Metro Threatens Flex Your Rights with Legal Action, ACLU Defends

for those cops to take action like this, you must have been effective enough to scare them. good work on the campaign and good luck to any other campaigns in the future.

There's always something to sue over.

Yeah, sue over using the identifiable icon for those unfortunate enough not to be able to read due to their poor education or eyesight. If you hadn't used the 'M', they would have sued over using the word 'Metro'.

The legal system is insane. Use it. SUE THEM for a billion dollars for their use of lawsuits as intimidation tactics against citizens concerned about their legal rights being trampled.

How do the police 'randomly' choose people? Do they flip a coin? Roll some dice?

Or do they 'randomly' choose people who look like they can be an easy bust for whatever they might uncover?

I believe it's the latter. Do the police keep good, honest records of everyone who is stopped? They certainly do for everyone who is arrested as a result of these searches.

Wherever and whenever the word 'random' is used, there must be a very clear definition of how 'random' is decided, and what procedures to follow to guarantee 'random' is effectively 'random'. Get mathematicians in on that definition, both to define and scrutinize the rules.

For instance, a TRUE 'random search' device would need to be installed on the turnstiles, and designate ONE person to search, and that designation would need to be completely out of anyone's control. In a fair and efficient system, it might only randomly select a person when someone is available to perform a search, and presses a button (with no view of the turnstiles) so nobody would have to queue up, or be 'excused' from a queue because there are too many people waiting.

You could NEVER argue the case that a search is 'random' if a cop picks someone from a crowd allegedly 'at random' of his or her own initiative. That cop could have applied any 'random' formula. Like skin color, accent, mode of dress. In other words, some personalized form of profiling.

Every time a search is conducted by an officer on his/her supposedly 'random' initiative, the person who is 'randomly' searched should receive a receipt. Anybody who gets three of these receipts in a day should automatically receive $10,000 from the Metro for harassment. People would make it their career to go into the Metro looking as 'random' as they can.

Grow a beard, let your hair grow out, dress shabbily, wear sunglasses, and a hidden camera, and carry a bulky, filthy looking backpack (conspicuously clean of any trace of contraband) with a marijuana leaf or 'Grateful Dead' decal, and appear to be alone. Also be conspicuously clean of any 'naughty' scent. Find some skinny and nervous-looking volunteers. Find some people who look like warmed over crap with bad teeth. Find some thuggish-dressed kids. Any sort of drug or gang culture appearance. Easy money. I bet they'll get 'randomly' picked at almost every station that performs searches, every day you try it. Train the volunteers carefully. Do the experiment. I bet you could get really, really good at being 'randomly' chosen. Making eye contact with the cops and looking away is a GREAT way to be 'randomly' chosen for a search anywhere.

Of course, the #2 reason why random searches won't work against terrorism on the Metro is simple. Once a terrorist has invested in explosives or other terrorist cargo, successfully smuggled it into the U.S., and planned their attack without being uncovered, what kind of idiot wouldn't spring for a car to drop their suicide bombers off near where they need to go? Are cars, mopeds, bicycles, etc. that hard to find in the U.S.? If you drop your terrorists off, and ditch the car, the Metro will be a fine route of escape for the driver. After all, the driver won't be carrying anything incriminating. Even if the Metro is the target, if they all go into different stations at about the same time, most or all of them will get through.

The #1 reason is, if they check one in a hundred on the way through, there's a 99% chance the terrorist will get through. There are better odds a suicide bomb will be a 'dud' than he will get caught!

All a terrorist needs is a crowd. In the Metro, on the way into the Metro, around an entrance to the Metro, in a theater, in a shopping mall, in a church. Doesn't matter. The police can't 'randomly' search people who might explode in the midst of any kind of crowd. They can't make a scene and attempt to clear everyone 100 yards away from someone with a backpack 'at random' and expect it not to be detonated. By the time they approach someone in a crowd with a terrorist payload to 'randomly' search, it's too damned late. All they manage to do is trigger a bomb HERE instead of THERE. Singling out the Metro for 'random searches' only singles out Metro passengers for 'random searches'.

And what if the terrorist is wearing the bomb, as they tend to do? What's singling out people with backpacks, briefcases, or other luggage going to do? It's not like there aren't any chubby people wearing coats on public transit in America.

Thanks for the highly readable timeline. I live in Washington State and had not heard about these goings on and it was an easy way to get up to speed.

Keep up the good work!

Please, stay the course.

As our forefathers said,

"Don't Tread On Me".

These people at Metro are they that stupid? Do they think that they are pushing some immigrant that is living here illegaly and that doesn't know his rights? What the hell are they smoking? As others said, stay in course.
Great Job.

It totally sickens me to see how some chest beating big head always threatens someone. Whether it be a crazo cop or the government.
Did it ever occur to them that there's more to their line of work than puffing up their chests and trying to run the whole world?
I avoid cops at all times just because I don't want to be the one getting harrassed because the jerk had a bad day.

it will be great when some of these constitution violating judges finally retire so maybe just maybe we can get some who will honor it. You guys/gals rule, very nice job and keep up the hard work. I appreciate it.

There's always something to sue over.

Yeah, sue over using the identifiable icon for those unfortunate enough not to be able to read due to their poor education or eyesight. If you hadn't used the 'M', they would have sued over using the word 'Metro'.

The legal system is insane. Use it. SUE THEM for a billion dollars for their use of lawsuits as intimidation tactics against citizens concerned about their legal rights being trampled.

thanks you

I hate the metro i was stopped yesterday after a concert from which i had just bought my metro ticket for there and back and i was trying to leave to go home from the shady grove exit and i go through the scanner thing my friend slid his metro card in and i did to a few seconds later and i went through because it read valid for both our cards then i was stopped by the biggest asshole metro cop and told that i was skipping through and took my card away from me and tried to tell me that i had nothing left on my card from before the shady grove stop and that it never came up in the system! and when i asked for my card back to show him that my card if it didnt come up in the system should still have one swipe left on it he wouldnt give it back to me! and refused to listen to me and wrote me a $50.00 ticket and still would not give me back my metro ticket saying that he had to keep it! i wanna take it to court because i bought a ticket and then accused wrongfully of not paying my fare when i did! and now im being bent over by the metro police... im being told that theres no way that id win a case against it but how can i not fight it when ive done nothing wronge???

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