Are Child Protective Services Authorities Too Powerful?
The story about someone calling the Nevada Department of Child and Family Services on political writer Chuck Muth is a chilling example of how due process can be bypassed and a quasi criminal charge created simply on the basis of an anonymous tip. There are abused children out there who need protection and who need to be taken away from negligent parents, but the authority to make those decisions should be subject to the same Constitutional restrictions placed upon law enforcement agencies.
Why should the Department of Child and Family Services have search and seizure authority without having to obtain a search warrant like say when police investigate murderers or drug dealers? One would think that the same people protesting against the Patriot Act would be protesting against someone’s home being searched and children potentially being seized without the accused being able to face his accusers or the use of warrants, indictments or trials.
To put things into historical perspective, just think about how difficult it would be to become a pioneer nowadays. If you choose to strike out into uncharted territory to stake a claim, your kids would be seized by a government bureaucrat faster than you could get your covered wagon over the river and through the woods to the place where you would build your log cabin. Abraham Lincoln would not have been able to educate himself in front of the fireplace because a government agency would have determined that his living conditions were substandard.
Because of capitalism and the American culture of entrepreneurship, the standard of living has become so good so fast that now, one has to be concerned that an extended camping trip can become a government investigation and custody battle over your children. Heaven help us if another depression occurs like what happened in the 1930’s. Parents who lose their house could lose their children too. So much for the concept of families banding together!
Government intrusion into the private lives of Americans has come a long way. My how the role of government has changed!