The New York Civil Liberties Union is filing a lawsuit today to challenge the legality of New York City’s new policy of randomly searching the bags of subway passengers. The lawsuit contends that the searches are “virtually certain neither to catch any person trying to carry explosives into the subway nor to deter such an effort.” The civil liberties group says that riders have complained that they have been selected in a “discriminatory and arbitrary” manner, creating the potential for racial profiling. Meanwhile some public officials in New York are calling for the police to target Arab-looking individuals. Republican City Councilman James Oddo said, “Plain and simply, young Arab fundamentalists are the individuals undertaking these acts of terror.”