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What next? Patdowns at your grocery?

By SUE CARLTON
Published August 2, 2006

Note: Most of this column is not true.

So I'm about to dash into my local supermarket for some sour cream and toothpaste - you know, the essentials - when I see a line of customers stretching into the parking lot.

Free crullers at the bakery? A special tasting of the wines of Wauchula?

But no. Just inside the doors, some serious-looking guys in uniform are rooting through ladies' purses before letting them in. Male customers in baggy cargo shorts wait patiently through patdowns of all 47 of their assorted pockets.

In front of me, a young mother smiles indulgently as the uniformed guys take a quick peek into the back of her baby's diaper. They wave her through.

"I don't know about you," she says cheerfully over her shoulder, "but I feel safer."

Some friends who are the crunchy-granola type come to visit. I try to think of someplace green and serene to take them.

Hey, how about Historic Bok Sanctuary over in Polk County? Those sprawling gardens, that beautiful, meditative bell tower?

But wait. Bok Sanctuary made a list of thousands of potential terror targets listed by the government, along with Old MacDonald's Petting Zoo in Alabama.

No way am I taking that kind of risk.

I'm sitting on the beach when along comes a guy on an official-looking scooter.

He stops at each blanket and umbrella and peers into every ice chest.

"Price we pay for living in a democracy," opines a big fellow sunbathing in a Speedo. "Never know when they might find a Molotov cocktail in there."

Mostly the guy is finding other sorts of cocktails that are not exactly beach-legal and pouring them out on the sand. Also the non-diet sodas. Too much sugar, he says.

I'm driving down the street in St. Petersburg when red lights flash in my rear view. I pull over.

"Yes, officer?" I say, nervous even though I can't think of any traffic infraction I've committed so far.

He calls me "ma'am" and tells me I've been observed by their James Bond Super Secret Stealth Mobile Plate Hunter. The infrared cameras on the cruiser can scan thousands of license plates.

Technically, no, my car didn't come up stolen. But he did notice it took a 22-minute side trip to Nordstrom. On a workday. Not during lunch hour.

Upon further investigation, the Super Stealth's X-ray capabilities revealed in the trunk one shopping bag containing a boxed pair of slingbacks, size 6½. What would my boss think?

The officer is nice, though. He lets me off with a warning.

No, the grocery isn't instituting pat-downs. The Mobile Plate Hunter scans license plates for stolen cars and does not, as far as I know, have X-ray capabilities.

Now here's the true part.

Last week, U.S. District Judge James Whittemore declined to make Bucs fans leave their constitutional rights at the gates to Raymond James Stadium.

He ruled that they won't have to submit to patdown searches in the name of national security to get in. The Tampa Sports Authority plans an appeal.

Maybe you think a quick and cursory search on the way to your seat is no biggie. We live in scary times of war and credible threats. Sept. 11 changed us, took away a sense of safety we may never get back.

But one of the rights we should guard most fiercely says authorities can't harass people without good cause. Take away small rights and you make it easier to lose bigger ones. It's a price we shouldn't be willing to pay without a very good reason.

"A generalized fear of terrorism should not diminish the fundamental Fourth Amendment protection envisioned by our Founding Fathers," the judge wrote in his order. "Our Constitution requires more." So should we.

Sue Carlton can be reached at carlton@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 2, 2006, 01:27:34]