More wasted expense...

The news yesterday and today has been full of reports that New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is instituting random searches of subway passengers.

This is a waste of resources and here's why:

Because the articles made it clear that passengers who did not wish to be searched would be allowed to leave the station, they simply would not be allowed on the train.

Does anyone see where this becomes problematic?

They're conducting random searches, not searching every bag. Subway stations in Manhattan are generally a couple of blocks apart. So if a terrorist wants to plant a bomb on the subway, he takes it in his backpack down into a station. If he is chosen for random search, he simply refuses to be searched, leaves that station, walks a couple of blocks up the street and tries again. He's a terrorist. Based on the modus operendi of the last few attacks, he's not expecting to live through the day, he's got nothing but time. If he has to try three or four stations before he finds one busy enough that he isn't chosen for "random" screening (even assuming "random" is code for "screening of anyone who looks arabic"), that's not really a big deterrent.

So what we have is an inconvenience for "random" travelers and a large expense in terms of metro police who presumably have other tasks which they will now no longer be doing (or else the expense of hiring additional officers), all for no protective result what so ever.

I understand, with the recent events in London, it's important to give the people some measure of comfort that their government is TRYING to protect them, but this measure would seem so obviously futile as to engender cynicism rather than any feeling of safety.

Liam.