'Zactly

Krauthammer today says the same thing I've been saying about the American response to the recent British subway bombings:

The American response to tightening up after London has been reflexive and idiotic: random bag checks in the New York subways. Random meaning that the people stopped are to be chosen numerically. One in every 5 or 10 or 20.

This is an obvious absurdity and everyone knows it. It recapitulates the appalling waste of effort and resources we see at airports every day when, for reasons of political correctness, 83-year-old grandmothers from Poughkeepsie are required to remove their shoes in the search for jihadists hungering for paradise.

The only good thing to be said for this ridiculous policy is that it testifies to the tolerance and good will of Americans, so intent on assuaging the feelings of minority fellow citizens that they are willing to undergo useless indignities and tolerate massive public waste.

Assuaging feelings is a good thing, but hunting for terrorists in this way is simply nuts.

Krauth offers some proposals for making "random" searches more efficient by blocking out various groups. Personally, I think he's dreaming if he's serious about this. Ain't. Gonna. Happen. Until, that is, we get hit again.

In the meantime, I still favor junking the whole business of "random" searches altogether and instead focusing on refining the criteria that would justify "for cause" searches. I have no expertice in this area of the law whatsoever, but from what I understand it could give the police greater flexibility to use their limited resources in a way that might do some good.