Slashdot Mirror
Unreasonable Searches When Going to Work?
Chico Science asks: "I'm a scientist, not a lawyer, so I'm a little beleaguered by the fact that since 2001-Sep-11, I have been forced to submit to searches on my campus as I enter buildings. I work at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, and have been shouldering the burden of increasingly draconian security measures. Most recently, they've instituted a policy of 100% bag/package searches on entering buildings. Initially it didn't bother me, but after having my bag searched on my way to my car (which was also thoroughly inspected) after work, I decided I'm not comfortable subjecting myself to searches of my personal belongings at every turn. I want to know if I have a right to refuse searches? And why should it be considered acceptable for me to relinquish my Fourth Ammendment rights so I can go work on in my lab?" In this climate of increasing security consciousness, how far can vigilance go before it becomes an invasion of our rights?
I'm sure if they caught someone entering your building with a bomb, or exiting the building with 'suspicious' materials - you'd be relieved. Put it in perspective and deal with it.
Especially if the Uniting and Strengthening America Act of 2001 (S.1510) gets finalized today. Newsforge had a little article written by RMS about it. It's pretty scary, but you can read the link for more information. It will basically:
* Allow for indefinite detention of non-citizens, denying them the chance to defend themselves in court.
* Expand secret searches.
* Grant the FBI broad access to sensitive business records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime. See http://www.aclu.org/congress/l100801a.html.
* Allow officials to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations. Membership in such an organization would become a deportable offense; see http://www.aclu.org/congress/l100801d.html.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
They say the first casualty of war is the truth, the second seems to be personal liberty and freedom. The problem with terrorist war, is that you really don't know for certain who your enemy really is. The net result is that in order to catch the few, you inconvience the many. We have enjoyed a great deal of freedom as a result of being somewhat isolated from the rest of the world. The only threats were fairly well defined and easy to differentiate. The security measures are a reaction to events rather then precaution.
This is not unusual, witness the guarding of schools with the tragic violence experienced in the past. We recognize that the gun toting kids are not the norm, however we figure out who they are by searching everybody.
It is a balance, a pendulum. I am sure when we are not actively fighting a terrorist war things will relax. For now, we inconvience ourselves for perceived safety. As a Canadian, I haven't had to deal with this to any great degree. So, how free do you want to be, at what cost would you have freedom at the expense of safety...
Where is it written that this doesn't apply to private property?
As some airline employees have said, the added security at airports is a sham, and only serves to reassure the public into a false sense of security.
People would be better off preparing themselves to die instead of worrying about it every minute of their lives.
Right, but unless the search is invasive (*snap of a rubber glove, and the words spread 'em*), it very likely isn't illegal.
Heck for years, all the local libraries have had a policy of searching outgoing bags, briefcases, etc, as they don't want people walking off with the books.
NecroPuppy
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
They're very impressive systems. Check out the pictures. Detects both weapons and drugs. Price is about $120K, and the machine is rather bulky (12' high), but that will come down when the new model comes out.
It's still an invasion of privacy, but it only takes three seconds.
America was never bombed, never invaded, never attacked, so it was pretty easy to give freedom to the citizens. Now your government is facing the fear of an invisible danger that other countries are used to fight from much time, and is losing control over the rights it granted to its citizen.
Instead of setting limits on everyone's freedom, a well trained and prepared government would try -at any cost- to fight terrorism without affecting its tax payers.
The problem is that they can't keep it up: searching everybody all the time becomes a serious drain on resources (financial, emotional, and otherwise). So eventually the searches have to be more selective... and how do you think those selections are made? First, the higher-ups will opt themselves out of searches. Oh, they won't write out a memo declaring themselves unsearchable, but security will know who butters their bread and won't choose to search the big guys. Ask any corporate security guard: everybody thinks security shouldn't apply to them, and the higher up the stronger the perception.
Then searches become based on random quirks. That guy acts looks weitrd, that woman's carrying unusually bulky bags. Sometimes the quirks may be valid red flags... I'd be suspicious of unusually bulky bags myself. But many of them will be based on random and unbased imaginings.
Eventually the searches are punishment. They become an overwhelming temptation when the powers-that-be realize that searches are not only demeaning but accusatory: "John gets searched a lot, they must suspect him".
The public has the perception that searches are only used to search for the bad guys. This is a dangerous perception. Left unchecked, searches are used for harrassment, fishing trips, and general amateur spying.
Freedom is our Strength. We need to protect freedom and the strength of America.
Miko O'Sullivan
Manufacturing plants have always had searches like this.
True dat.
I worked as temporary manufacturing help for A large mobile phone company. We had to enter and leave through metal detectors, and any bags or boxes you carried were searched as you left. And since the plant was in a free trade zone, there were warnings posted all over that any crime committed on the premises was a federal offense.We had the "right" to refuse to be searched, but if we did, they had the right to tell us not to come back the next day. It was a hassle, but it maked sense to search poeple there, you could carry out the pieces of a phone with a lot less trouble than Johnny Cash had trying to sneak a Caddy out one piece at a time.
0 1 - just my two bits
Just this week someone got fired at my company for a little joke involving some dairy creamer spread on a co-worker's desk. No warning, no stern lecture, no "mark on your permanent record": terminated. Escorted to the door by security, "we'll mail you your personal items".
A company-wide memo went out saying (distilled from the corp-speak and legalease): "We just fired someone for being a smart-ass. Don't be a smart-ass."
This is not the best time to be pushing the boundries of pranksterism.
I've spent some time living overseas. In South Africa, your bags were searched, you were patted down and scanned with a metal detector before you could get into your favorite shopping mall. In the mideast, I checked underneath my car for bombs everytime I drove it, and couldn't get into my office before someone armed with automatic weapons popped the hood and trunk, opened all the doors and thoroughly checked everything inside, outside and underneath my car. Was it a pain? Sure. Was it necessary? Sure was. Did it violate my rights? No.
I read some American's comments about traveling (especially by plane) in Israel. The police ask questions and watch responses, sometimes checking responses [ie, where do you work, then calling your employer and confirming/description, etc]
It seems the security the original poster is talking about is the dumb "search everyone/everywhere, but don't think to much" type of security. Seems a smart operative could bypass this [mailing things in/out of building for example].
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
National Institute of Health, not 7-11 right? It would be one thing if the material and information you were handling were non-threatening and your place of "business" didn't provide a nice ripe target but... it DOES! Frankly, if I worked in such a place and they DIDN'T have such searches I'd be unhappy.
We're presently living in a time where folks think it's funny to grind up Life Savers and leave them on desks to see the reaction. We're living in a time when sicko' mislead idiots send postmarked mail purporting to be from 4th Grade Elementary schools with ANTHRAX in it! We're living in a time where perfectly innocent people floating down a river minding their own business are getting buzzed by crop sprayers squirting only God knows what on them. And you're upset because someone is asking to poke through your things?! You're serious?
The place where you work is supposed to be concerned with public health, yes? What better place to spread something nasty to scare the public you're supposed to be worried about? It's quite possible that this has occured to your management and rather than sitting on their hands waiting to see if it occurs to someone else when employees start dropping dead they've chosen to take steps to protect both themselves and YOU. I'm surprised that yu're not just a little bit more appreciative of that fact. While they may be simply trying to cover their butts and protect themselves thay ARE also protecting you and making it that much harder for someone to commit some sicko' act. Perhaps six months ago when a few thousand other folks were still breathing and the idea of a plane crashing into a tall building was a Hollywood fantasy I'd have had some sympathy but right now I'm having a pretty tough time generating much of it. Believe it or not we're all in this together and it's not just about YOU. Bend a little and realize that what you give up in comfort provides a little comfort to your co-workers! I face shotguns and worse coming in the gate, while that would obviously freak you out I am happy that those folks are looking out for myself and my coworkers. I can only hope that they won't be needed!
Don't like it? Then quit and go work someplace that's a less interesting target like 7-11. There you've only got to worry about a gun in your face and a demand for mere money....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Jeez... are you guys that blinded by your idealogy? The Constitution is a basic set of rules that protect everyone in the country. However, additional contracts can supercede it if you agree to it. As a condition of your employment somewhere, your employer can ask many things of you. If you don't like it, leave. It doesn't matter if that employer is Bill Gates, Citibank, Uncle Sam, or your next door neighbor. If you decide to work for someone, then they can set the ground rules of that employment as long as there is no crime committed. By working there and submitting to a search or drug test or whatever, you are consenting to the search, which therefore precludes it from being unreasonable. If you find it unreasonable, then quit. You won't be arrested for it, but your employer won't be required to keep paying you.
By the argument used a post or two back, anyone in the US military shouldn't have to submit to a search. How much sense does that make? Right, lets just open the gates to anyone who wants to come one... after all, if you are in the armed services, you work for the US Government, and you shouldn't have to be searched since the govt. is required by the Bill of Rights to not allow unreasonable searches. Right... if you think that sounds like a reasonable idea, well, I don't know who let you out of the assisted care home.
Oh, and by the way, the place I work now, well, we've been submitting to car searches since Sept 11, as well. I think it's a good idea. Will I let them come to my house and search it? No.
"Companies routinely censor employees, demand random drug checks, spy on you, and many other things."
This may be the norm in America, but it certainly isn't normal in Canada, and I doubt it's normal in many other free nations.
When will the American public wake up to the fact that their nation is no longer free? That nearly everything the founding fathers fought for (ooh, nice alliteration) has been decimated over the past couple decades?
Come the revolution, comrades. Wake up! Throw off your shackles etc. (Seriously, you all got a big problem, and seem to be mostly blind to it.)
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Yeah, because firing a gun on an aeroplane is such a fucking good idea...
I think if offered the choice between watching a terrorist fly the plane into a building or blowing his a** away. I would pull the trigger. Or to translate it into political correctese.
"No sir, I wasn't trying to kill him, I merely fired at center mass to halt aggressive action"
My Weblog
Maybe it's been too long since I worked for a defense contractor where your briefcase was searching going into as well as out of the facility... but I don't see the problem. The company has trade secrets, etc., that it has to protect. Heck, the company I work for now used to have a policy where anyone bringing a camera on the premises could be fired.
If this were happening while entering or leaving a public place, that's a different story.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Yes, Canada has big problems too. I'm trying to figure out what I can do about it that will actually have an effect. I'm really concerned that all this anti-terrorism stuff will be applied to reduce our ability to disagree with the government, provoking terrorist actions. After all, terrorism is what people do when they feel they have no options left.
The Signal/Noise ratio can be improved in two ways. Remaining silent is the OTHER way.
I am not sure if I want to rant or be reasonable. If I were to rant, I might remind you that we are now in wartime and the battlefield includes civilian targets in the United States--including small children who in no way can be blamed for any foreign policy sins committed by the United States. They are not even guilty indirectly, as that medieval murderer currently based in Afghanistan would have us believe--little children don't pay taxes or voluntarily consent to the state.
If I were to be reasonable, I might point out that you don't have an unrestricted right to privacy. For one thing, YOUR place of work is not really yours. Like most other places of employment in a market econonmy, your place of employment is privately owned by someone other than you. That entity has the right to regulate the conditions under which you have access to that entity's property. If you don't like the terms on offer, your option in a market is to withdraw your services from the transaction and move on to something you find preferrable. Or you could fight for socialism. I don't see much besides rhetorical obfuscation in between.