If you tell these pigs you have Constitutional rights they will throw you off the bus and tell you not to come back till you bend over and give you your 4th Amendment right.

Police officers say don't think of it as a "useless unconstitutional security program", think of it as a jobs program for cops. Of course if your not a cop or a member of the ruling police state you will think of it as a "useless unconstitutional security program".

Source

DC Metro to start random bag searches

By SARAH BRUMFIELD - Dec 17, 2010 7:50 AM MT

By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington's Metro police will start random inspections of passengers' bags at entrances to rail stations and bus bays, transit agency officials announced Thursday.

The program is based on similar efforts in Boston and New York, where there have been viewed favorably by the public, according to Metro Transit Police Department Chief Michael Taborn.

"It is the unpredictability, the randomness of this activity at a variety of different stations and the whole purpose is to throw off the bad guy if he or she has any intent of doing anything to harm the employees or the patrons of that particular transit system," he said.

The inspections have been in the works for years, and are not a response to any particular threat, Taborn said. However, in recent months various threats to the system have come to light. One man was accused of casing stations in what he thought was an al-Qaida plot to bomb and kill commuters and another man is charged with threatening on Facebook to detonate pipe bombs in the subway system.

Metro and Transportation Security Administration officers will swab randomly selected bags or packages and test for hazardous materials, Taborn said. Items generally won't have to be opened for inspection unless the equipment suggests a need for a closer look. If hazardous materials are detected, explosives detection dogs will be brought in, he said.

Riders who refuse to submit their carry-on items for inspection will be prohibited from bringing those items into the station. Checkpoints will be located before turnstiles so riders who don't want their property to be searched can choose not to enter.

The inspections will not cost Metro anything since the transit agency already owns the machines used to test for hazardous materials and a 20-member anti-terror team that will lead the inspections, Taborn said. However, others have been trained to use the equipment if there is a need for checkpoints at multiple locations.

Source

D.C. transit system to start random bag checks

by Ann Scott Tyson and Derek Kravitz - Dec. 17, 2010 12:00 AM

Washington Post

WASHINGTON - Anti-terrorism teams will start random inspections of passengers' bags and packages to try to protect the region's Metro rail and bus system from attack, officials said Thursday.

Police using explosives-screening equipment and bomb-sniffing dogs will pull aside about every third person carrying a bag for inspection, Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn said. The searches might be conducted at one location at a time or at several places simultaneously. If people refuse, they will be barred from entering the rail station or boarding a bus with the item, Taborn said. The inspections will be conducted "indefinitely," he said.

Taborn told Metro's board of directors about the plan Thursday. Metro had planned to implement random searches in 2008 during times of elevated threat levels, but never conducted any.

Thursday's announcement came six weeks after federal law-enforcement authorities arrested Farooque Ahmed, 34, in an alleged plot to bomb Northern Virginia Metrorail stations. Last week, authorities arrested Awais Younis, 25, of Arlington County, Va., on accusations that he made threats on his Facebook page to place pipe bombs aboard Metro rail cars, according to court documents.

However, Metro Interim General Manager Richard Sarles said the inspections are not a response to any specific or heightened threat.

"It's good to vary your security posture," he said, noting that transit agencies in New York, New Jersey and Boston have successfully carried out random checks.

The inspections over the far-flung transit network, which has 86 rail stations and 12,000 bus stops, will be conducted by several dozen officers at most. Metro's trains and buses carry more than 1.2 million passengers every weekday, and officials acknowledge the limitations of the plan.

"This is just another method to sort of throw the bad guy off" by using the threat of a search to discourage bringing a bomb into the transit network, Taborn said. "We're not going to clog up the Metro system."

Metro officials said the searches will be quick and unobtrusive.

Metro's 20-member anti-terrorism police unit, its special operations unit, and several teams of dogs and handlers will conduct the checks with assistance from Transportation Security Administration personnel, officials said.

Source

Metro Opens Bags

WMATA to begin random searches

By P.J. ORVETTI

Updated 11:11 AM EST, Fri, Dec 17, 2010

Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn “says he is not worried about a trend in terror threats against the transit system,” WTOP reports. And so WMATA will begin random bag searches at Metro stations soon.

If that doesn’t make any sense, remember: this is counterterrorism we’re talking about. It never makes any sense.

In December 2001, Richard Reid tried to blow up an airplane with a bomb in his shoe. Nine years and no more shoe bombers later, we’re still taking off our shoes at the airport. In August 2006, terrorists plotted to blow up about 10 airplanes using liquid explosives. Four years later, women still get hassled about breast milk at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints. Last Christmas, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to set off a bomb in his underwear aboard a flight to Detroit. And so now, we all go through “naked scanners” or get groped by TSA personnel.

U.S. efforts to deal with terrorism are akin to 8-year-olds playing soccer. Just as the kids all chase after the ball, without strategy or design, our security apparatus chases after the latest threat, real or perceived.

And so, two months after Farooque Ahmed was taken into custody in a Metro bomb plot sting, and a week after terrorist mastermind Awais Younis stealthily revealed dubious plans to blow up pipe bombs on Metro via Facebook, security theater is coming to the D.C. subway system.

WMATA said Thursday that transit police “will conduct random inspections of carry-on items, as part of the continuously changing law enforcement programs designed to keep the system safe.” WMATA says the searches “are expected to take only minutes and are designed to be non-intrusive, as police will randomly select bags or packages to check for hazardous materials.”

While Metro says the process should take no longer than a minute, that’s assuming that no one else is in the process of being scanned. And, as we all know from being stuck behind tourists who refuse to stand to the right, a minute is more than enough time to miss your train.

And what if an actual would-be bomber is trying to enter the system? Two years ago, the last time Metro announced a random search scheme, Stephen Block of the ACLU of the National Capital Area told the Washington Post, “He could just go up the escalator and go to a different station where bag searches are not taking place. … Assume they’re doing searches at Farragut West. The bad guy simply goes to Farragut North.”

As Greater Greater Washington’s David Alpert put it, WMATA has decided to “ramp up useless security theater…while having enormous amounts of time and police energy wasted on not catching actual potential terrorists.” [Hey if you ask the cops it is NOT a useless security program. It's a jobs program for cops. Well of course for the rest of us it IS a useless security program.]

Should Metro do nothing? No. There are risks, and WMATA and the transit police should be vigilant. But it would be best to start by improving the quality of security that already exists.

“If you see something, please say something,” says Taborn, echoing the notices posted throughout the system. But two Metro employees recently responded indifferently to a report of an abandoned bag. Around the same time, a caller to the transit police hotline found there was no one there to pick up the phone.

Metro should fix the security protocols it already has before bothering riders with pointless new ones.

Follow P.J. Orvetti on Twitter at @PJOinDC