The practice of random bag searches in New York city's transit system went on trial in a Manhattan courtroom Monday over a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union(NYCLU) that challenges the searches on behalf of several subway riders.

Random bag searches were put in place on the city's subway and buses back in July after a series of terrorist bombings in London's subway system.

The NYCLU said in court papers that the practice of random search in the 468 subway stations serving 26 train lines and millions of passengers "has no meaningful value in preventing the entry of explosive devices into the system by the terrorists the NYPD is attempting to thwart."

NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said that New Yorkers "should not be subject to the invasion of privacy that a bag search is when they are not suspected of any wrongdoing."

The group argued that the searches were akin to stopping people randomly on the street and searching them since the subway system "is a direct, physical extension of the sidewalks of New York City. "

But city officials maintained that the mere presence of a random search program, regardless of how it is administered, is a valuable tool to thwart terrorists who prefer to target areas with a low police presence.

"More is better than some--and some is better than none," testified New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner David Cohen, arguing that in a perfect world all the people entering the subway would have their possessions searched in a bid to prevent terrorism.

City officials also noted that an al Qaida training manual advising terrorists to avoid police checkpoints gives the city some justification for its random searches of bags entering the subway system.

So far the city has been successful in efforts to fight the lawsuit. US District Judge Richard Berman has already ruled that the city did not have to tell the NYCLU specific information about how it conducts the random searches, including the number of subway stations each day where no searches were done.

"The city may be able to demonstrate that the Subway Search Program effectively deters terrorism precisely because its is random and unpredictable," the judge wrote in a decision.

The NYCLU said its own survey of 5,500 people entering the subway from Aug. 25 to Sept. 16 found only 34 searches.

Source: Xinhua