I’m starting this new feature on my blog to highlight some of the bizarre stances taken by libertarians. As someone who favors free markets and supports legalizing drugs and gay marriage, I often find myself in agreement with libertarians, but sometimes they take positions which are plainly absurd. As my first example, I cite this piece in Reason, in which Mark Weisenmiller says the NFL’s policy of requiring pat-down searches of fans entering football stadiums may be unconstitutional.
There are many reasons why the NFL should be allowed to pat-down people before they enter a stadium. Firstly, it is reasonable to believe that terrorists would view an NFL game as a prime target, given that that football is a clear symbol of American culture and that 70,000 fans or more are packed into a stadium for a game. Second, when you purchase a ticket to a game, you are bound by certain rules. I’ve been at Yankee games where people have been ejected for cursing too loudly in front of children. Should that be opposed on First Amendment grounds? Thirdly, patting somebody down for twenty seconds or so isn’t very intrusive. You’d be hard-pressed to convince me that it violates the Fourth Amendment’s restriction on “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
While this is by no means a comprehensive defense of the NFL’s policy, it would seem that these would be basic points that any intelligent criticism of the policy would have to respond to, but Weisenmiller doesn’t. He could have at least demonstrated why he thinks the searches are overly intrusive (if there were widespread examples of female patrons getting groped in a sexual manner, for instance). But, he doesn’t. Most of his criticism centers on the searches being useless. He writes:
NFL pat-down searches on football fans, at least as they are currently being conducted, are mostly useless. Joe Durkin, spokesman for the Tampa Police Department, notes that since RayJay’s opening in 1998, not one person has been arrested trying to sneak into the stadium with a gun, knife, or any material that could be made into an explosive.
This indicates that even fired-up Bucs fans aren’t idiotic enough to try such a stupid stunt.
But until it actually happened, nobody had hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them into tall buildings either. Why not offer football fans one added layer of protection, especially when such a minor inconvenience is involved?
Before 9/11, this type of whining among civil libertarians would just be silly, but in the post-9/11 world, it is dangerous.