Boston Commons has dutifully gathered up all the local bloggas about the random MBTA search policy (including this general information guide), and one of them
caught my attention in calling the president of the National Lawyers
Guild an “anti-American terror apologist” (and an idiot). Without
addressing the characterization, it seems
to me NLG’s Michael Avery quote poorly worded his statement:

“It’s invading an everyday space,” said Michael Avery, president of the
National Lawyers Guild, an association of lawyers and law students that
represents the poor and political dissidents. “You can make a long list
of places that are vulnerable. We can’t and shouldn’t try to protect
those places because then we’d have a police state.”

I suppose what he meant to say is we can’t and shouldn’t try to protect every place that’s vulnerable to terrorism…

There are at least four ways you can think about the T searches:

1. They will stop terrorists, or at least deter them.
2. They will make commuters feel safer, regardless of whether they are or aren’t.
3. They are an unjustified search because, on balance, they invade
   too much privacy for a non-compelling reason (they do not produce
   sufficient safety).
4. They are an unjustified search even if, on balance, they increase safety because of the danger of establishing a police state.

While most people who oppose the searches seem to agree that they
won’t be effective, I’ve not seen many supporters claiming that the
searches will actually stop terrorists. The closest I’ve seen is Beth, who writes:

I can’t argue with the T’s policies. Because, after all, I will be
on the Orange Line. If someone decides to detonate a bomb during rush
hour; well, it could very well be my body lying in small bits on the
subway tracks. So anything the T can do in order to prevent that from
happening is fine with me.

… granting later only that the T is making “some effort” to improve safety. (BTW, Beth, the NLG is not the same as the ACLU).

Personally, I side with rationales #3 and #4: Like many of those who
wave the flag around, I believe that freedom carries a price, in this
case, the feeling of decreased safety. I also happen to believe (with,
like the other side, little evidence supporting my view) that an open
society might well be our best defense against terrorism. After all,
Avery’s rhetoric aside, we’ll never havea true police
state in the U.S., so is going partway really a good balance? Seems to
me we’d get the worst of both worlds: violations of our privacy with
little increased safety.

I think the issue that is hardest to talk about when debating the
issue of preventing terrorism is where our resources (financial, human,
and political) are best spent. Given the amount of time, money, etc.
that the MBTA is going to expend on rider searches, are we sure that
it’s the best, most (or should I say least) bang-for-your-buck measure
we can be taking? For example, my biggest worry about the T is that if
and when terrorists get their hands on a surface-to-air missle, they
aren’t going to waste it on a plane (too hard to hit without training).
Hit a train as it’s heading into the Red Line’s Kendall Square tunnel
entrance and you’ve got yourself some major, major terror. Yet how many
MBTA police have you seen guarding that extremely vulnerable location
— or the other tunnel entrances, for that matter?

For every MBTA policeman searching the T, another one has to be pulled from some other duty. As if Dudley Square needs fewer MBTA cops.

(As for me, like SRL, I’m usually a bike commuter).

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