ACLU Says You Gotta Fight... For Your Right... To Ride the Subway
Given that 2 elected New York officials are backing racial profiling when the NYPD searches the bags of subway riders, it's about time someone is taking a real stab at ending this travesty. The ACLU is suing the NYPD to stop the searches on the grounds that they're simply unconstitutional.
Critics not aligned with civil liberties activists also say the searches are ineffective but say they want police to begin racial profiling of passengers to emphasize searches of young men of Middle Eastern or Asian descent.Here's an additional Daily News link on the advocacy of racial profiling.
Civil liberties advocates said searches that are not based on suspicion do little to protect the public, particularly when mass-transit riders who refuse to submit to the searches are allowed to enter the subway system at another station.
"People are allowed to walk away, ensuring that only innocent people are searched," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, who called the searches a "civil liberties surcharge on a Metrocard."
posted by Fenton Harwick III at 2:19 AM
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2 Comments:
My feeling is that this entire search thing is just a way for the police to look in our bags. What happened to the constitutional premise that what I have concealed is my own business and if you find me suspicious then you better have really good cause and a search warrant? On the other hand I think that racial profiling, which is ILLEGAL by the way, is not a great way to go either because what does "Middle Eastern" look like? I'm Greek-American and my people sure could pass as Middle Eastern, so could Italians, Spanish, Latin Americans, Blacks, Asians and allot of other New Yorkers. Just look at the poor Brazilian guy that was shot in London.
As is to be expected by racist cops, racial profiling is already happening. They started the searches in my subway stop in Brooklyn this morning and a whole gang of us walked into the train, not one person was stopped. They are obviously looking for someone a little darker.
I have no problem opening my bags at the airport, so why should the subway be different? I don't believe in giving up my civil rights, but I do believe in the right to live.
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