Refuse a police search on the DC metro
From my friend Steve, founder of www.flexyourrights.org. If you are stopped for a random bag search, Flex Your Rights has an excellent primer on how to refuse on their blog. Incidentally, another fun thing to do in DC is host a screening of Busted, Flex Your Rights' guide to handling police encounters more generally. It's a great excuse for a party.
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Dear Just About Everyone I Know in DC Who Might Take the Metro:
Any day now Mayor Williams might cave into pressure to implement New York style random bag searches on the Metro. All I know now is that they are considering it but wouldn't be surprised if random searches go into effect within the next few days.
I also wouldn't be surprised if Metro police were to begin random searches this week -- perhaps before an official announcement is made. That's why I need your eyes.
Specifically, I need you to CALL my cell immediately at 202-607-9501 if you see random police searches happening in the Metro. I imagine that the first day of DC Metro searches will be greeted by lots of media cameras. As such we want to get in or near that Metro where searches are happening to pass out Flex Your Rights literature reminding people that they should refuse police searches.
We're staying on top of print media stories, so please don't forward me articles. But please call me if you have information from officials who might know if and when random searches will be starting and, of course, if you see searches happening.
Thanks for your help,
Steve
posted by zzzzzoe at 1:34 PM
4 Comments:
Don't you want to help keep America safe? If it takes random bag searches to do our part, so be it. The only other thing we can do besides cooperating with the minor inconviences of bag searches is to keep our eyes open and report suspisious activity. Our american soldiers are risking their lives for our safety and you're complaining about having your bag searched! Are you just one of those people who aren't happy unless you're complaining about something? Relax, stop complaining and enjooy the rest of your time here on this earth.
Do you think that invading our privacy is really for the benifit of our country? Looking for 'security threats' through random searches is like looking for a needle in a haystack. One a list of expamples of 'suspicous people', they include nervous or sweaty people, and people with baggy clothes on. So because i wear baggy pants and sweat alot I can be reported as suspicous and harassed by the metro police? Whats next? Racial profiling for these searches? How many civil liberties must we forgo for our national security? How about we get our soldiers out of this fruitless war. These terrorist attacks on mass transit systems are directly related to this war and our current presence in Iraq. More security isnt going to stop an attack, but our withdrawel (from the middle east) and the ceasing and desisting of our imperialist tendancies will, or at least has a much better chance.
Alexandra-- After this is implemented..should we start allowing random warrent-free searches of our homes? Who fits the criteria for suspicious persons? Maybe it's me, Maybe it's you. Who determines the parties being searched? I hope it's random. Being a white female I've never been subjected to racial profiling, because I'm not seen as a threat. Having seen my friends who are darker skinned, males being profiled this outrages me.
First they search our bags and take away our right to free speach (see: anti-flag burning amendment), With our privacy gone and our right to speak out against our goverment gone (the Two things that make this country so great) What are we left with? How would we then be better than the people we're fighting against?
Hi there Anonymous,
Yes, I'm complaining about having my bag searched. I'm also complaining about having my bike destroyed for no reason by the government, with no reimbursement. I'm also complaining about passionate young American soldiers being tricked into risking their lives for a wrong-headed war. The reason I'm complaining is because I am indeed happy, and that happiness is due in large part to the liberty I enjoy - liberty which is, slowly but surely, being taken away. I think a world in which we don't have to be suspicious and paranoid all the time is a world worth complaining for - and indeed fighting for, although perhaps not in the explosion-happy US sense of the word.
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