Bag check: Metro search and seizure.

• Author: Riggs, Mike
• Position: Citings - Brief article

IN OCTOBER the Washington, D.C., transit system initiated a bag check policy that permitted specially trained Metro police to conduct random searches at any of 86 subway stations. The policy allowed riders to refuse a search as long as they then immediately exited the station. But Steven Silverman and Scott Morgan of Flex Your Rights, a nonprofit organization focused on protecting civilian rights during police encounters, noticed that news stories about the policy failed to explain just how to get out of a search. So the two, along with an army of volunteers, stood outside various Metro stations on October 29 and handed out flyers containing instructions for how to politely decline a bag check.

A month later, Silverman and Morgan convinced the Metro Riders Advisory Council to pass a resolution urging Metro to put the bag searching policy on hold. That was when Sonia A. Bacchus, chief counsel of the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA), sent Silverman a letter threatening to sue Flex Your Rights for using Metro's M logo, a registered trademark...