more on NYC will arrest for contraband in subway searches

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh () hserus net>
Date: July 22, 2005 11:59:08 AM EDT
To: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Cc: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] NYC will arrest for contraband in subway searches


Lauren Weinstein wrote:

> Suresh,
>
> I think the referenced NYT article hit the key points (including
> the airport analogy) pretty well.  There is a big difference between
> a highly regulated environment like an airport, that is not
> essential to most persons' day to day lives, and mass transit in
> a city like NY, which is essential to most people on a continual  
> basis.

I do agree.  And I do agree that it is overreaction.  But there are
plenty of issues to raise without bringing constitutional law into it.

Those amendments were written in days when there were no trains and
planes.  And they are ethical sentiments that really should be read in
association with, and substantiated with other sections of the
constitution.  Their spirit, rather than the letter of the amendment, so
to speak.

I am not a fan of slippery slope arguments.  And there are enough
safeguards for any racial profiling, attempted or otherwise, to be
immeidately spotted and jumped hard on. Checks and balances are  
necessary.

Trust me, you haven't lived in a country like Israel or India (or
probably not even the UK) where there is a significant experience with
bomb blasts and other terrorist activity.

After the initial overreaction, what is going to come out is a set of
more practical and efficient methods, which hopefully will concentrate
on keeping the system running smoothly [which automatically means
causing the least inconvenience to legitimate travelers] while at the
same time trying to keep hostiles out of the place.

You can't even resort to racial profiling here - one of the people in
the london bomb blasts was of african descent (well, west indian
descent) rather than being an arab / pakistani etc like the other
bombers.  Profiling wouldnt have caught him.

Nor would it have caught other crazies - like the white supremacists who
bombed that Oklahoma federal building, or the Unabomber.

This is going to net the police far more petty crooks and crack dealers
than terrorists.  Some additional security, but more passive security
and observation + rapid response, rather than active searches, is
definitely called for.


> National ID (driver's license) cards.  Searches on demand.  PATRIOT
> Act going permanent.  It looks more and more like Osama bin Laden's
> stated desire to trigger our own self-evisceration of our liberties
> is proceeding according to his master plan.

National ID is a fact of life, and a convenient one, sometimes, in
several countries.  Right now your SSN is that, by default. And in India
we have voter ID cards for elections, PAN cards [permanent account
number, that we use to file our tax returns, but which gets used as
valid id proof for a whole lot of other things], etc.

I would be careful about lumping everything under one big brother-ish
agenda, while at the same time actively campaigning against gross abuse
of civil rights (Gitmo, extraordinary rendition of travelers etc]


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