New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly told the New York Times that the police had considered instituting the searches for a year and a half, but that the timing wasn’t right until the London bombings. “Searches are intrusive,” Kelly said. “The issue is what the public will accept. You still need an event to get public support.”

Last year, the police department had sought and failed to get permission to conduct random searches of protesters outside the Republican National Convention in New York. During the Democratic Party convention a month earlier the Boston police instituted such searches in that city’s subway system.

The New York search policy has been extended to the city’s regional rail lines. New Jersey cops have followed suit on the commuter rails from that state. Police say those who do not consent to be searched will be barred from entering the station.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has announced it may challenge the policy on constitutional grounds. NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said the searches were “not workable” and “will not make New Yorkers more secure.”

Officials of Transport Workers Union Local 100 announced that the union has hired Rafael Ron, former head of security at Israel’s Airports Authority, to train the workers in the city’s subways and buses to police the public transport system for “terrorist activity.” Union officials railed at the Metropolitan Transit Authority for not providing enough “antiterrorism” training to union members.

“Transit workers are the first line of defense against terrorist activity,” said union president Roger Toussaint in an editorial published in the Times.

In addition to Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg, the four Democratic Party candidates in the running for New York mayor all came out in support of the move. “I have consistently asked the mayor to develop a complete plan to maintain the security of the subways,” said Virginia Fields, one of the mayoral hopefuls.

Socialist Workers Party mayoral candidate Martín Koppel spoke out against the measure at a campaign rally July 23. “The moves by the city government have nothing to do with ‘fighting terrorism,’” Koppel said. “The random searches are part of the effort by the ruling class to chip away at the rights and political space of working people. They are designed to generate public acceptance for attacking the right to privacy and other rights working people need to defend our standard living against attacks by the employers.”

The atmosphere set by the cop searches has already led to unjustified detentions and disruptions of public transportation here. On July 24, heavily armed police swarmed a Gray Line double-decker bus full of 60 tourists at Times Square. Cops in riot gear escorted passengers out of the bus and handcuffed five men. According to the Daily News, a Gray Line dispatcher had called 911 and told the cops the men were looking South Asian and had backpacks and their pockets “stuffed.” The five were quickly freed after it became apparent they were tourists. The same day, the police shut down Penn Station for more than an hour when a passenger allegedly claimed he had a bomb in a suitcase, which proved to be harmless.
 
 
Related article:
Oppose N.Y. subway bag searches  
 
 
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