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  • Random Bag Searches on the Horizon

  • Discussion related to New Jersey Transit rail and light rail operations.
Discussion related to New Jersey Transit rail and light rail operations.

Moderators: lensovet, Kaback9, nick11a

 #150582  by JLo
 
ryanov wrote:I will be refusing to have my bag searched. I'll let you know how it goes
I know how it should go. I should be waving to you from the train window as my train leaves Penn Station, Ryanov.

 #150745  by Don31
 
One of the problems with a free society is that the freedom also leaves openings for bad people to do bad things. If you take away enough freedoms to be able to control the bad people, you no longer have a free society. Consequently, one of the prices of a free society is a certain amount of risk. There is nothing our government can do to stop an extremist, willing to commit suicide, from committing an act of terrorism. The problem is that our government can never admit this, so they put on a show to make us feel safe and secure. Just like the National Guardsmen standing around Penn Station, this is exactly what the random bag search is, a show to make us feel better.

The fact that it’s a random search is problematic on several levels. Statistically, a one-in-five search (or whatever the parameter) is doomed to fail. For every one bag searched, four get through. On a crowded station platform, the odds worsen. More importantly, a random search, without any suspicion of wrongdoing is fundamentally at odds with our constitutional guarantee of privacy. Courts throughout the country have held that when police search a person, there must be “individualized suspicion”.

To give the police this type of discretion invites profiling and other abuses (the guy murdered in London, or the NYC cop collecting drivers license info the other day). Let’s be honest here, the NJT Police have screwed up their harassing of photographers (challenging them on public, non-railroad property), can they really be trusted to handle an assignment as sensitive and volatile as this?

Others on this board have correctly pointed out another shortcoming. If a person does indeed have a bomb and is stopped, he refuses to be searched and is turned away. He merely goes to another station or to a nearby public gathering spot to detonate; or he detonates at the random checkpoint. It doesn’t matter to him where he detonates, as long as he does with lots of people nearby.

Another important question to be asked is where does it stop? Will the government next want random searches on public sidewalks or in crowded malls? Lots of potential victims there you know. Or will they next want to have random, warrant-less searches of houses, because that’s where the London bombs were made. Or how bout rounding up all people of Middle Eastern or South Asian heritage and lock them up or deport them?

A little dramatic, yes. But not that farfetched.
 #150769  by ryanov
 
Mahoot wrote:Some of us approve of the idea, some of us don't. We all agree that by no means is it a perfect solution. However, it is something.

I haven't heard ANYONE who disagrees come up with any other plan to make the system safer.
Was thinking about this one on my ride into the city today. The fact that no one has come up with a better idea than a blatantly stupid one is not reason enough to carry on with that idea. If no one has come up with anything better, it's time to go back to the drawing board and keep thinking. Clearly not "in vogue" lately, but surely the way to go.

 #150772  by Don31
 
Very well said Ryanov....

 #150833  by Lackawanna484
 
I had some investment work to do on Sunday afternoon, so I left my scanner on.

Without considering the snafu at NY Penn, it seems that NJT, NS, CSX spent a lot of time responding to "guy with a camera" reports all over northeast NJ. I didn't bother to track job orders, but there were a lot of cops out yesterday afternoon.

 #150849  by JLo
 
If no one has come up with anything better, it's time to go back to the drawing board and keep thinking. Clearly not "in vogue" lately, but surely the way to go.
I agree. That is what was once called Yankee ingenuity. It won a World War and a Cold War. I suspect it will stand us in good stead once again. However, bodies on the ground, disrupting plans still works.
One of the problems with a free society is that the freedom also leaves openings for bad people to do bad things.
Don, to paraphrase, a free society is not a suicide pact. There is not a single right guaranteed in the US Constitution that is absolute. All of them, including the super-sacred 1st Amendment, are subject to limitations. Consequently, a reasonable search is not barred by the 4th Amendment. Is it an unreasonable price to pay to be searched before getting on a plane? Why is it unreasonable to randomly search bags of train riders, a demonstrated method of terrorist attack?

 #150887  by ryanov
 
JLo wrote: Don, to paraphrase, a free society is not a suicide pact. There is not a single right guaranteed in the US Constitution that is absolute. All of them, including the super-sacred 1st Amendment, are subject to limitations. Consequently, a reasonable search is not barred by the 4th Amendment. Is it an unreasonable price to pay to be searched before getting on a plane? Why is it unreasonable to randomly search bags of train riders, a demonstrated method of terrorist attack?
1) It is unreasonable to search prior to boarding an aircraft. As a result of the huge hassle, I seldom do it unless it is absolutely necessary. I almost always lose something on that security line (last time it was my pager -- luckily it turned up). It is very jarring to be attempting to make a flight and have to go through all of these asinine belt and clothing and shoe removal procedures. My personal favorite is when they try to hurry me along afterwards. It's akin to someone knocking all of your stuff out of your hands when you're trying to get to a plane. Even worse when they go through your bags and then expect you to put it back. If you pack like I do sometimes, that's not easy.

2) I'm NOT doing it on the way to work, especially not with the connections I make. Throw me in jail -- then I'll have an excuse for being late to work. Train and bus travel, to me, IS essential. I assume there are business travelers who are upset that they are searched on planes as well. <shrug> They're free to put up and shut up, but I'm not about to have my commute lengthened for something that WILL NOT WORK. Ever noticed, especially on a "flight" where you change planes, that airport security is VERY different depending on the airport? Why isn't Newark blasting me with air like SF? If I were a terrorist, I could pick whatever airport I like best. Please, educate our youth or give people healthcare and stop with this nonsense. Not like we haven't killed more people in Iraq and Afghanistan (probably by orders of magnitude) than were killed in Sept 11th and London and Madrid combined.

 #150895  by JLo
 
It is unreasonable to search prior to boarding an aircraft.
Wow, Ryanov. There is no point arguing with you. Had the 9-11 hijackers been properly searched and turned away for having knives and box cutters, there would have been no 9-11 as we know it. I guess that would have been too much to ask in a free society.

I can understand the Iraq war being a bone of contention for many, but as for your comments on Afghanistan, the base where terrorist attacks were essentially organized and launched against us with approval of the Taliban government, you live in a fantasy world. Is there no basis to attack anyone who has allowed their country to be used as a base for attacks against us? Let me know when the US is finally encircled with the plastic bubble to protect us from all outside influences.

 #150896  by Idiot Railfan
 
Constitutional issues aside, I think random bag searches are simply an ineffective waste of time and resources.

As we saw in London, no amount of searches and surveilance cameras stopped the terrorists from doing the EXACT same thing a second time. Their incompetence--not policing--spared lives.

We are dealing with a nimble and adaptable enemy that sits back and chuckles while we close the proverbial barn door after the animals have escaped. We spent the years after the first WTC bombing preparing for another ground assault. While we were preoccupied with inspecting rental trucks and installing barriers around our buildings, few noticed that our enemy was taking flying lessons. After the attack from the air, we started patting down grandmothers getting on planes. Meanwhile the enemy moved on to suicide bombs on trains.

The extra police would be much more effective patrolling rail property and just using their eyes, ears and instincts to find these people. We react while they move on to other methods.

A false sense of security is worse than no security.

 #150897  by Don31
 
JLo wrote:Don, to paraphrase, a free society is not a suicide pact. There is not a single right guaranteed in the US Constitution that is absolute. All of them, including the super-sacred 1st Amendment, are subject to limitations. Consequently, a reasonable search is not barred by the 4th Amendment. Is it an unreasonable price to pay to be searched before getting on a plane? Why is it unreasonable to randomly search bags of train riders, a demonstrated method of terrorist attack?
I agree JLo, that a reasonable search is permitted. But as I wrote above, I feel that this is not reasonable. And everyone here makes the comparison to airline searches. The big difference is that the courts have held that xraying of carry-on bags is not a search. The bags get opened when the xray machine either sees something or is inconclusive. Thats where the concept of "individualized suspicion" and probable cause come into play.

 #150911  by pgengler
 
JLo wrote:
It is unreasonable to search prior to boarding an aircraft.
Wow, Ryanov. There is no point arguing with you. Had the 9-11 hijackers been properly searched and turned away for having knives and box cutters, there would have been no 9-11 as we know it. I guess that would have been too much to ask in a free society.
For the most part, prior to 9/11, airport security didn't have problems with people bring things like that in carry-on baggage. I know that, at least, razors were acceptable, and plenty of people going on short trips without checked baggage would have razors in their bags in the overhead compartments. It wasn't until after 9/11, when we found out that it wasn't guns, but boxcutters, that the hijackers used, that such things were banned.
You could have searched all of the hijackers, but the fact is that, given the security atmosphere of the time, they would likely still have gotten on board with their boxcutters, and nothing would have changed.

 #150921  by sullivan1985
 
jfrey40535 wrote:And our government fails to see the big picture as to why its going on in the first place. Not to mention, for every transit officer sniffing people's bags, that's one less officer riding the train or keeping a watchful eye on everything else.
So that way *IF* they actually get something onboard, they get found inside the train instead of outside the train.

Even though finding anything anywhere would be horrible, and they would probobally do whatever they could upon discovery, I would rather them be discovered before they can reach their target over them being found already inside their target.

 #150942  by ryanov
 
JLo wrote:
It is unreasonable to search prior to boarding an aircraft.
Wow, Ryanov. There is no point arguing with you. Had the 9-11 hijackers been properly searched and turned away for having knives and box cutters, there would have been no 9-11 as we know it. I guess that would have been too much to ask in a free society.
If the government had done its job and dealt with the information it had prior to 9/11, there would have been no 9/11 as we know it also. And my point to you would be "say, that worked really well, didn't it?" (the searches) Example from LAST NIGHT -- my dad was asked to produce an item that the TSA employee identified as a corkscrew. My dad thought, oh, here we go... nope, he was allowed to keep it. What's the point of it? How about the kid that managed to plant all of those boxcutters on all of those USAir planes post-9/11? Doing it half-assed like this is more pointless than not doing it at all -- no money available if it's all getting wasted on a dog-and-pony show.
JLo wrote:I can understand the Iraq war being a bone of contention for many, but as for your comments on Afghanistan, the base where terrorist attacks were essentially organized and launched against us with approval of the Taliban government, you live in a fantasy world. Is there no basis to attack anyone who has allowed their country to be used as a base for attacks against us? Let me know when the US is finally encircled with the plastic bubble to protect us from all outside influences.
Two words: Saudi Arabia. And no, there is no basis to attack anyone who has allowed their country to be used for attacks against us. We accomplished nothing in Afghanistan. You cannot attack a nation based on the actions of a small set of people within the physical boundaries... reminds me of this Onion article:
Washington DC : Speaking via closed circuit television from the Oval Office Monday, President Bush made a direct plea to Osama bin Laden to form a nation the U.S. can attack. "Whether you take over an existing nation like Afghanistan or create a new breakaway republic called, say, Osamastan, the important thing is that you establish an identifiable nation-state with an army, a capital, and clearly defined borders," Bush said. "Maybe you could also sign some quick treaties to definitively establish who your allies are." The president then pledged $600 million to bin Laden for the construction of a state-of-the-art defense headquarters that the U.S. can bomb.
- U.S. Urges Bin Laden To Form Nation It Can Attack, "TheOnion.com"
The more I think about this, though, it's all moot. It's going to impossible to search anything on a rush hour train with 1200 people on it, or search Penn Station with more than that.

 #150949  by JLo
 
Constitutional issues aside, I think random bag searches are simply an ineffective waste of time and resources.
You may be right, IR. Or you may be wrong. Some security experts believe that disruption of the norm is necessary to frustrate such attacks. As shaky as that reliance may be, I'll rely on the experts for now.

 #150957  by JLo
 
Two words: Saudi Arabia. And no, there is no basis to attack anyone who has allowed their country to be used for attacks against us. We accomplished nothing in Afghanistan.
Your argument is getting weaker, Ryanov. We accomplished everything one could hope for in Afghanistan. You now have a chance that the Afghani people will police themselves. Plus, you have Afghani fighting Afghani for control. Certainly diverts them from training for attacks here.

As for Saudi Arabia, I'm inclined to agree with you that it is a better target than Iraq, although not better than Afghanistan. However, Pakistan is much more a threat, because it is now the base of choice for terrorists. However, thanks to the invasion of Afghanistan, you have a government in Pakistan actually fighting terrorists (to a degree). And you managed to get Pakistan and India to back away from a 5th subcontinental war because both want us on their side. All in all, not bad. I'm sorry we couldn't solve in 4 years the problems caused by the British Empire over a 200 year span, but I will take it.