Posted on 08/04/2005 7:32:25 AM PDT by aculeus
The New York Civil Liberties Union will file suit against the city Thursday to keep police from searching the bags of passengers entering the subway, organization lawyers said.
The suit, which will be filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, will claim that the two-week old policy violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and prohibitions against unlawful searches and seizures, while doing almost nothing to shield the city from terrorism.
It argues that the measure also allows the possibility for racial profiling, even though officers are ordered to randomly screen passengers.
"While concerns about terrorism of course justify -- indeed, require -- aggressive police tactics, those concerns cannot justify the Police Department's unprecedented policy of subjecting millions of innocent people to suspicionless searches," states the suit, a partial copy of which was provided to Newsday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nynewsday.com ...
I knew this was coming.
I think its about time for the IRS to audit the ACLU...
hmmmmmm...
Do they have a better idea?
Didn't think so.
I'm on the NYCLU's side on this one, but probably for much different reasons. It seems to me that law enforcement officials in New York have two options: search everyone, or search nobody. I'd like to see how the latter approach would work if it were implemented for six months.
LOL. That was the first word that came to my mind: audit.
Right after they audit Jesse Jerkson.
can we sue for aclu for risking our safety?
**ahem** **cough** **cough cough** **DOUCHE BAGS** **cough**
Simple solution, have them either come up with something that will really work, or to assume full responsibility if a successful attack occurs because of their PC "sensibilities".
I do agree with the ACLU in that the searches as currently performed do absolutely nothing to shield us from terrorism. But from a Constitutional standpoint, I do not see how the random searches are any different than "roving road blocks," where cops randomly pull over drivers without any probable cause in the hopes nailing a drunk driver. Much to my disgust, the SCOTUS has repeatedly upheld roving road blocks and I don't see how the random mass transit searches are any different.
If the London police had implemented a targeted campaign of searching Middle Eastern passengers before July 7th, would a Jamaican-born British guy named Germaine Lindsay ever have been caught?
This two-week-old policy probably COULD have stopped Colin Ferguson from specifically killing five Whites and one Asian on the Long Island RR back in '93 - but, oops, yeah - we don't want to talk about ALSO helping to stop more-prevalent DOMESTIC CRIME when we can just sit back and b!tch about international terrorism… Silly me.
Unfortunately, it will take an attack as in London before their PC "sensibilities" are overwhelmed by an angry mob of New Yorkers.
That's a very good point. I don't think a roadside checkpoint of any kind can pass legal muster unless they stop EVERY driver, and not just random ones (this was the basis of a decision in a landmark case in New York or New Jersey a few years ago, in which a random drug-enforcement checkpoint on the George Washington Bridge was determined to be illegal).
Are you nuts???
Why not have speparate trains for the searched and the unsearched? I know which one I would ride in.
Like I said in an earlier post -- I'm on the NYCLU's side on this one, but they've got an agenda that is predicated on their infantile, delusional view of law enforcement.
No -- why do you ask?
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