Nov. 1, 2005 – Nearly three months after civil liberties advocates filed a lawsuit challenging the New York City Police Department?s subway search policy, a federal court yesterday began hearing testimony in the case. The hearing is expected to last for several days, after which lawyers for the New York Civil Liberties Union and NYPD will offer written and oral arguments.
- NYCLU Challenges Random Subway Searches in New York (Aug 5, 2005)
- New York City Gives Lockheed $212 Million Subway Camera Contract (Aug 24, 2005)
In papers filed last week, the NYCLU, which brought the case on behalf of five city residents, presented evidence that the police conducted 34 random searches at 5,500 subway turnstiles over a three-week period beginning at the end of August and turned up nothing related to the policy?s purported purpose of preventing terrorist attacks.
NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman called the bag-search policy "unprecedented, unlawful and ineffective."
"It is essential that police be aggressive in maintaining security in public transportation," Lieberman conceded in a statement last week. "But our very real concerns about terrorism do not justify the NYPD subjecting millions of innocent people to suspicion-less searches in a way that does not identify any person seeking to engage in terrorist activity and is unlikely to have any meaningful deterrent effect on terrorist activity."
The civil liberties group?s arguments were countered in testimony by NYPD Deputy Commissioner David Cohen, who called for expanding the program, which subjects riders at randomly selected subway entrances to bag searches.
Citing the 2-year-old case of a man arrested for plotting to cut the Brooklyn Bridge?s cables, Cohen said: "Unpredictability is the enemy of terrorists and the ally of those trying to prevent an attack." Random police patrols on the bridge reportedly flouted that attack, which bridge engineers say would have required several hours and heavy equipment to complete.
The NYCLU suit maintains that the policy is unconstitutional, violating the right to freedom from unlawful searches. They also warn that such policies increase the likelihood that officers will engage in racial profiling.
In response to this summer?s bombing of the London subway system, New York officials implemented several policies aimed at preventing a similar occurrence in the Big Apple, including the random bag searches and contracting with Lockheed Martin to increase the number of surveillance cameras and sensors throughout the city public transportation system.
