The NYCLU released a statement this week detailing their concerns over the searches imposed on NYC straphangers after the July 7 bombings in London:

[via NYCLU: NYCLU calls decision to conduct random searches of individuals on New York's subways unconstitutional]

The NYPD can and should investigate any suspicious activity, but the Fourth Amendment prohibits police from conducting searches where there is no suspicion of criminal activity. One of the dangers of random searches is that they can invite the possibility of racial, ethnic or religious profiling. The plan is not workable and will not make New Yorkers more secure but will inconvenience them as police go about finding a needle in a haystack.

So what do the journalistically innocent editors over at The Daily News write?

[via New York Daily News - Home - Editorials: Earth to NYCLU: We're at war]

If this can be the case in heavily guarded London, what does it augur for New York, where transit officials haven't yet troubled to spend most of their security funds and managed only yesterday to figure out how many stations are equipped with recording surveillance cameras. The answer is 76, more than previously known but far, far, far fewer than in London, where cameras have zeroed in on suspects, such as the one in Thursday's attack who was wearing a sweatshirt with "New York" chillingly emblazoned across the chest.

So basically, unconstitutional searches are being performed due to the MTA's incompetence in creating a security plan with the resources allocated to them by the Department of Homeland Security. Are the editors of TDN so Bush-happy they don't get the irony of their statement? That illegal searches are the price the pay for the incompetence of bureaucrats? And could they really say with a straight face that after the London bombings, civil liberties are to be regarded as a nuissance because we are at war?

Safety is important, but not if it means to give up my civil rights nor my constitutional liberties for a national security issue that has been turned into a rhetorical war. As I have said before, this new kind of "arabist" terrorism is self-sustaining; in many ways, completely disconnected from Al-Quaida. That is why, any newspaper claiming journalistic integrity, should refrain from the use of such terms -- they are not bloggers after all.

Today's NYDN's editorial should be labeled as a prime example of the mass media's rhetorical pandering to the Bush administration and the chickenhawks in Capitol Hill. If journalists at fine newspapers like The Daily News are supposed to be the measure of information integrity and everything a blogger is not, they should not so eagerly parrot on their editorial column proclamations like this one :

We can only pray that the judges will have their heads less in the clouds than does New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman, who declared: "We are entitled to move freely around the city without being worried about being searched by police." What planet is she on? Not this one. Earthlings are justifiably worried about sudden, violent death from out of nowhere.

Now we are living in a city crowded not just by people but fear. Not "bad fear" like the fear spread by terrorist. No, this one is now good. Michael Bloomberg, Raymond Kelly believe this show of "good fear" is needed to scare potential bombers away :

[via What's in a Bag Check? Deterrence, and Comfort - New York Times]:

"There are three reasons for doing this," said Mark Juergensmeyer, a security expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "First, that you actually hope to discover a bomb. Second, to give the impression to a bomber that it will be difficult to succeed. And third, to give the appearance or illusion of security to make the public happy."

"Probably the third is the most important," added Professor Juergensmeyer, the director of the university's global and international studies program. "Don't discount the importance of that."

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly acknowledged as much in an interview yesterday, saying deterrence was not the only intention of the program.

"I see it also as giving some comfort to the riding public," he said. "We actually had people who came over and volunteered to have their bags checked - kind of supporting the process."

Because spreading fear is a principal goal of terrorists, it is vital to show the public that something is being done, experts said.

This goes beyond the platitudes of war on terrorism. The ability to scare other people, to instill fear, is all about control.

The NYPD may think fear is good as a deterrent; but fear can lead to terrible choices by the same people that are supposed to protect us : Yesterday, a man was shot and killed in the Stockton Underground Station because he was suspected to be one of the London bombers. Today London's Metropolitan Police Department admitted the man
was unconnected to the incidents. His name was Jean Charles de Menezes. He was a Brazilian national. He was only 27 years-old.

If Michael Bloomberg wants to look like a macho fighter in the so-called war against terror, he has chosen poorly. His strategy is not only ill-conceived and unconstitutional, but it is a potential threat to straphangers. Dark-skinned middle-eastern looking straphangers.

In London, a dark-skinned Brazilian man was shot and killed. Here in NYC? I could be next.