Now I know how the Daily Show gets it's material. Find a legislative hearing titled "SB 1053 Criminal Procedure -- Strip Search or Body Cavity Search of an Arresttee -- Restrictions" and let the cameras roll.

As with many of the topics Jon Stewart pokes fun of on the Daily Show, this topic was indeed serious. If you believe the attorneys who testified and the lawmakers who talked, cops all over the state are illegally strip searching people arrested on minor charges, humiliating them to the point they're scared to come to Annapolis and testify and credible enough that a federal judge has granted them class-action status to take on the state.

So here are some moments (totally and shamelessly taken out of context) from the hour-long hearing (and to my colleague and boss, state politics guru Andy Green, who has already beaten me to the punch by posting my favorite quip on his Maryland Politics blog, yes, in 19 years reporting for the Baltimore Sun, this was my very first Annapolis hearing).

It was taped by Maryland Public Television, and all they have to do is stamp "mature" on it and they'll get enough people watching that they can do away with their next pledge drive. I mean, if you can't sell politicians talking about our rear-ends, what can you sell?

Senator Gladden: "Why do you need a health officer? It's usually squat and cough."

Senator Brochin: "When you put your hand in somebody's rectum, I don't think it's unreasonable for a health official to be there."

It was a perfect Daily Show moment, one that had Gladden looking like a fool for even wondering why a surgeon isn't with every cop poking his hands into people's back ends. Of course, Gladden wasn't talking down to Brochin, she was actually trying to determine what level of medical official should be present during such, uh, examinations. But enough with putting things into context.

The salty language rattled Senator Raskin so much that at one point he demanded the bill mandate police of "the opposite sex" perform all strip searches, a point he quickly retracted when even a group patiently waiting to talk about mobile home parks laughed. In fact, I was sure some of them would walk out when Phil Hinkle, the general counsel for the Charles County Sheriff's Department, begin to discuss how much of the buttock can be revealed in public to meet the definition of a strip search.

It was a detailed discussion, in that the state's highest court recently ruled that a Baltimore County police officer violated the rights of man he strip searched in a car wash bay. Turns out he had lowered the man's pants partway, exposing the top portion of the buttocks, and the court ruled that even that was too intrusive, constituted a strip search and the car wash bay was too public a place to do that.

"The court ruled that even a little bit of buttocks is illegal," Hinkle told the lawmakers.

Brochin wanted to know why, "if you have someone in custody, in handcuffs, do you need to conduct a strip search in a car wash. Why can't you take them to jail?" to which Hinkle explained that officer safety might require a strip search at the scene of the arrest, even if it's a car wash. He said that in this particular case, the court recommended a car be used.

Hinkle objected to limiting strip searches to suspects believed to be hiding weapons or drugs, saying the person under arrest could also be hiding a handcuff key up his (well, you know). "Who knows what people hide in their pants," Hinkle said with a straight face.

Indeed.

Of course, that didn't even come close to when lawmakers discussed the three different kinds of strip search that is possible. Apparently, there's a strip search done "without the intent to see the genitals," "with the intent to see the genitals" and another described as "body cavity invasion." Are they sure a doctor is enough?

They did not discuss what happens during a search in which the officer doesn't intend to see the genitals but sees them anyway. Do they avert their eyes or just pretend they didn't see anything? Can the officer be sued?

Always, always, there are unanswered questions.