The Search - addendum

A gentleman left me a comment (thank you!) with a link to a document about how to politely refuse a search. The answer was to calmly walk out of the station where the searches are being conducted. The article also advised its readers not to run away or risk being shot dead, guilty or not, as happened in London. Don't you just love how fucking police officers in charge of protecting people would rather just shoot pretty much at will instead of doing it the old fashioned way and at least attempting to ID the person as the bad guy before shots are fired? Remember Amadou Diallo? That's why I don't trust NYC cops. Anyway, the walking away thing would be doable except for one thing: how do I get anywhere if not on the subway? This is how Bloomberg (the City) and the MTA manipulate New Yorkers. The city would pretty much stop moving altogether were it not for the subway. So when they introduce searches or fare hikes, we can't do a damn thing about it (except go to public hearings on the matter where everybody complains but the authorities screw us anyway) and must submit or else agree to not go anywhere ever.

I agree that searches may not do all that much to counter terrorism. Look at the airport security measures. They have become a big joke, the stuff of tv sitcoms, and I personally love to tell about the time that I wore flip flops on a flight to D. C. so that I would not be made to take them off at the security checkpoint. Guess what? The idiots made me take them off anyway, saying that I could have explosives taped to my feet (!!!!) That would make a great episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Imagine Larry David going through that at the hands of some ex-surfer suddenly hired by the TSA at LAX.

The reality is there is such a thing as terrorism and no one gets to choose where, when or how bad. I'm already used to the airport crap, and this is just the same shit. All I can do is hope that I look innocent enough that no one will fuck with me, and that one day, this will all be over and we can have our constitutional rights back.