just say no

...to violations of your rights. I saw some subway-search cops for the first time yesterday. I also saw a woman stride purposefully towards them with her bag open. Sheeple. I wasn't carrying a backpack, just a small bag. I just avoided eye contact and walked through the turnstiles.

A commenter named Matt has some better ideas. Matt stopped by to tell us about the Flex Your Rights Foundation, which has created The Citizen's Guide to Refusing New York Subway Searches. You can also download it as a flyer in .pdf form.

From the intro:

In response to the recent London terror attacks, New York police officers are now conducting random searches of bags and packages brought into the subway.

While Flex Your Rights takes no position on the usefulness of these searches for preventing future attacks, we have serious concerns that this unprecedented territorial expansion of police search powers is doing grave damage to people's understanding of their Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

In addition, as innocent citizens become increasingly accustomed to being searched by the police, politicians and police agencies are empowered to further expand the number of places where all are considered guilty until proven innocent.

Fortunately, this trend is neither inevitable nor irreversible. In fact, the high-profile public nature of these random subway searches provides freedom-loving citizens with easy and low-risk opportunities to "flex" their Fourth Amendment rights by refusing to be searched.

If you're carrying a bag or package into the subway, here's what you need to know and do in order to safely and intelligently "flex" your rights:

Then they list strategies, do's and especially don't's (DON'T RUN!), to help you with your lonely bit of civil disobedience.

I'll be on the subway more than usual this month. I'll let you know how it goes.