As Jim Henley points out, it certainly is odd how some war proponents chant “the hate us because we’re free” while simultaneously supporting anti-terror efforts that increasingly invade our individual freedom.

Take Jeff Jarvis, for example. Jarvis says he doesn’t know any of these “privacy advocates” the media keeps citing who are critical of New York’s plan to randomly search the bags of commuters. Well, Jarvis — I’m one of them.

Jarvis writes:

I say it’s a good thing that New York police will start random bag searches on the subways.

Oh, I know it will be inconvenient when I’m late for a meeting and it’s 120-degrees down there and I fear there will be a line. Nonetheless, if and when the cops search me, I’ll thank them.

[...]

And what precisely is the privacy problem? If the cops catch you carrying something illegal, well, you shouldn’t be carrying anything illegal.

It’s disappointing to see someone as smart as Jarvis sinking to the “if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about” mantra. Answer to Jarvis: If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t really need the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendments, either. So why not just do away with them?

Of course, in many ways, we already have.

An increased police presence may make us feel safer, but it isn’t likely to do much good. What it will do is give cops more oppportunity to enforce Bloomberg’s Nanny State. I’ll bet those cops nab more than a few small-time dope users while searching for terrorists, too. I’d note to Jarvis that here in D.C., each time the terror alert goes up, the number of citations for not wearing a seatbelt spikes, too. That’s partly because you have more cops on the streets (many on bikes), and partly because the city feels pressure to raise revenue to pay for the added patrols.

We all get harassed. None of us is much safer.

London’s a great example. It’s the most surveilled city in the world. Has been for a decade. All of those cameras did nothing to curb the city’s crime rate. They did nothing to prevent the attacks of a couple of weeks ago. They did nothing to prevent the follow-up attack. And last week, they led to a false ID that got an innocent man killed.

Again, to borrow from Henley, if the terrorists do hate us for our freedom, doesn’t supporting measures that curb personal freedom amount to appeasement?

This entry was posted on Monday, July 25th, 2005 at 10:07 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Nanny State, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.