Fiddlin’ While Rome Explodes

There are actually times when I agree with the ACLU, but this is not one of them:

The New York Civil Liberties Union will file suit against the city Thursday to keep police from searching the bags of passengers entering the subway, organization lawyers said.
The suit, which will be filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, will claim that the two-week old policy violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and prohibitions against unlawful searches and seizures, while doing almost nothing to shield the city from terrorism.

What is unlawful about this? You are asked to show the contents of your back. If you choose not to, you don’t ride. Why is this any more onerous then requireing, say, a ticket to ride?

It argues that the measure also allows the possibility for racial profiling, even though officers are ordered to randomly screen passengers.

I wish to hell they would be allowed to profile. How many 70 year old women of Danish descent have set off bombs recently?

“While concerns about terrorism of course justify — indeed, require — aggressive police tactics, those concerns cannot justify the Police Department’s unprecedented policy of subjecting millions of innocent people to suspicionless searches,” states the suit, a partial copy of which was provided to Newsday.

Can anyone possibly imagine what ‘aggressive poplice tactics’ the ACLU would endorse if they are against random searches of friggin’ bags?

One Response to “Fiddlin’ While Rome Explodes”

1. Dave J says:

   August 5, 2005 at 12:02 am

   WTF?! No one has a right to privacy in public. Gimme a break. The ACLU is dangerously demented.