Law & Society Blog

According to this survey, New Yorkers strongly support the random bag searches in the subway system.

In a Quinnipiac University survey of 1,601 voters, 72 percent favored the searches while 25 percent opposed them. That support was solid among blacks, whites and Hispanics. […] “Even in a city touchy about civil rights, New Yorkers pick a bag search over the threat of being blown up,” said Quinnipiac polling director Maurice Carroll. “But most voters don’t want to give government too much power.”

While I have no reason to doubt or to confirm the soundness of the study, I do wonder about the statement of the polling director that “New Yorkers pick a bag search over the threat of being blown up.” Well, so would I. But Carroll’s statement misses the point, as it assumes that bag searches and the probability of being blown up are in any way causally related; the truth of the proposition: “If bag searches then reduced threat of being blown up” is precisely what’s at issue here. It is one thing to trade off civil liberties for an actual and significant increase in physical security. But it is quite another to curtail civil liberties to institute a program that has almost certainly no measurable effect on actual security. In the former case, there is a real argument as to whether the (incremental) security benefits are worth the (incremental) costs. In the latter case, there are no cognizable benefits, and everyone is worse off – unless, of course, one counts the illusion of (movie plot) security as a cognizable benefit, which, frustratingly, so many people seem to be willing to do.

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