Just about the time you despair of liberty’s revival, something like this comes along — from the WaPo, no less:
Members of the public spoke out against Metro’s decision to start random bag inspections, with speaker after speaker condemning the initiative at a meeting held by the Metro Riders’ Advisory Council on Monday evening. … [V]irtually every speaker called the searches unconstitutional, invasive and ineffective — arguing they could create a false sense of security and aid terrorists. Speakers urged Metro to halt the practice.
These abominable “random inspections of … bags and packages” on DC’s subways and buses began last month. In addition to transit thugs — sorry, cops and their “bomb-sniffing dogs” — everyone’s favorite perverts, “Transportation Security Administration officers,” are also hassling riders. So far they seem to have confined themselves to groping bags, not butts and bosoms. But hey, the year is young.
Naturally, the goons violate the Fourth Amendment only to protect citizens from terrorists — oh, and failing that, so cops can “uphold their duty to enforce local laws, which could include arresting a rider if contraband were discovered in a search.” Sounds as if DC’s Finest should attend the Congressional reading of the Constitution tomorrow.
“I’d like to ask Metro to please stop wasting our time and money,” said a guy of eminent sense and guts named Andy Hunt. Get this: he “add[ed] that Metro has hurt more people in accidents than any terrorist. ‘If he wants to hurt us, he’s gonna hurt us.’”
Whoa, Andy! Way to go!
Not to be outdone, another citizen named Robert Ehrmann reminded everyone, “We’re not Israel, nor should we be … The searches are ineffective.” Be still, my beating heart!
The next time the contempt Our Rulers and the media harbor for liberty overwhelms and depresses you, remember that “dozens of other speakers” — in the belly of the beast, no less — “agreed, castigating the searches as ‘security theater’ that is more likely to heighten fear than safety and rejecting Metro’s position that the searches will deter attackers.”
10:49 am on January 5, 2011
