, a large
majority of the local police stations did nothing to stop the violence
and some police officials allegedly organized and led the mobs.
Furthermore, there is strong evidence indicating that certain
Congressmen were directly responsible for instigating the mobs to
violence. Even more troubling is the fact that voting lists were used
to identify Sikh families during the riots.

Twenty-five years after the tragic events, justice has not been served
and truth has been suppressed. Since 1984, the Government has set up
eight committees and two commissions to ascertain what exactly
happened during the riots and identify the culprits. Unfortunately,
these committees and commissions are mostly just for the sake of
appearances and the only purpose they serve is a political one. For
example, one of the commissions identified three Congressmen involved
in the anti-Sikh riots yet all three remain free to this day.
Although there have been a few inconsequential convictions, not a
single politician or senior police official has been reprimanded in
any way. Furthermore, a majority of the convictions have led to
acquittal. The guilty individuals behind the worst riots since
India’s Partition are yet to be punished for their crimes.

Relations between the Indian National Congress political party and the
Sikh community have improved in recent years. This is due in large
part to an apology issued to the Sikh community in 1998 by Sonia
Gandhi, the President of the Indian National Congress and
daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi. In terms of monetary compensation,
India’s cabinet created a rehabilitation package for victims, which
provides for a payment of about $2500 in US dollars to each victim.
Unfortunately, many of the victims and their families have been unable
to obtain compensation for what many consider to be trivial reasons.
For example, in the State of Punjab, 22,000 individuals have been
identified as eligible for compensation, but only 12,000 have thus far
been compensated.

Perhaps more importantly, there are those who feel that monetary
compensation is not the answer. These individuals believe that a
truth commission, similar to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, is necessary to heal the wounds. The previous commissions
have been shrouded in secrecy and the victims and their families
played only a small role in the inquiries and investigations. For the
victims to find peace, they must be given an opportunity to share
their story in a public setting.

Additionally, many argue that the government should provide a wide
range of services to the victims and their families, including
physical and mental health services, and acknowledgment of the
killings in the form of museums, official government literature, and
convictions. As one widow stated, “apologizing doesn’t amount to much
for family members unless [India] is going to acknowledge its role in
the massacres and then take serious steps for accountability.”

As the largest democracy, what message does India send to the world if
it continues to largely ignore the physical and emotional harm caused
by the anti-Sikh riots? To fully restore faith in its judicial
system, India must take immediate steps to address the suffering of
the victims and their families by providing monetary compensation and
physical and mental health services. Additionally, India should
establish a truth commission for the purposes of determining what
exactly happened during the riots, providing an opportunity for
victims to share their stories, and identifying and convicting those
who are responsible.

by Sara Yood

Over winter break, I had the pleasure of attending Penn & Teller’s
magic show in Las Vegas. Unlike some other magicians, Penn & Teller’s
show isn’t about fooling you in the traditional way. Penn & Teller
are skeptics and libertarians, and their performances show that quite
clearly. At the beginning of the show, Penn lectured the audience on
how every single thing they were showing was a trick, and about how
other magicians (and conjurers, fortune tellers, dead-communicators
and the like) are all lying if they tell you otherwise. It is a
provocative perspective from two people whose job it is to fool you.

But the presentation of one of their newer tricks seemed designed to
strike at the heart of their libertarian beliefs. In the setup, Penn
describes how they stopped traveling after the September 11th attacks.
Even though they would often get recognized at the TSA security
screenings and would be treated nicely, they witnessed other
passengers being “harassed” and disliked the experience so much that
they stopped traveling and took up residence at the Rio Hotel.

As Penn is describing this, they bring out an actual airport metal
detector, and demonstrate how the levels on the metal screening work.
At the lower settings, Penn can walk through and nothing happens. But
at the higher settings, the detector will go off. Then they use a
hand-held personal screening wand, and a piece of metal in Penn’s
pocket sets off the detector. Penn displays the piece of metal, and
then tells the audience that it is printed with the Bill of Rights.
Penn discusses the 4th Amendment while explaining why the airport
searches bother them so much. Then he mentions that the audience can
buy the metal Bill of Rights in their gift shop. You can also
purchase a plastic comb that opens up to be a blade, which will not
set off the detector but is certainly a weapon.

After this, Teller walks through the big metal detector, not setting
off the machine. But then, from his pocket, he produces a flaming
metal ashtray, a fire extinguisher, and a full-sized metal shovel. I
won’t spoil the end of the trick, but involves both the TSA’s
regulations and a really huge gun.

It’s a challenging take on an issue that is so present now, especially
with the recent security breaches in air travel. Should we be worried
about potential violations to the 4th Amendment with the increased
security, or accept that post-September 11th, it has to be the norm?
Penn & Teller are worried about that. Personally? I’m more worried
about all the people who want to blow up planes.