Richard Clarke and Subway Searches
The cat's out of the bag. Who urged New York City to begin conducting searches of subway riders' bags? Richard Clarke.
Mr. Clarke, a former counterterrorism adviser to two presidents, received widespread attention last year for his criticism of President Bush's response to the Sept. 11 attacks, detailed in a searing memoir and in security testimony before the 9/11 Commission.
Unknown to the public, until recently, was Mr. Clarke's role in advising New York City officials in helping to devise the "container inspection program" that the Police Department began in July after two attacks on the transit system in London.
A legal challenge to the policy, filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union and heard by a federal judge in Manhattan last week, is seen as a test case of the proper scope of governmental intervention in the lives of citizens in the name of deterring a terrorist attack. Judge Richard M. Berman will decide the case next month at the earliest, but already each side says it is prepared to appeal if it loses.
Do the searches violate the Fourth Amendment? The courts will decide. In the meantime, it doesn't hurt to remind searching officials of the Fourth Amendment.
Here's how. (Larger picture here.)
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