Comments on: Taking the subway?

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Fri, 28 May 2004 15:32:25 +0000

Pepi, Don’t know if anyone’s still reading, but… Airports (and government buildings, courthouses, etc) are considered a “special case” by the courts, where it is “reasonable,” under the 4th Amendment, to search bags and people in a way which is impossible on the street. One of the key parts of being “reasonable” is the requirement that everyone be searched, rather than just the people who “look funny.” A rule which allowed the police to search whomever they wished without consent, but not everyone, would probably not be upheld by the courts because of the potential for discriminatory enforcement. On the other hand, they might agree that subway stations are enough like airports that it would be acceptable to search everyone’s bags. I wouldn’t want to guess. But absent actual metal detectors and x-ray machines, it will be a matter of consent or a warrant (or a Terry exception, if the police think the searchee has a weapon). Finally, I would expect the police to 1) say they were making random stops, while 2) not actually making random stops. They will try to insulate themselves from criticism (of “racial profiling,” or whatever) but probably won’t engage in the futile and time-wasting excercise of truly random ID checks.

By: pepi

pepi — Thu, 27 May 2004 13:50:15 +0000

Robert: ok, I get it. I guess I was thinking of a distinction between what you describe, the ordinary community policing – which I considered more as all those situations where there might be already something that gives suspicion (I know, the lines can be very blurry there too) – and the truly random stopping and questioning of people just because they are taking a walk or the subway or anything. As for baggage inspections for subways and trains passengers, is it only a matter of consent, or couldn’t it legally be working the same as in airports? Would there have to be special legislation to apply the same procedures?

By: BadTux

BadTux — Thu, 27 May 2004 02:17:38 +0000

When I was but a tadpole, my daddy told me that the difference between us and those Godless Commies over there in the Soviet Union was that we didn’t have folks on every street corner demanding, “your papers please?”. Around the same time, some dude named Khrushchev was pounding his shoe on a table and proclaiming, “We shall bury you!”. I guess that Khrushchev was right, albeit not in the way he thought. – BadTux the Once-Thought-I-Lived-In-A-Free-Country Penguin

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Wed, 26 May 2004 12:25:06 +0000

Pepi, I think that “stop and chat” happens more than you realize (mostly in poor, high crime, minority neighborhoods), but it isn’t truly random. Cops decide they don’t like someone’s “look,” (but don’t have enough to justify a forcible stop) so they go chat. Sometimes the guy ignores them, as is his right, sometimes, for who knows what reason, he ends up confessing right there. Sometimes he does something like flee that gives more to go on. Most of the time, the guy is probably legit and the cops figure that out quickly and move on. This is one part of what they call “community policing.” While I agree terrorists won’t readily confess, they probably will “act funny,” a la Ressam, who was caught at the border near my hometown by a Customs agent asking the most ordinary of Canada-US crossing questions: “Where are you going? How long will you be staying?” etc. Now, I doubt any of this is likely to actually catch a terrorist. But is it certainly legal. Oh, and the manual baggage inspections are pretty problematic, legally, unless they ask for and get consent. Which I guarantee you they will do in cases where they are suspicious.

By: pepi

pepi — Wed, 26 May 2004 11:51:06 +0000

robert lyman – it’s just that I’ve never heard of police simply asking people what they’re doing on the street at all. Unless it’s specific circumstances like drug dealing or prostitution, or even shoplifting or the like. But they’d have to have something already to go on about there. Not just stop any random person walking around. I don’t know, it’s never happened to me or anyone I know so I’m probably ignorant on this. Maybe it’s also different from country to country, in terms of what the police can legally do. As to the effectiveness, maybe it works like you say, but I wouldn’t have such faith in the powers of psychological intimidation with terrorists. Besides, you said it yourself, people might look nervous to the police just because of being questioned, without necessarily planning to do anything wrong. I don’t know. ID checks I have no problem with, but it seems such a waste of time and energy to bother with questioning. They might as well do manual baggage inspections, while they’re there. At least that’d be something more useful.

By: Troy

Troy — Wed, 26 May 2004 08:17:50 +0000

As a law-abiding citizen, I think living in a police state would be great. oh, wait, no I don’t. snark aside, I lived in Japan for 8 years and found the requirement to carry the registered alien card at all times to be a hassle but not such a big deal since I was in fact an alien and plenty of aliens exceed their lawful stays in the country. But citizens within their own countries have a self-evident right to be secure in their persons and go about their lawful business without hassle from the state, and failing that I think it’s counter-productive for the state to make a big show of adding hassle into people’s lives (cf. post 9/11 airport “security”). As a lefty libertarian I’d like to see more Flight 93 taking-care-of-ourselves rather than reliance on Big Brother to protect us from the bad guys.

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Wed, 26 May 2004 07:26:13 +0000

Pepi, Of course the police have the right to ask you whatever they want. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want, and they can’t arrest you solely on the basis of that refusal to answer. But most people do answer, because it’s a bit intimidating to have a cop in front of you and most people (and for that matter many cops) don’t know their rights. The thing is, while I largely agree with Matt here, pure ID checks (even if legal, see debate about Kolender above) are not terribly useful, since it’s not like known terrorists couldn’t get fake IDs, and for that matter it’s not as if cops have managed to memorize all the names on the terrorism watch list. The whole point here is to ask people about their business and see if they react in a suspicious fashion, which would justify further attention. This is a bizarrely effective law-enforcement technique—lots of people actually admit to doing illegal things, or give the police permission to search bags they know contain drugs or guns—but it is also raises significant privacy and liberty issues.

By: pepi

pepi — Wed, 26 May 2004 06:51:48 +0000

Well who said you have to tell the police what you’re doing or where you’re going at all? I fail to see how that fits into ID checking. Do they have a right to do that in the US? ask and expect an answer on what you’re doing out and about at all? seriously?

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Wed, 26 May 2004 01:33:54 +0000

Er, Nat, are you asking me to post on the web, where I use my real name, exactly which activities I engage in that I don’t want all and sundry to know about? Are you really asking me that? Are you joking? Seriously, I’m not actually up to much that’s so awful—gratuitous record-shopping trips or hikes to the office to read blogs are about the size of it, sadly. But I’m sure you can think of all sorts of legal-but-embarrassing things that might come up—trips to porn emporia, or to visit illicit lovers, or boy/girlfriends that your parents don’t approve of, or maybe religious instruction that your parents don’t approve of, or trips to your psychiatrist, or to Narcotics Anonymous, or whatever.

By: Nat Whilk

Nat Whilk — Wed, 26 May 2004 00:47:30 +0000

Matt Weiner wrote: “ID checks may be one thing, but questioning about your activities is another. I am occasionally up to quite legal and non-threatening stuff that is none of anyone’s damn business, and the idea that I’d have to choose between explain myself to the police and walking to Cambridge from Newton Center* is absolutely horrifying. ” Back when I was a postdoc at Georgia Tech, I was walking to my busstop in the Atlanta suburbs when a police car driving down the road beside me did a 180 and pulled up behind me. I kept walking and he flashed his lights and briefly sounded his siren so I stopped. He asked me for my ID and what I was doing there; I gave him my ID and told him I was walking to the busstop to go to work. He gave me back my ID and I was on my way. Puzzling, but not exactly horrifying. What sorts of horrifying-to-explain activities are we talking about?

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Tue, 25 May 2004 22:51:37 +0000

ID checks may be one thing, but questioning about your activities is another. I am occasionally up to quite legal and non-threatening stuff that is none of anyone’s damn business, and the idea that I’d have to choose between explain myself to the police and walking to Cambridge from Newton Center* is absolutely horrifying. As for Peter’s question—it’s already unlikely enough that you’ll be poisoned while going to work that these measures aren’t worth it (if they make the subway any safer). Obviously driving a car requires licensing (although the police can’t pull you over just to ask where you’re going), and airplanes are dangerous enough (also private property) that there’s some tradeoff here. But bellatrys has it right. *It’s been a long time since I lived in Massachusetts, but I would occasionally take this ride. It’s a long walk.

By: pepi

pepi — Tue, 25 May 2004 08:50:35 +0000

I’m more or less with Peter on this. I’m in Europe, I’m used to carrying my ID card, I don’t see it as different from the driving license or passport (it works as a passport too actually) and I don’t have a problem at all with the concept of being asked to produce it from my wallet, anywhere. I’ve never needed it anywhere else than at airports or at the bank or when doing some burocratic procedure or the like, but I just cannot see ID requests as some offense to one’s liberties. That said, I do agree with Eszter’s objection about this requirement of ID in subways – how exactly, indeed, is this going to make them safer to travel on? Didn’t the 9/11 hijackers produce some ID’s too, to buy the tickets? How is identification alone any use? I would understand more the usefulness of applying to subways and railways the very same check-in procedures that are used in airports, to scan bags and all – that is the real thing, not just ID verification. But I guess that sort of controls would be both impractical and hugely expensive. And as has been proven, not sureproof either. So I don’t know really.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Tue, 25 May 2004 04:51:25 +0000

For what it’s worth, as of about six weeks ago, the subways in Madrid were not subjecting their passengers to additional scrutiny. I observed neither checking of ID’s nor inspection of baggage.

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Tue, 25 May 2004 00:38:31 +0000

The State has no legitimate ability to stop your boat in international waters to ask where you’re going. Unless you’re a pirate, in which case they get to sink you and bring the survivors ashore for hanging. Not sure where that fits in on the “liberty/security” axis.

By: eszter

eszter — Tue, 25 May 2004 00:34:24 +0000

Peter, can you say more about why you think these measures will make subways safer for you? As for regulating driver’s licenses, a license is required to drive a vehicle, not to ride it. You can ride in a car without a license (as far as I know) and I think it’s fair that you should be licensed to drive a subway since it may require certain skills that would hopefully ensure safety of operation. But where do you draw the line between being ID’d on the subway and being ID’d on the street? Or are you suggesting that it should be perfectly okay to require IDs of everyone all the time? That is certainly not unheard of, but it’s not the way things work in the US (currently). What is acceptable form of ID? It’s a slippery slope once you start requiring IDs for everything. And then what info should be included on the IDs? Name, number, race, religion, immigration status, sexual orientation, marital status, voting record, record of incarceration? And what can that be used for? Etc, etc.