They also make great gifts. Hand it to the cops when it's time for a search of your bags. Yes, you have to consent to the search but you can without a word let them know what you think of the intrusion. If you've got a college kid in New York, send them one. We can't remind the authorities often enough of our right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Here's the messenger bag:

Larger photo here. Order here.

How appropriate to hand a bag that reminds the officer of the wording of this great Amendment as he or she is searching through your personal items without a warrant or probable cause.

Back to the New York searches:

The New York Civil Liberties Union believed the searches were such violations of privacy that it went to court last year to stop them. A federal judge disagreed, saying that following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks the need for such measures was "indisputable, pressing, ongoing and evolving."

The NYCLU has appealed. Its lawyers argue the searches are too infrequent to be a real deterrent, yet frequent enough to violate constitutional rights.

"We're in favor of making people feel comfortable, but not at the expense of the Constitution," said NYCLU Legal Director Christopher Dunn.

One more: Nicholas von Hoffman writing in the Observer:

If random searches of people in the subways are being done for anything except political effect, it's nonsense. The decision to search is a confession of helplessness. It is saying that the police and Homeland Security don't know who the enemy is, so maybe they can get lucky and spot one among the thousands racing to catch the A train.

Analyze it: The chances of seizing a terrorist in the middle of rush hour are almost zero. If the authorities had any idea who the would-be terrorists are or where they're lurking or what kind of terror weapon they intend to use, they would grab them and clap them onto an airplane for "rendition" to some far-off place where the ACLU cannot get at them.

The Patriot Act, the bewildering reorganizations of the various federal police and intelligence organizations, the billions spent on electronic claptrap, the studies, reports and surveys by the commissions, committees and agencies have netted us next to nothing in the way of enhanced safety. In the present atmosphere, the suggestion that there may be a disconcertingly large quotient of stumblebums, lazy bums and crooked bums handling our homeland security is treated as little short of sedition. That fact, coupled with the conviction that criticism of the war which is being waged but not won is unpatriotic, leaves us with but one course of action: to go on doing the same things.