| Wasting Resources |
6 October 2003
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Too Many Searches, Not Enough Security
"There has been an overuse of terrorism laws to the disadvantage of ordinary citizens and travelers." This is the sort of thing one hears from the ACLU and other human rights groups, and most people tune out when they hear it. But the man who said those words is Ronald K. Noble, secretary general of Interpol. Time to reconsider the false trade-off between security and freedom.
Mr. Noble is an American of African descent and has some first hand experience of the abuse regularly dished out by "security" forces. "I know that I've been searched because I look like a person who could be Arabic, if I'm travelling from an Arab country, or I could be a drug-trafficker if I'm coming from a drug-trafficking country," he said in an exclusive interview with Reuters, adding that when he faces such checkpoints, "I perspire and I'm the head of an international law enforcement agency."
The problem, as Mr. Noble rightly pointed out, is the lack of redress. When an airport rent-a-cop decides to strip search a person who is not strapped to a 10-kilo block of C-4, and that person misses a flight as a result, there should be some sort of compensation. Most would settle for a simple apology. Outside a few western nation's, an apology is mere fiction.
However, there is far too much deference to the people with badges, who are there "for your protection." Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? A traveler's bill of rights needs to be drafted that spells out precisely who can be stopped and why and establish a system for punishing the badgeman who decides to take out his frustrations on an innocent public.
The argument that such searches are needed just doesn't hold water. If, by whatever means a guard decides to search someone in the virtuous fight against terrorism, the head of Interpol is pulled out of line, there is something horribly wrong. What is more, that vigilance was misdirected, and a real bad guy might have sneaked onto a plane.
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