Judge OKs Police Subway Searches in NYC

[DelawareValleyDem]

A federal judge ruled Friday that random police searches of subway riders' bags to deter terrorism do not violate the Constitution and are a minimal intrusion on people's privac

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051202/ap_on_re_us/transit_security_lawsuit

[SammyBlue]

1. Quote Nixon from Futurama

"Freedom of speech may be part of the Constitution, but I know of a place where the Constitution doesn't mean squat."

Cue the Supreme Court building!

[sui generis]

2. well the judge is wrong

if they have to cordon off an area, put people in line and search their bags it IS an imposition.

I hope they challenge it. It's one thing to be doing this for public safety, but when cops start doing it to harrass you or to some kid and send him to jail for having a joint in his pocket, we've crossed into a whole new kind of turf.

How many fucking terrorists are there in the U.S. just running around on the subway? Have we caught any yet? Don't you think that knowing that a search could now happen on the subway they'll start using cabs?

So are poe-lice now going to randomly stop cabs and search them?

Resist it, protest it, fight it. This is getting to be less and less any kind of sensible America and more and more a 24/7 police state.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Oops, there goes the 4th amendment.... nt

[Sinistrous]

8. The 4th Amendment was murdered and buried years ago.

This is just another shovelful of dirt on its grave.

Sinistrous

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

4. Which is way too funny, cause it was rulled unconstitutional this summer!

here is the whole article, reprinted cause of the archive issue with the nytimes

SECURITY IN NEW YORK: THE LAW; Privacy Rights Are at Issue In New Policy On Security

By ROBERT F. WORTH (NYT) 749 words
Published: July 22, 2005

As the New York Police Department begins randomly checking the bags and backpacks of people entering the city's subway system, it is entering largely uncharted legal terrain, where the requirements of protecting the public against terrorism may run into the constitutional right to privacy.

Civil libertarians began expressing their concerns even as the policy was announced yesterday. ''We all have an interest in protecting our safety and security as we ride the trains,'' said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. ''However, searches without suspicion of wrongdoing are fundamentally at odds with our constitutional guarantee of privacy, and placing unfettered discretion in the hands of the police invites racial, religious and ethnic profiling.''

Lawyers said the new policy is almost certain to be challenged under the Fourth Amendment, which bars ''unreasonable searches and seizures.'' In the past, courts have held that when the police search people for a law enforcement purpose, the amendment requires that there be ''individualized suspicion'' to warrant the search.

In 2000, for instance, the United States Supreme Court overturned the drug conviction of a bus passenger, ruling that a Border Patrol agent's decision to feel his bag ''in an exploratory manner'' was a violation of his privacy.

Much is likely to depend on the way the New York program is carried out. Police officials have said that riders who do not wish to have their bags searched will be free to leave the city's trains without further questioning. They have also said that anyone found to be carrying illegal drugs or weapons will be subject to arrest, a provision that lawyers have found troubling.

But it is not yet clear how the city will decide whose bag to check. If the searches are truly random, as city officials suggested they would be, the city may be inviting a challenge under the Fourth Amendment. The city could also delineate a narrower standard for searches, but that could lend itself to accusations of abuse.

There are other potential legal defenses. ''My guess is that the city will argue that the searches are constitutional because they are a lot like what is already being done at airports,'' said Susan N. Herman, a professor of constitutional law at Brooklyn Law School. But airports, Professor Herman added, are a far more regulated environment than the city's sprawling subway system, which is the only travel option for many New Yorkers. And the X-ray and magnetometer checks at airports are not considered searches under the law. The same applies to trained dogs that sniff bags.

There are few real precedents for the new policy. Boston officials announced a similarly sweeping plan of random checks just before the Democratic National Convention last year. A court challenge was filed; the transit agency conducted onboard searches of all passengers on the subway running under the convention site, and maintains but has not enforced a policy of random bag searches.

In New York, the police began randomly searching bags at protests after the Sept 11. attack. But the New York Civil Liberties Union challenged the practice, and last summer a federal judge in Manhattan declared it unconstitutional.

In that case, the city argued that the individualized-suspicion standard did not apply to the searches because the city was trying to prevent terrorism.

In fact, courts have held that the government can conduct searches without such suspicions if it can show that its primary purpose is a special need other than criminal law enforcement, Professor Herman said.

The city could contend that preventing terrorist attacks is a ''special need,'' she said, but it may be hard to argue that such searches are not about criminal law enforcement.

In defending its policy, the city is likely to argue -- as it did in the case decided last year -- that a new standard is required for the post-Sept. 11 world, said Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

''The major question is: Will concerns about terrorism change the fundamental constitutional rules governing searches by the police?'' Mr. Dunn said.

[KamaAina]

5. Next time I go visit Mom on the East Side

I'll be sure to go all around town carrying a backpack filled with viscous, foul-smelling (but harmless) goop into which the Gestapo are perfectly welcome to plunge their grubby hands!

[Thorandmjolnir]

6. Funny...

AMENDMENT IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Funny, I don't see anything in this amendment that says it's ok to conduct unreasonable searches (searches without probable cause)as long as the violation is only "a minimal intrusion on people's privacy".

I must have missed that in Con. Law. I

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

7. to good! welcome to DU

:hi:

[Thorandmjolnir]

9. Thank you

Been here a while but only lately started posting

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

10. post more

hehe

[Sandpiper]

11. Another shovel of dirt tossed on the grave of the 4th Amendment

Fare ye well "probable cause."

The State has decided you're no longer needed.

[HuffleClaw]

12. 'random' my FOOT

and 'minimal'? suuuuure. tell that to the CUNY student of arabic origin who's had his backpack searched seven times. this is a 'slippery slope' by definition. funny how a 'minimal intrusion' is ok. next it'll be 'random' searches on the street NEAR subway stations (which could mean most of manhattan) or of cars 'near' airports... lots of opportunities here for abuse. the case of the woman who got arrested because some RENT A COP demanded her id while she rode a bus come to mind.

[KamaAina]

13. Man, is this gonna hammer the outer boroughs

Within Manhattan it is possible, though rather slow, to travel by bus. (The fascists have even reserved the right to conduct these searches on buses, but how would they implement that? Station a goon at every single bus stop?)

But it is nearly impossible to come in to Manhattan from Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx without coming to grips with the subway. Each of these boroughs has only one or two bus lines that enter Manhattan.(Staten Island is, of course, served by the famous ferry.) So basically the Gestapo is telling outer borough residents that they're getting searched whenever they go in and out of Manhatan, where the lion's share of the city's jobs are, to say nothing of shopping (there's your bags) and the like.

This works in both directions. Yankee Stadium is in the Bronx, and Shea is in Queens. So no more taking stuff to the ballgame in bags. Ironically, Sox fans coming down from New England will still be able to drive in, bags and all. :eyes:

[sleipnir]

14. There's a bag check at my subway stop for about 5 months now.

I've never been checked once. Though, a friend of mine who is of asian descent has had his bag searched at the same check point three times. Random my ass...

[teryang]

15. Local police agencies using SS database to find suspects

The so called wall between intelligence units and criminal investigation units has been completely discarded. Federal Social Security records are now used to find ordinary criminals. The Privacy Act is routinely violated every day now by the lowest level law enforcement agencies.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Judge OKs random searches on NYC subway

Judge OKs random searches on NYC subway
Fri Dec 2, 2005 6:21 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge ruled on Friday it was constitutional for police to randomly search riders' bags on the New York City subway to deter a terrorist attack.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman ruled the searches were an effective and appropriate means to fight terrorism.

"The need for implementing counter-terrorism measures is indisputable, pressing, on-going and evolving," Berman wrote.

In a statement, Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised the ruling, calling bag searches a "reasonable precaution" that police would continue to take.
(snip/...)

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-02T232104Z_01_KNE283311_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-NEWYORK.xml&archived=False

[Renew Deal]

17. The need has nothing to do with the law.

I suppose that the suggestion is that it's not an unreasonable search, but I disagree.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. Here is the suggestion.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The 4th amendment. Abandoned almost entirely by our 21st century corporate police state.

Here: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment04/03.html#2

[bananas]

21. I hope they appeal. nt

[kurth]

19. Random, as in it's up to the cop

Look nice and white and smell clean, and there's nothing to worry about.

[gulfcoastliberal]

20. 4th amendment now totally stricken off the bill of rights.

It began with the so-called "war on drugs" and got totally erased by the so-called "patriot act". Both things approved by both political parties. "Just say no" to any expectation of privacy. Next thing will be random home searches.

[bananas]

22. Yup - the precedent has been set.

"Next thing will be random home searches."

[Warren Stupidity]

23. But won't we be safe then?

:sarcasm:

Only criminals and terrorists have something to hide in their body cavities. I demand random anal probes for everyone. We must be safe.

[K-W]

24. If these searches are reasonable, ALL searches are reasonable.

All the government has to do cite a vague threat and it can search ANYONE without ANY cause.

American facism has the patience of a saint and gets rewarded for it as the constitution melts away.

[depakid]

27. That's the gist of it

Rather than show disrespect for constitutional law, the far right should simply hold a constitutional convention and be done with it.

That would be the honest thing to do- and the majority of Americans would support repealing most of the Bill of Rights anyway. Not that they know what most of them involve....

[Matariki]

25. i think new yorkers need to stage a big prank

everyone riding the subway should carry in their bags the most outrageous dildos or butt-plugs they can find. or maybe rubber chickens?

[RedSock]

26. subway riders

***
everyone riding the subway should carry in their
bags the most outrageous dildos or butt-plugs ...
***

you mean, they don't already? :shrug:

[genieroze]

28. They should put a mouse trap in their bag.

"Let me search that bag....."SNAP!!!!!" lol That will teach you to snoop in someones bag without probable cause.

[pinniped]

29. Soon, everyone will be required to carry see-through style bags.

?

[Warren Stupidity]

30. Why stop there?

We know suicide bombers can strap themselves up with Acme Suicide Belts - we saw that Jordanian made for teevee demonstration. So I think if we are going to be safe then everyone will have to wear see through garments. Then we will have security.

[ForrestGump]

31. Are they looking for Jared?

The judge is probably just jealous because nobody wants to get into his pants..