camwyn | (no subject)

Current Mood: enraged

(no subject)

So.

New York City's gonna do random searches of people's bags if they wanna get on the subway and 'people who don't want to be searched are perfectly free to turn around and leave the station'.

Show of hands- do I start carrying a bag full of mousetraps, or should I start carrying a bag full of some formulation of Play-Doh that feels like dog crap if a cop puts his hand on it? Not that I dislike the members of the NYPD; I'm very fond of cops in general. But since the city doesn't seem to think that the Constitution matters any more (small surprise, since Washington doesn't either)- or that this constitutes a reasonable search and seizure- I'd like to make it plain that if you're going to search me, ever, you are going to have to pay for that privilege.

I'm thinkin' the play-doh. Or a can of non-dairy creamer with a lid that comes off easily- no, then they'd go "ACK ANTHRAX" and I'd be late for work. But you get the idea.

Suggestions?

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They will mistake the play doh for plastic explosives and the next installment of Hellraiser/Hogwarts with be from Riker's Island.

I read about that... completely forgot the small matter of your national constitution/bill of rights thing (not having much of one over here it does slip the mind occasionally -grin-).

I don't know what I'd do to subvert that little ordnance myself... I'd be torn between my resentment of the rule and my sympathy for the rank and file coppers who have to enforce it. A collection of rubber rats, snakes and spiders in a brown paper bag...? I mean, they're bound to be phobic of one of them right?

Depends on your personal embarrassment threshold too I suppose, an assortment of (clean but rumpled) underwear, female necessessaries or rubber objects of unfathomable purpose might raise blushes on the searchers face.

"What're you in for?"
"I had Play-Doh in my bag when a cop searched me."
"That some kind of new mix of heroin?"
"No, actual Play-Doh. You know, like kids in kindergarten eat?"
"Was there a knife in it or something?"
"Nope."
"..."

When they did that in Boston, the National Lawyer's Guild handed out big red buttons that said I DO NOT CONSENT TO A SEARCH. I put one on my purse. Just carrying it around, even if you don't use the subways much, at least shows other people who might not have thought of it that they do have a choice. They used to be available to download and make your own button, but it looks like since Boston isn't doing it anymore, they aren't on the NLG website. Still, it should be easy enough to make your own.

Of course it was completely pointless, because they only did it at a few of the larger subway stations, and all you had to do was walk a few blocks to go to another one.

Yet another manifestation of an American government agency's overwhelming need to Be Seen Doing Something...*sigh*

I was thinking of getting one of those blank tote bags they sell at craft stores and printing THIS IS NOT A REASONABLE SEARCH OR SEIZURE on it. If the Lawyer's Guild did something similar, I think I might just do that.

I have really very little in the way of personal embarrassment when it comes to stuff like this. I'd been sort of considering the Sparkly Pink Dildo approach, but I think I fancy the spiders-and-Tampax idea better.

:-) "Giant spiders as a weapon against oppression..."

See, the spirit of Babs lives on :-)

This might bother me less if President ~~Stupid~~ Bush didn't use the word 'freedom' forty million times in his last address.

I don't think that word means what he thinks it means.

I like the idea of the mousetraps.

Or, better yet, a tee shirt that has the 4th Amendment printed in LARGE letters

My current plan is, if I get hassled, to tell them that I don’t consent, turn around, walk out, and find a different station. Or, for large stations, a different entrance to the same station.

I'd go with a combination: mousetraps (painted black, of course, so they would be all but invisible at the bottom of a large bag) and the "I Do Not Consent" message or button.

Possibility that just occurred to me: glitter. Kids' glitter. The red and green kind, so it can't be mistaken for 'white powder'. It gets everywhere and it takes forever to clean up. Search my bag? You will SPARKLE FOR THE REST OF THE DAY, DAMN YOU.

Wow. The NYC Government must've just read Harry Potter.

9.9

And I like the glitter idea, yes. But how do you keep your own stuff from getting glitterfied?

The tote bag is good, or the buttons. There's a website that sells little aluminum squares about twice as tall as a credit card with the Bill of Rights printed on them; I have some around here somewhere, and can look up the URL if you're interested.

I can't countenance persecuting the poor cops who are tasked with enforcing a misguided and unConstitutional policy, though. Someone else will undoubtedly play churlish tricks with Play-Doh and spiders; you needn't.

the problem with mousetraps is that some cop might think you were deliberately trying to hurt someone with it, so that would be out.

The day-glo-pink 'personal relaxation device' is one that I've seen floated around quite a bit.

I'm honestly considering starting to re-read the Exalted: The Abyssals book again, especially considering my history of that book and searches...

Mousetraps are a very poor choice unless you want to be arrested. Injuring cops' fingers is not civil disobedience.

*snort* How about the new Savant and Sorcerer book? That's MUCH worse.

Yeah, I know, which is why I thought about it and dropped the idea in favour of the spiders/glitter/product of the gift shop of the Museum of Sex. Theoretically I might almost justify a mousetrap in a particularly tempting purse- "I was afraid of pickpockets"- but I would be carrying a tote bag rather than a purse. And the mousetrap ought to be reserved for if Mayor Bloomberg himself searches my bag, since he's the one who thinks the policy is so great, whereas the cops are just doing their jobs.

Although "Sparkly Pink Dildos against oppression" has a certain panache.

I'd love to see the Bill 'o'rights placards, if'n you could show us where...

It sucks, but please bear in mind the average cop may actually share your opinion of it - and still have to do the searches. Be as nice to the poor saps as you can bring yourself to be, please? You might get one who thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread, but you also might not.

Yes, um.... the sparkly pink dildo approach would probably just make them more interested in you in a more... personal way.

At the airport we've run into just about everything in people's bags.

The one problem with that is that I then have to find a sparkly pink dildo. From what I've seen, I may have to settle for a leopard-patterned vibrator instead or something.

On the first pass, I liked the mousetraps too, but I've had too much contact with the unenviable bluecollar stiffs that would have to deal with them, and though my college-age self rails against my cosseting of "The Pigs" I gotta say that giving one plodding cop a bad day is not a "mahty bloa f' libertaay an' fraternitaay." (Say it like Cartman)

4th Amendment T, I'm all down for.

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