Stealthily evading the MBTA search police
By adamg - Fri, 02/13/2009 - 10:41am.
Aaron Weber employed secret-Ninja skills to keep an MBTA transit police squad from checking his bags the other night at MGH/Charles. Oh, OK, he simply walked on the other side of the information booth from the cops.
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They do this all the time in Harvard station
And I always wish I had a bag, so that they could stop me, and I could refuse, walk out, and just go to one of the other entrances. On the one hand Cambridge is tearing out security cameras, on the other we're being subject to random
patriotismbag screenings?Search without probable cause
They're still doing that? Does Daniel Grabauskas know about this? (Hold the obvious jokes about how often he sees the inside of a T station.) Do we need reporters to start asking Grabauskas what country Massachusetts is in? :)
I'm sure we can figure out how to conduct training exercises without attacking some of America's most basic and cherished rights in the process.
Well
On the commuter rail schedules at least, it says the police have the right to search any bags you bring onboard, you have the legal right to refuse the search, but you'll have to leave the subway/train/bus/etc
People say all kinds of
People say all kinds of things. Not all of those things would stand up to a proper assessment of Constitutionality, nor of consistency with basic American principles.
Annoying, even intrusive, yes, but...
Constitutional rights are not absolute. These cases center on what constitutes an "unreasonable" search under the 4th Amendment. Unfortunately for all of us, 9/11 changed everything in terms of what might be considered an unconstitutional intrusion in a public transportation setting.
Whether the T's practices are actually effective at rooting out any threats to our security is another question... I remember when they ran those insipid "if you see something, say something" PA announcements so often that they risked turning everyone into a violent maniac.
So, was utility of this
So, was utility of this particular temporary search checkpoint enough to override basic Constitutional rights?
I bet you dollars to donuts, it was not. In which case, that sounds criminal to me.
Neil, I hate to sound like the lawyer I am, but...
...it depends.
For example, what if the T police stepped up checkpoint searches because Interpol, the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies detected heightened "chatter" suggesting that subways might be targeted by terrorists? If so, that might be enough to justify more random checks.
Believe me, I'm a civil liberties advocate and recognize that abuses of civil rights occur all too frequently. But it's also true there's a lot of stuff we're not privy to in terms of security alerts that may result in increased checkpoint activity.
(As an aside: Even if the action was unconstitutional, it doesn't mean it's criminal. It's likely a violation of civil, as opposed to criminal, law.)
I'm baffled
1. How can *random* searches be at all effective at stopping an individual in a one-time act? I actually saw the search checkpoint at Charles/MGH the other evening, and I believe it was at best a training exercise -- that it would not have been effective against any real terrorist threat at that time. And if it's not effective, it doesn't constitute "reasonable."
2. We just had 7-8 years of certain politicians using the threat of terrorist harm -- including falsehoods -- as an excuse to inflict even worse harm on the country than terrorists could have dreamed of. (In parallel, we did some good things for security, but that wasn't random searches.) Officials trying to take away rights are now saddled with a large credibility problem, especially when they say we need to give up even more American rights than have already been taken away.
That's all I have to say on the topic, and I'm going to stay out of it from now, on. I'll read and consider any responses, so I'm not trying to steal the last word. :)
Schneier has covered this extensively
http://schneier.com/
i hope the lawyer-person will give that some reading...
the short answer is that bad guys see a checkpoint and walk over to the next station where there's no checking... bad-guy's problem is solved; public safety problem is not solved and is probably made worse since the resources expended on checking bags that are perfectly safe could have been spent elsewhere.
the operative phrase is "security theater" - creating an appearance of security, without actually creating security... like the even more common example where someone at a doorway to something asks to see an ID... which demonstrates nothing except that the bearer has an ID.
"...and just go to one of
"...and just go to one of the other entrances."
they will be waiting for you, 2 stations away, and will pick you out of the crowd, and they will say that refusing a search forfeits your right to ride the subway
which is what happened today.
honestly, that is more terrifying than any security scares they are imagining.
Security as Theatre on the MBTA
I went through Broadway station on Thursday 2/12, and the Transit Police were all set up and inspecting then. They were only checking passengers entering the station, and I was leaving. By the time I returned, they were gone.
Had they stopped me and wanted to search, I would have left the station, probably by another method of T transit (the #47 or #11 bus). Just how would that have made anything safer?