Live Q&As

Yes, Braddock Road and College Park this morning. Law enforcement officers stopped riders at random and asked them to submit their bags to a swath test designed to test for potentially explosive materials.

The Post's Ann Scott Tyson was at Braddock Road. Here's her account: http://wapo.st/gd6JwS

Notice that the inspections were done by two TSA officers.

Here's a description of one encounter:

Officers at the same station got a positive result on a man's bag and shot it with radiation.

"It could have been from a gun, or residue from target shooting if he went to a firing range," said Lt. Doug Durham of the Special Operations unit of Metro Transit Police.

A police sergeant interviewed the man, who was let go. The search on that man took about 8 minutes. He wouldn't give his name. "I'm going to work" he said, clearly irritated.

No problem, says Metro. You can always refuse to have your property inspected.

And then you can walk to work. You'll be refused entry into the Metro system with your property. (Good reason not to be carrying any Christmas gifts aboard Metro this week.)

You folks already are submitting a lot of interesting questions and comments. Many express concerns similar to mine, giving me a chance to exand on them. But if you love this new policy and think it makes you safer, I'd like to hear from you, too.

To Reston: Yes, I also think it's one more reason not to ride Metro. It's a nice little end of the year present from the transit authority leaders who brought you the biggest fare increase in the system's history, busted air conditioners, overcrowded trains and escalators that either don't work or take you for an unwelcome slide.

Does it make the transit system safer? I'm not a security expert, so I can't speak from that perspective. (I have yet to encounter security personnel who argued that there should be fewer security personnel.)

What I think I can say is that it makes the system more intimidating to travelers. Yes, the searches are "voluntary." When the man in uniform with the gun and the big dog asks you to submit, you can refuse -- though you may be detained for questioning.

Well, Metro did try to do a different version of this program two years ago, but never implemented it. There was a similar outcry from the public last time it was announced. Many of the issues you're asking about today came up then.

(So knowing that, why didn't Metro officials bother to talk to the ridership before launching this new program?)

Metro officials say they are not inspecting your stuff because of any specific threat to the transit system and the nation's alert level has not been raised. However, Metro does have a federal Homeland Security grant and TSA officers are participating in these inspections.

Yes, officers can stop you for an inspection before you board a Metrobus. That is tougher to picture than the train station inspections that began this morning. Metro says that you'll go through the inspections before you pay your fare. We'll talk more about the holes in this security blanket as we go on.

I don't have any direct experience with the TSA officers in this program, but I have a great deal of respect for out Metro transit police. Much as I disagree with this inspection program, I think their goal is public safety, so they won't be just going through the motions on this.

I expect that if you refuse an inspection, they may well question you. If you try to enter with your property via another entrance, they may well stop you and at least question you further.

So I do think that under any conceivable circumstances, these inspections will be disruptive for riders.

That's a fair statement, and I'd like to make a couple of points.

Yes, this program is somewhat different from the program announced two years ago, at least on the surface.

It starts, as I just said, with a uniformed officer with a gun and a big dog asking you if you'd like to submit to an inspection of your property. Then you're taken over to a security table where -- at least in this morning's version -- a federal TSA officer swabs your bag, looking for the presence of something that could be used as an explosive.

If the test is positive, they're almost certainly going to examine the contents of your bag and question you. (What would you think of them if they didn't do that?)

None of what I'm describing here meets my definition of "non-invasive."

Yes, it's possible they'll want to open all of your suitcases. My understanding is that this could happen if the swab test returned a positive result. (A positive result doesn't mean you're actually carrying an explosive, as the rider at Braddock Road found out this morning.)

A search would result in a considerable delay for you. (But let's also follow your adventure to it's logical conclusion: We know that your stuff is going to be subject to various inspections at the airport. I do think the airport inspections are different, but we can discuss that later.)

I rarely write about airport security, so like you, I can't think of an instance in which a potential terrorist has been thwarted by an airport inspection.

As with the Metro inspections, people will argue that we'll probably never know if a terrorist was discouraged by an airport inspection.

But I do consider the airport inspections different. Pointing out again that I'm neither a lawyer nor a security expert, I find the airport searches reasonable, because we all must go through them, we all know what they're looking for, and we all know the specific, disasterous consequences of a security failure of this type.

To me, Metro's random searches, conducted by a handful of officers at a couple of stations, do not meet that standard of reasonableness.

Metro calls the searches voluntary: "Customers who encounter a baggage checkpoint at a station entrance may choose not to enter the station if they would prefer not to submit their carry-ons for inspection."

That's not my idea of voluntary. If you're rushing to get to work or an appointment, as many thousands of commuters would be, there's nothing voluntary about an officer telling you that either you submit to a property inspection or you can't ride.

I think you might be interested in the letter the American Civil Liberties Union sent to Metro in which the ACLU expresses deep concern about the police checkpoints: http://wapo.st/eUIZJn

Given that setting up police checkpoints at public transit stations is clearly going to be intimidating to thousands of people who are just trying to get to work, Metro's statements about why this is necessary have been rather blithe.

I take them at their word when they say they are not doing it in response to any specific threat against Metro.

Post reporter Ann Scott Tyson quoted Interim General Manager Richard Sarles as saying, "It's good to vary your security posture."

And they keep pointing out to us that this program isn't costing Metro much money because they got federal Homeland Security funding.

So far, they haven't given us much grounding in why they need to cross this very significant threshold in civil liberties in order to protect us.

You can certainly tell that I think this particular Metro security policy has crossed a line that shouldn't be crossed. That's vastly different from saying I don't believe in security vigilance to protect transit riders. I welcome the presence of transit police on the trains and buses, I've got the transit police number on my cell phone speed dial, and I have often written that I think there should be many more officers.

These police checkpoints are taking us in the wrong direction.

They pick a number and count passengers with stuff. When they hit that number, they stop the passenger. I don't know how strictly the officers will adhere to that "random" standard. As I said before, I respect these officers and think they're dedicated to protecting us.

So let's use an extreme example to play out your question: If the officer sees an odd looking character carrying a huge backpack with fluid leaking from it, will the officer stick to the count and let that person go by?

It's hard to believe that officers won't be tempted to profile under any circumstances.

I think what people are writing in and saying is that they'd try to go to another station entrance, or to another station if one is nearby. They may be acting "suspicious," but I'm pretty sure the people who are writing in to me today and saying they would do this are not terrorists. I may be naive, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Yes, all those things are possible. How far do you think we should go in this direction? I think you could make the case that it's even more possible to stop terrorist attacks on Metro if all riders were lined up at the station entrances and put through body scans while their bags are opened and they produce identification.

From a security point of view, isn't that the more responsible thing to do?

I don't know the answer to your question about the deployment of personnel, but I don't believe this amounts to "moonlighting" by the TSA officers acting outside of their legal jurisdiction.

I do wish, by the way, that federal authorities had taken an equally active role in overseeing the safety of local transit systems before the Red Line crash.

I don't know where this inspection policy will lead, once we get passed this first "That didn't hurt so bad, did it?" introductory phase.

The previous commenter used the now-famous phrase "Don't touch my junk." You'll recall that the airport inspections have advanced well beyond their initial phases to the new threshold of groping passengers.

Metro's inspection program has not been tested in the courts. The transit authority has noted that the New York subway inspection program survived a court test.

I grew up in New York and always appreciated the very visible presence of police on the trains. It's quite a contrast to Metro.

There's really no limit to what Metro could do to keep us safe. Even if we all had to pass through detectors before boarding the trains and buses, if a bomb went off, there would be plenty of criticism.

But how far is it reasonable to go in guaranteeing that riders are safe? I've been riding Metro for 22 years. Frankly, if I thought I was going to get blown up, I wouldn't get on the train. That's a deal-breaker for me.

Yet I don't believe these random searches are a reasonable protection. I think the very real loss, as of today, in personal liberty for a great mass of travelers is far greater than the ephemeral reward in personal security.