Slate’s wonderful “Explainer” series had an informative article detailing your rights while riding the trains (or buses) in New York and D.C. “Are Subway Searches Legal?” This is a particularly relevant topic given the current state of paranoia:
Depends on how it’s done. The Fourth Amendment protects people from “unreasonable searches or seizures.” As a general rule, the government can’t search your baggage without a reason to believe you’re a criminal. But according to legal precedent, a random search is acceptable if it fulfills special needs like public safety. If New York’s subway screenings are challenged in court, the city’s lawyers could argue that the program’s primary purpose is to protect the city from terrorism.
Unless a judge agrees that they fulfill a special need, the screenings will be on shaky legal ground. In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that a roadblock used to screen drivers for drug crimes was unconstitutional, since its primary purpose was to apprehend drug traffickers. On the other hand, roadblocks that screen for drunk drivers have been deemed OK, since they promote highway safety. (The court did say in the 2000 ruling that “a roadblock set up to thwart an imminent terrorist attack” would almost certainly be constitutional.)
The key legal point here seems to be that such an extreme curb on privacy rights has to come with both a sunset clause and a geographical constraint:
Let’s assume the courts believe the subways searches are an effective deterrent for terrorism and that the recent subway bombings in London make them reasonable. Then a judge would have to consider whether the scope and duration of the searches is appropriate. The first random subway screenings occurred last summer in Boston during the Democratic Convention. A district court ruled that searches on trains that ran beneath the convention center were acceptable since they took place in a restricted area for a limited amount of time. The New York City searches, though, are taking place all over the system and seem to be of open-ended duration.
The judge must also consider how individuals are selected for screening. If police officers have too much discretion, they might single out certain kinds of people for “random” searches. To prevent profiling, cops are sometimes given a strict formula—in Boston, for example, every 11th passenger was pulled aside at some commuter rail stations. The NYPD says “numerical criteria” are being used, but spokesmen also say that large or suspicious-looking bags can be red flags.
Eh, I don’t know. I watched as loads of people went on about how “nothing will ever be the same again” after 9/11, only to merrily engage in gossip-mongering about the wealth and morality of the 9/11 widows just a few years later. Made me realize that terrorism, to most Americans, as a concept or as a reality, just hadn’t sunk in very far at all.
For that I’m actually rather glad. People here are so free, so confident, so brash. It would be tragic to replace that with the paranoia, timidity, and cynical gallow’s humor present in the populations of most war-torn countries. I’m probably stretching my experiences in Sri Lanka too far, but as of late, they’ve had a frightening resonance.
This debate on personal freedom v. collective security will probably rage on without end. At least until the next explosion. Or the next.
This, I’m afraid, is one the most virulent consequences of terrorism: 1. People clamor for ‘something to be done’ 2. the government creates anti-terrorism measures that jostle uncomfortably against the ideals of a democracy 3. more explosions as the terrorists are undeterred 4. more steps towards curbing civilian rights and alienating/victimizing the large swathes of whatever ethnic group said to resemble terrorist suspects 5. said ethnic group eventually begins to wonder if the terrorists have a point after all.
Hopefully this won’t be the case here. As for what to do – I think it would be foolish to be so afraid of terrorist attacks that we relinquish government transparency and accountabilty. Sri Lankan government/politicians realized very quickly that ‘war’ was quite politically expedient and lucrative. There are endless rumors about how the goverment actually kept the war going, shipping arms etc.
This American ‘war of terror’ is so much larger in scale, it’s hard to picture all the pieces. But there are too many, already, that are invisible. And that’s a bad sign.
It’s also vague, undefined, poorly thought out, and reliant on a bad model. And executed by incompetents, thus far.
Anyway, I don’t think that the particular cycle you’re talking about can happen in the United States because if the $hit really hits the fan, they’ll completely close down the borders (except perhaps to registered Mexicans), deport the rest of the Muslims they can, tighten financial regulations, get smart informed people into the fbi, cia, etc. who will conduct highly unethical but perhaps narrowly necessary operations, and institute some security measures that are more like in other countries.
There isn’t a big enough base for salafists to draw upon here to create a real cycle of violence and repression from their end; but maybe we’ll get what I’ve seen one blogger refer to as “corn pone fascism.”
Isn’t this what they already think they’re doing? Only I think the “smart, informed” people over at Homeland Security have a highly exaggerated sense of their own abilities. Unethical operations are already underway..and this article points out how little substance there is to all these measures.
By mindlessly extending the scope, the definition, of ‘terrorism,’ the ‘War on Terror’ has created antagonists far beyond the Salafists, I think. The result – home grown young men with a chip on their shoulder like the London Bombers. At least, that’s my prediction. I think their Al-Queda links will be tenuous at best.
Sorry to keep dredging up my SL experiences, but it wasn’t just the GoSL v the LTTE terrorists, you know. An outlawed marxist party, thugs looking for extortion money…many others took a ride on the terrorism carousel, once it started spinning
Sorry to keep dredging up my SL experiences, but it wasn’t just the GoSL v the LTTE terrorists, you know. An outlawed marxist party, thugs looking for extortion money…many others took a ride on the terrorism carousel, once it started spinning
no no, please inform. Most of us ranting and raving here (like myself) have never seen a war other than Star Wars. It would shed light on how bad things can get if left unresolved
With you, it’s free. With M.I.A., I have to fork out for an album and just collect the gestalt filtered through baile funk 😉
I’m glad you’re interested Lovin, but let me rush to say that I’m no expert. I left when I was 13, and was sheltered, compared to most.
But I was obnoxiously precocious and remember everything vividly. Especially since my mom said we’d just be staying in the states for 4 or 5 years until things calmed down some in SL. So I spent my high school years assimilating only superficially (only brown kids – me, my cousin, and an Indian boy) clinging to my SL identity for when we went back. Needless to say, that never happened 🙂 I went back by myself when I was 18, cause it was quite a blow.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, I think things can get really bad if unresolved. If science fiction has taught us anything, it’s that utopias can become distopias really quickly 🙂
Seriously, I think reading accounts of war, the real kind, not the glorified shit, will help put this ‘war’ in perspective. The only thing we can do is to put this in perspective and not be afraid…not in that insipid “If I don’t max my credit card, the terrorists win!” sort of return-to-normalcy… more like, realize that getting blown apart in the subway is about as likely as getting bitten by a shark in the water. Don’t give the govt. more power. Don’t let it give some terrorist leader any more reasons to convince vulnerable, gullible, misguided people that his way is the only way.
Oh yeah, they’re doing all kinds of $hit–investigating, detaining, or deporting over 100,000 people (targeted for being Muslim or likely to be Muslim) in the past four years being a good example. I could go on for pages. I’m just saying the government repression can and is more likely to get worse than the terrorism (barring a nuclear incident or something along those lines–which could happen). Maybe I have too much confidence in their (not the Bush admin–the elite in general) ability to unethically protect me, to make myself feel safer. Ahh…internal conflicts.
Thanks Manish 🙂 I’m always a bit afraid of being a bombastic bore with the “when I was in Sri Lanka..” thing all the time:)
As for MIA, I wouldn’t have thought to air an opinion anywhere if it hadn’t been for Mathangi shooting her sexy, fascinating mouth off… so I’m giving credit where it’s due 🙂
I think the good old days, back when the CIA propped up puppet goverments and controlled banana republics, are long over Saurav. Let’s have a moment of silence, shall we?
I was talking about new kinds of unethical activities–like infiltrating and capturing or killing Al Qaeda and similar groups. The old kind are stupid.
Saurav, I meant to add add something to indicate that my last post was tongue-in-cheek. But I think I’ve used up my daily allotment of emoticons.
As for the new kinds…they’re proving to be horribly bad at it, aren’t they? That’s why they’ve cast such a large net, in terms of people held without cause, deported, etc….they don’t know the next Mohammad Atta from, well, a Brazillian guy. (I know that was a cheap shot, but frankly, I don’t feel like being fair-minded towards the authorities today.)
Yup, they sure are. And it’s not even surprising, if you paid any attention to what these people were about or where they were coming from.
Clearly 🙂 But it’s all good. You’re more than made up for by the 99.4 % of the population that’s excessively deferential.
It is only the fringe minority that is screaming fascism and a “police state.”
You park your car and look around to see who’s around, someone flashes a badge and says “you look suspicious, we’re going to search you and your car”… Guy’s riding his bike on the sidewalk and not in the street, cops take him down and says he poses a safety hazard to pedestrians and then search him in the process… You’re walking quickly through the airport to catch a flight and the Port Authority says they thought you were “fleeing a scene,” which is why they stopped you…
Before dumping the whole argument as rabble-rousing by fringe-elements, consider that the “minority” you’re referring to is investigating the consequence of using an ambiguous area of constitutional law as the legal foundation for domestic security policy. That may not seem important to you, the majority, but to the minority who recognize the above-mentioned cases as an inevitable and unacceptable byproduct of that ambiguity, it is a compelling reason to take the “moral high ground.”
Check out the big picture, there’s more to it than just keeping people safe from terrorists.
Cicatrix,
You might want to tone down the foul mouthed prose a bit… I’m not sure what you mean by “whatever the f**k they want”
On the one hand you wail in all your posts about stereotyping and yet somehow paint me as some NRA spouting fanatic. Fine job in not using stereotypes yourself…Perhaps you do need “dem meds”
And then you say
. Yet you do want them to add more laws.
According to the National Firearms Act, machine guns have to be registered with the ATF by civilian owners after being fingerprinted and photographed. I doubt any criminal is going to wait the for that. Assault weapons were never banned. If you look at the law that expired last year, all it did was outlaw some minor cosmetic details on some guns…. things like bayonet lugs. I don’t think there has been a “bayonet based killing” in the US since the Civil War. Semi-automatic “assault rifles” have always been legal to purchase in the US (except where local states and cities had their own local laws supercede the Federal law). So nothing dramatic happened last September, except an ill thought out law went away.
The question you need to be asking is why were 35 terrorists allowed to buy weapons, if they identified as such. Just as much as most posts on this forum are about why should innocent people be profiled for the acts of a few, why shoul the 99.99 % of gun owners be penalized for the acts of a few ? And why aren’t the laws enforced uniformly ?
Given the fact that a gun is pretty weak in terms of being a terror weapon compared to a backpack bomb or even a gas tanker loaded with explosives or a fully loaded airplane, I think you can rest easy that the notion “Christmas came early” last September 13th is not true. Rogue Pakistani nuclear scientists are a greater threat. I would however buy that radiation detector and CBRN resistant suit. And perhaps stock up on those meds you were refering to.
Ah, Vikram. We’ve been waiting breathlessly for your pearls of wisdom. So glad you could join us.
Now be a nice boy and link to something that supports your assertions, will you?
I really don’t know how to respond to a comment that dwells on “bayonet lugs” while ignoring an article that begins:
If you read the article at all, you might needs meds as much as I do, cause no sane adult could write something this juvenile and whiny:
By the way, not all laws give the government more power. For example, we could use more stringent laws regarding politicians consorting with lobbyists.
Ah Cicatrix, From the speed of your response I would say you have been waiting… didn’t realize my words caused such breathless anticipation. And I thought only J K Rowling invoked such a fan following.
Since you asked, here is the link to the ATF’s page on registraion of machine guns et al. You can wade through the documents and laws to your hearts content. Pretty clearly states what is legal and what is not.
ATF
15 years ago Osama was still a “good guy” atleast to the CIA. At that time you do realize that the CIA also gave him 500 Stringers that are more lethal than any .50 caliber rifle ? Now that is what should make you take your meds…not a dozen rifles that do not have anything like a heat seeking warhead. Or this story.
Juvenile and whiny ? This from somebody who babbles incoherently and fills up space with inane “lyrics” … I am not the one screaming like Chicken Little about some stupid law expiring. Are those meds for a sense of delusional superiority ?
And of course you know what laws don’t give the government more power… Funny, this topic starts with a mention of the Fourth Amendment and its possible violations under the current situation. And you have no qualms about doing the same to the Second Amendment.
From the speed of your response I would say you have been waiting… No vikram. I just think fast.
You can wade through the documents and laws to your hearts content. Pretty clearly states what is legal and what is not. I’d rather not, thanks. The point of providing a link is to help boost your argument. I could, for example, have directed your attention to dozens of anti- NRA sites, but that would have been ridiculous since my point was that the US gun laws are so lax, most terrorist organizations benefit. And I think this, and this, and this do so, amply. In fact, in post #25, I quote an ATF official who said,
Maybe you were getting so hot and bothered by my “foul mouthed prose” you missed it the first time? It was indented with blockquotes, but, don’t worry..I understand how those things can be..
I am not the one screaming like Chicken Little about some stupid law expiring. Are those meds for a sense of delusional superiority ? Oh, Vikram..tsk tsk. Temper Temper! Please don’t project your anger (and/or delusions) onto me. My lyrics were a riff on the ATF officials comments, and a nod to a 50 cent song. I’m so sorry – it must be hard getting old. And losing your sense of humor.
And, darling, I’m as much afraid of Ossama getting nukes as you are…but shouldn’t be worried about what he already has in ready supply? That fact that the US, in its “War on Terror” is also one of the world’s biggest arms suppliers…is a bit rich, no? Preposterous, maybe? Hypocritical, perhaps?
I loved that you looked something up in the Washington Times, by the way. Please keep it up! Refering to CaseLaw, as you did in your last link, really does nothing to dispell the gloomy notion that you really are nothing but a barking mad mouthpiece for the NRA, dear.
The Second Amendment is, in my humble opinion, the goofiest thing about the United States of America.
(that’s the one about bearing arms civil war style, right?)
Please don’t argue with me, we’ll never agree and it’s half past three so I’m off to slee…p.
U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!
Sure, it’s goofy to someone still living under a royal family 😉 (That’s so fifteenth century, yo.)
It’s totally understandable. It’s a direct line from ‘governments… deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed’ to the means of overthrow if the system sucked. Like they had just done with the king.
The founding fathers were some mutinous cats.
It was totally understandable.
People don’t like amending the Bill of Rights unless it involves flag-burning 😉
Hmm… I suppose you do have speed on the brain…
You quote CBS News and 60 minutes, which have had a pretty shaky history of actually getting their stories right in the recent past. Yet The Washington Times is somehow less reputable…A “bit rich” and “hyprocritical” no ?
I post the link to the official law that the ATF is supposed to enforce, not the opinions of one former ATF agent, anymore than one IRS agent’s opinions are the official opinions of the IRS. Yet you suddenly have no interest in that. Funny for someone who requested my backing up my statement. Guess you find it hard to hold a consistent thought. The scar tissue must be affecting your thought processes. My sympathies…
I don’t think you have to worry about lax gun laws here when in Europe they are quite openly selling sophisticated sniper weapons to potential terrorist groups by the boat load . Hypocrisy is not an American domain alone.
And what’s with the weird personal attacks and creepy “darlings” and “dear” terms ? Do you get this way about anyone who disagrees with you ? I disagreed with your opinion and directed my opinions to that alone, no weird abusive comments directed at you. You ask me to provide links and I did. You decline to read them and call me a “barking mad mouthpiece for the NRA”. I never even made a reference to the NRA in any of my posts. Yet you drag the NRA into it. Is that leap of specious association any different from the way law enforcement is making faulty associations between people of a certain ethnic background and terrorism ? Suddenly you have made this a personal issue rather than about the material being discussed. I thought you wanted a rational debate. I was wrong. Bizarre… I thought the moderators of this board wanted to keep the posts on topic and abuse free. You didn’t read that part either.
Like they say, the first one to resort to personal attacks has lost the debate.
In that case, you lost long ago.