by Sara Mullen from the American Civil Liberties Union.
The nightmare that this couple experienced is due to the recent decades of civil rights reverses directed by the capitalist ruling class of the US.
I think it began with the killing of the Kent State University students for protesting against the war in Vietnam. No one was charged with any crime or even disciplined. The anti-war movement and the rest of the country was shocked by the incident. The mainstream media tried to manage the damage by offering rationalizations. But, nevertheless, the government of the ruling class got away with it without suffering much damage. This, I believe, emboldened them.
After the war was over, the right-wing fringe organized and went on the offensive against all the outrageous (to them) anti-war, pot-smoking generation of civil rights and anti-war activists. Under Nixon they launched the "War on Drugs" which resulted in relaxed search and seizure policies and dramatic increases in arrests and imprisonment of citizens. Then they managed to get the Hollywood actor, Ronald Reagan, elected to bust unions and increase police enforcement policies under the "War on Drugs". As a result by 2005 the US had the highest percentage in the world of its citizens in prison.
The election of George Bush, Jr. brought the "War of Terror" and the Patriot Acts which further curtailed civil liberties and led to increased surveillance of citizens and human rights abuses that in their most extreme form permitted renditions of citizens to overseas detention centers where they were tortured (see this and this). The end result of the right-wing campaign has been the virtual shredding of civil rights under the Constitution. All of these actions has made it permissible for the Pennsylvania county agency and the police to come to this couple's home and snatch away their newborn baby.
