Random Searches in the Name of Security

By now, airport security has become part of the routine of air travel. People accept it as the price to pay for maintaining security in the air. Will people be as accepting if this security is taken to the streets?

In London, England, airport type security is taken to the streets to deter crime:

“Police are to use hundreds of airport-style and hand-held weapon detectors in the crackdown on knife crime.”

link: Airport-style scanners on the streets

Of course there is unanimous support from most people for efforts to keep the community safe. However, on closer inspection, “powers enable officers to stop people and search them without the need to have “reasonable suspicion” that they are engaged in wrong doing”. It is a subtle and significant paradigm shift. Now there is not the presumption of innocence. Everyone is suspect until proven otherwise. Security trumps civil liberties.

Catherine Forsythe