New York, Dec. 4—The American Civil Liberties Union has expressed concern over the procedures by which airline travelers are being searched and, especially, the consequences of many of such searches. It is the ACLU’s point that the hijacking problem is proving to be an invitation to lawlessness by federal agents.
The raw data are these. During the past 22 months, six thousand airline travelers were arrested after being searched. But only 20 per cent of these were arrested for carrying contraband related directly to hijacking. The federal regulations involving airplanes tell you that you cannot take aboard weapons which are related to the hijacking enterprise. For instance, you can’t carry aboard a machine gun, or a mortar, or a pistol, or a Bowie knife. But what if you carry aboard, say, a pound of heroin? It is unreasonable for the people who search you to contend that it was your intention to stick the pilot with a hypodermic needle, transfuse him with rapid joy, and in his transfixed condition coo him into taking you to Havana. In this sense the ACLU people are as a matter of fact quite plausible. The passengers who have been arrested, while in the process of boarding aircraft carrying drugs, can’t legitimately be thought of as passengers interdicted from the act of hijacking.
Comments