(upbeat trumpet music) (school bell ringing) ♪ Yo, I've got self-determination ♪ ♪ That's the heart and soul of this nation ♪ ♪ Each American's got the right to be ♪ ♪ Though we live together, we all live free ♪ ♪ You got that right ♪ ♪ You got that right ♪ ♪ You got that right ♪ ♪ You got that right ♪ - The United States Bill of Rights has been part of our Constitution for over 200 years.

Those years have contained the most extraordinary changes in human history.

(dramatic music) We have had to adapt to a world where every new generation faces challenges that the previous ones could scarcely imagine.

(bomb exploding) The only thing we can be sure of is that things will continue to change profoundly, suddenly and dramatically.

Does our Bill of Rights need to be amended to keep pace with these changes?

And if it does, how would you do it?

- In the future I think people should have a right to clean environment.

I mean, I know there has to be a certain amount of pollution, but if we can't breathe the air what's the use of having rights like right to vote, or right to free speech, or anything else at that matter?

- If it was part of the Constitution that everyone had a right to a place to live, then all the problems of the homeless people would be solved.

Make it more of a priority in the future.

- I don't think it's fair that so many people can't afford to get sick.

I mean, what's gonna happen in the future if costs just keep going up?

Doesn't everyone have the right to be cared for when they get sick?

- So we can't make it a priority for everyone to have a right to place to live, then that puts it on the government to provide everyone with a place to live.

Then that only gives people the excuse not to get themselves together.

- Well, I think that animals should have rights because they are such an important part of our world.

I mean, right now there are so many different kinds of animals in danger of extinction.

I mean, don't you all think that they have a right to a future just like we do?

And also, I think that we should respect them and treat them with the same kind of respect that we're supposed to treat each other with.

- Shoot, if animals have rights then who's in charge anyway?

- I remember when I was in high school, it wasn't that long ago.

The world seemed like a terribly complicated place.

Now that I'm grown up I realized I was right.

The world is complicated and frightening and it seems to go faster all the time.

Now more than ever we need to know what our rights are and how we can protect them.

(car door clicking open) - These days it's not possible to protect your privacy if someone really wants to invade it.

All they need is a credit card number, a driver's license, a bank account, a social security card, and someone can really find out an awful lot about you.

- You know, businesses exist solely to investigate prospective tenants for landlords.

These businesses go so far as to determine whether a tenant has ever sued or brought a legal action against a landlord.

And this creates the very real possibility that otherwise qualified tenants will be denied housing solely for the reason that they used the legal process, rightfully, to protect their interests.

These searches create a very real right to privacy issues.

- House arrest is a viable alternative when it comes to incarceration of inmates.

If the state, through electronic monitors in the form of wrist bracelets or ankle bracelets can keep track of an inmate while he's in his own home, that means that the state is not responsible for medical care, for feeding, housing, or clothing of the inmate.

It's a cheaper alternative for dealing with the crime problem.

- The problem is where do you draw the line?

They're already developing technology that can be surgically implanted beneath someone's skin, allowing that person's every movement to be monitored via satellite.

That disturbs me.

Would it constitute cruel and unusual punishment?

I think you can create the argument that it would.

- Well I think since women are starting to do more and more things that men used to do, especially now since women are allowed to fight and everything, then I think it's about time we made some changes in women's rights.

- [Narrator] For some time now the concepts of right to life and the right to choose have been on opposite sides of an extremely heated national debate.

The arrival of new and potentially revolutionary birth control technology has added subtle Constitutional questions to this already complex issue.

- Norplant is a means of providing involuntary birth control.

This little device is inserted underneath a woman's skin, using a local anesthetic.

The operation itself takes only a few minutes, but the effects lasts for up to five years without any additional need for birth control.

- [Narrator] There have been a number of occasions when judges have ordered women who have been convicted of abuse not to have children for a certain amount of time.

These orders have all been struck down by higher courts because they interfere with the privacy rights of the women involved.

In California, there was a controversial case in which a woman who was convicted of child abuse appealed an agreement which she had made with a judge.

The judge required that she have the Norplant device placed under her skin.

At first, she agreed.

But later, she changed her mind.

- There wasn't even a reporter in the courtroom when this happened, that's how routine this case was supposed to be.

And some reporter heard that the sentence had come down and wrote a little article about it.

It went out over the wire services and by the next day every national newspaper and TV network was calling this little town.

If Norplant were used by, say, drug addicted or abusive mothers, the number of tragic cases of crack babies and traumatized children would obviously be reduced.

- Creativity in the law is different than creativity in art which is something we prize.

Creativity in the law is as often harmful as it is a force for good.

Usually what judges mean when they talk about creativity they mean convenience.

They mean something that moves the bodies in and out of the courtroom a little more rapidly.

(Tim chuckling) Judicial creativity or judicial innovation was precisely what the founders have in mind-- the framers had in mind when they inserted into the Bill of Rights a proscription, a prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

- This would be a really good idea for Darlene Johnson because she's got four kids, she's got a fifth on the way.

She's overwhelmed in her life.

She needs a break.

I think that his motives were good.

I think he really wanted to give her a break.

So what happened was, they're in court and the judge suddenly starts talking about Norplant.

And he asks Darlene if she wants to get pregnant again?

She says, no.

He says, are you on welfare?

She says, yes.

And he says, well, have you heard about this new thing called Norplant?

She says, no.

He explains it in about 10 seconds.

And he says, with your permission I'd like to make that a condition of your probation.

She says, fine.

- So here's this woman, she's poor.

She's a lone individual.

She's single mother.

There before the bar of justice, the weight of the power, the weight of the state is all against her.

Okay, there's another imbalance here, and that she is a member of two minority groups.

She's an African American in a society where the majority of people are white.

She is a poor person in a society where most people are not poor.

And this is precisely the kind of person in precisely the kind of situation that the Bill of Rights was envisioned to address.

- There are people that would argue that a woman's right to privacy over her own body is absolute.

The judge would say, no, that right is not absolute, particularly if you're harming other people.

And he would argue that this woman had already harmed two of her children.

If she didn't get her life together, she was surely gonna have more children and probably harm them too.

- About the turn of the Century, one of the great movements that swept the American professional and intellectual classes was the eugenics movement.

- [Narrator] In the first half of this century, 24 states made it legal for drug addicts, habitual criminals and so-called feebleminded people to be sterilized.

By 1941, 36,000 Americans had been sterilized by the government.

In 1941, this practice was struck down as unConstitutional by the Supreme Court.

- More than half of the people sterilized were foreigners.

Once again you have a powerless minority.

- The judge had a lot of support, I would say basically from two groups.

One was a sort of a middle of the road, moderate group of people who just felt, it's terrible to abuse children and we really do need to think about their rights as well.

And there was another group which was sort of more hardcore, I would say.

Basically the minute that they heard that she was black, on welfare, didn't use any birth control and had beaten her children, they were ready to say string her up.

- Can you imagine that legislature ever seriously discussing the forced vasectomy of solving a problem by advocating vasectomies for middle class men, middle class white men?

- It seems like if you don't act responsibly it really doesn't matter how many rights you have, they're not gonna do you any good.

- The resolution of these issues may some day affect you or someone you love, girlfriend, sister, in the case with Norplant.

But more generally it's important to talk and argue about these issues and about Constitutional issues generally, because of the people we are.

- Just because you have the right to behave like an idiot, doesn't mean that you should.

I mean, that's not why we have rights.

- We are the people of an idea.

We are the people of an idea about the way in which government ought to be conducted, and about the way in which the liberty of the people who live, who make up that government ought to be preserved.

- You have a responsibility to know what your right are and to know how you came to have them.

- It's not like we live in a dictatorship where people have fight to get the rights they don't have.

Here it is up to us to exercise those rights, or we'll lose them.

- That's how you become an American citizen, you swear an oath of loyalty, not to a king, or a queen, or to ancient gods, but to an idea of the Constitution of the United States of American and its Bill of Rights.

- It seems like now more than ever, we've got to understand what it means to have rights.

- Since it was written over 200 years ago, the Bill of Rights has become and remains vital to the everyday lives of all the people in this country.

It is a part of a powerful living document which has changed as times have changed.

Each new generation has asked itself a question.

Now it's your turn.

If you could amend the Constitution, how would you do it?

♪ America ♪ ♪ America ♪ ♪ God shed His grace on thee ♪ ♪ And crown thy good ♪ ♪ Crown it with brotherhood ♪ ♪ From sea to shining sea ♪ ♪ And crown thy good with brotherhood ♪ ♪ From sea to shining, shining sea, yeah ♪ (relaxing music) - [Introducer] We hope you enjoyed this edition of MPB Classics.

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