N.Y. police sued over bag-search policy

NEW YORK -- The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the city's Police Department yesterday, calling the random search of subway riders' bags unconstitutional and ineffective.

The lawsuit -- filed in a federal court on behalf of five subway passengers, including the son of a retired police captain and a naturalized citizen -- alleges that the program violates constitutional rights that protect against illegal searches and guarantee due process.

New York City's transit system is the first in the nation to institute regular random checks of passengers' bags. The searches began July 21, two weeks after terrorist suicide bombings in London's transit system killed 52. Critics not aligned with civil liberties activists also say the searches are ineffective, but say they want police to begin racial profiling of passengers to emphasize searches of young men of Middle Eastern or Asian descent.

Civil liberties advocates said searches that are not based on suspicion do little to protect the public, particularly when mass-transit riders who refuse to submit to the searches are allowed to enter the subway system at another station.

''People are allowed to walk away, ensuring that only innocent people are searched," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, who called the searches a ''civil liberties surcharge on a Metrocard."

The searches are performed on 10 to 20 percent of riders, depending on foot traffic, according to police officials.

New York subways move 4.7 million passengers each day, nearly half of the nation's mass-transit riders. New Jersey riders boarding trains to New York recently became subjected to similar searches.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was disappointed that the NYCLU was challenging the tactic.

''The plan that we've come up with, where it's random and fair to everybody and adds to the security of this city, is the appropriate thing, and I'm just sorry that they've chosen to go in this direction," he said.

Gail Donoghue, special counsel in the city's legal department, called the NYCLU ''shortsighted" and said in a written statement that the program ''preserves the important balance between protecting our city and preserving individual rights."

City police officials said they have received no complaints about the policy.

The Supreme Court has approved the use of checkpoints in special circumstances, but in 2000 the court ruled that random searches could not be employed for the ''ordinary enterprise of investigating crimes."

A plaintiff in the NYCLU lawsuit, Joseph Gehring Jr., the son of a retired police captain and a ''lifelong Republican," said he began avoiding police checkpoints after his bags were searched. ''I've been forced to act like a criminal in my own city when I have done nothing wrong," said Gehring, who lamented a lack of opposition by New Yorkers to the program. ''We are becoming accustomed to having our liberties taken away."

Information from the Associated Press was included in this report.