Worried about NSA snooping? Try getting bent over the hood of your car by police. - The Washington Post

Worried about NSA snooping? Try getting bent over the hood of your car by police. - The Washington Post: In the years since, that same police tactic, known as “stop and frisk,” has become one of the most used — and abused — methods of operation in the war on drugs. Are you worried about the National Security Agency waging a war on terror by going through your telephone logs? Try getting bent over the hood of your car and having police go through your pockets.

In New York City, where a lawsuit challenging “stop and frisk” is being heard in federal court, an analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union found that “innocent New Yorkers have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 4 million times since 2002, and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics.”

In a city of 8 million people, that is equal to half the population. Sure, some guns and drugs have been confiscated. But the jury is out on whether the practice has, in fact, caused a drop in homicides. It could just as easily be that gunshot victims are being saved because of better-equipped emergency medical vehicles and highly skilled medical technicians.