Bag the Metro searches

By Robert Thomson

Metro's decision to start randomly searching its passengers' private property reinstates a policy announced abruptly in October 2008 and then suspended before the searches began. Maybe Metro figured that if it was okay for the TSA to grab air travelers' private parts, it would be okay for transit officers to open up riders' bags and packages.

Who knows? There wasn't any more discussion this time than last time before Metro announced the passenger searches, as reported by Ann Scott Tyson in this blog posting.

Metro photo shows warning to riders.

I'd like to repeat what I said in 2008, because I think it's just as true today: About half the letters of complaint I get each week concern Metro. Washingtonians by the scores complain about eating and drinking on the trains, about garbled announcements on the loud speakers, about the handholds being too high and far away for riders to grab. They think police and school officials should control rowdy behavior after class. They think the trains break down too often. But the constituency for random, occasional property searches has yet to be heard from.

This isn't like an airport screening, to which 100 percent of passengers are subjected. The thoroughness of the airport screening makes it very effective as a security measure. The effectiveness of the deterrent, plus the demonstrated consequences of failure on Sept. 11, 2001, created broad public understanding that the security searches were reasonable.

Metro says that the program is like New York's, which was challenged and upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The decision was called MacWade v. Kelly.

[Update: Metro also says that this time, the search plan is different: The searches are expected to take only minutes and are designed to be "non-intrusive." The police will randomly select bags or packages to check for hazardous materials using "ionization technology and K-9 units trained to detect explosive materials." Carry-on items will generally not be opened and inspected unless the equipment indicates a need for further inspection. What Metro thinks of as "non-intrusive" probably wouldn't match what I think of as "unintrusive," should I have the honor of being ionized, or selected for special observation by a large dog.]

Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn, for whom I have great respect, came online in 2008 to explain why he thought it was necessary to subject train and bus riders to these random searches. You can read a transcript here.

Back then, the idea of transit police randomly searching riders provoked an upwelling of interest in the Fourth Amendment, which says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Or as a rider might put it: The government better have a pretty good reason for wanting to know what's in my knapsack, because otherwise, it's none of their business.