Nov. 21-- Meet Robert Goodwin, the civil libertarian poster boy who defied T police and got arrested for entering Alewife station after refusing to submit to a TSA-style inspection.
The law is not on his side, but Cambridge District Court Judge Roanne Sragow was. She dismissed the charges against Goodwin at his arraignment last month and denied a prosecutor's bid to fine him $100.
"She said it was just ridiculous," said Goodwin, 38, a married father from Arlington who became only the second person since the T began regularly conducting spot security inspections in 2006 to be arrested for trespassing after he balked at having his laptop bag swabbed Oct. 26. "It's an invasion of my privacy because they are singling out people with bags. If you're going to work and you need to carry things in a bag, you are automatically suspected of terrorism."
Courts have upheld the right of transit agencies to randomly search passengers' carry-on bags.
"It's a recommended practice by the federal government, by TSA," said Deputy Transit Police Chief Joseph O'Connor. The T receives $1 million annually from TSA to conduct the roving inspections. "If a passenger does refuse, they are given the option to leave the station. They will not be allowed admittance to that station. That is the passenger's choice."
A police report said Goodwin became angry when T cops explained this to him, shouting, "I don't have to accept this Nazism." After he went through the fare gates, saying "I paid for this ticket, and I'm getting on this train," he was cuffed.
Boston civil rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate said while courts found random transit searches constitutional, they chip away at privacy: "It puts the society almost on a war footing. It's not what we used to think of as America."
Noting a person can just walk to the next station, Chris Ott of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts called the searches "pretend security." But O'Connor said the "unpredictability" makes them an "effective tool."
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