Geek On The Mountain

A friend of Milenka’s recently had her daughter taken away by Child Protective Services. Okay, that happens. There’s obviously some sort of a problem somewhere in some way. Only Laura doesn’t know why they took her daughter away. Nor will anyone tell her. And according to another friend, who is a social worker, CPS isn’t required to actually give out ANY information at all. Apparently this is to protect the identity of anonymous tipsters. I’d even go so far as to say that there are 5th amendment issues with that kind of situation, even though there technically aren’t any (I think) because no one has been arrested. I can understand the need for anonymity but that doesn’t mean the parent(s) should be left in the dark.

So what’s a parent to do? The only thing that can be done: hire a lawyer. Of course that costs money. Laura is taking donations to help cover costs…see the link above.

This just uncovers a bit of a flaw in our legal system….the whole lawyer thing. Actually, the problem is so much with lawyers per se as it is in that lawyers are expensive. Then again, since that’s pretty much always true, it makes lawyers the issue. To summarize, a child is taken from it’s parent(s) without any information being offered in any way. The parent(s) can’t even mount a defense on their own. Mind you, this is the way the system is supposed to work. It’s designed to work that way if need be. Seeing as though you aren’t willing to just forget about the kid, all you can do is hire a lawyer.

Sound familiar? Maybe? Ever heard of the RIAA filesharing lawsuits? The gist of that situation (they’ve sued like 3,000 people now, btw) is that they file a lawsuit for potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages against people who have allegedly been sharing music on filesharing networks. They then offer to settle for amounts ranging from maybe $2,000 up to $30,000 or more, depending on what the person can afford. (Mind you that the lower end tends to apply for some of their younger targets…they’ve hit a couple of 12 year olds with lawsuits and emptied their college funds.) It’s likely that many of the people targeted would lose if the case actually went to court. It’s also likely that at least some would win. The trouble is, most people can’t afford to fight it. The RIAA’s lawyers can create such a hassle for the defendant that it’s actually probably cheaper for them to take the settlement than it is to hire a lawyer and wade through it all.

Now I’m not trying to downplay the “daughter taken from mother without explanation” side of this when compared to the “RIAA files lawsuits against filesharers” side. Similarly, I’d hope that CPS is a tad more… moral (not exactly the right word for the situation….my morals aren’t your morals aren’t somebody else’s morals, and I’m not preaching to anyone here)… than the RIAA. Nonetheless, there is a common thread here. Something’s clearly not totally right with our legal system when spending huge amounts of dough on lawyer is our only alternative.

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