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New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered the city's finest to randomly search bags belonging to subway riders, according to AP writer Sara Kugler.
The announcement came just hours after a second set of bombs exploded in London's Underground.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly promised that officers would not engage in racial profiling, and that passengers will be free to "turn around and leave" rather than consent to a search.
Crazy Kelly: "Our policy isn't just useless; Our policy is in-sa-a-a-ne!"
No, really. NYC's subways carry twice as many people daily as the ENTIRE NATION's 77 commercial airlines do.
And New York cops are gonna stop New Yorkers and ask to look in their bags? New Yorkers????
This sounds like a boondoggle dreamed up by double-dating suburban couples discussing Fox News headlines while eating poppers at Bennigans, not the considered pronouncement of the mayor of a damn great nation's best city.
Asked whether the searches might create bottlenecks at subway entrances, Kelly suggested the searches would be of a small enough sampling of passengers that only individuals, rather than whole crowds, would be delayed."We are going to do it in a reasonable commonsense way," he said.
Reporters generally don't laugh out loud at stupid policy announcements.
Instead they write stories that look like this.
Update: Added a sentence or two to amplify my incredulity.
Update: There's some good to and fro, some mention of the constitution, security theatre and deterrence value going on over in the comments at Political Animal.
Posted by Ryan Singel at July 21, 2005 12:02 PM
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Tracked on July 21, 2005 05:37 PM
Post a commentIt's easy to say that New Yorkers will never stand for this, but without a car of my own, it's hard to say how I'd get from Bushwick to Yankee Stadium everyday without riding the subway. Two-hour bus ride, perhaps?
Posted by: Dietsch at July 22, 2005 08:30 AM