Columnist Susan Snyder: More than money lost in this fight

Tuesday, March 26, 2002 | 8:29 a.m.

Talk about an expensive war.

I drove to Bellagio for an interview Wednesday afternoon and was stopped at the parking garage entrance by a pleasant-looking man in a dress shirt, tie and name tag. He politely asked me to pop the car's hatch so he could check inside.

My Ford Focus three-door is pretty much windows all the way around. The back seat is folded down to make room for a bicycle. A gum wrapper on the floor is visible from the outside.

But without hesitation I popped the hatch. He looked around, complimented the bike, and sent me on my merry way. Another guy searched the trunk of a car occupied by an elderly couple ahead of me.

Probable cause? They showed up.

On the way out an hour later I saw a woman turn off her car, hand the worker her keys and let him look in the trunk without even getting out to watch.

"We've been doing it since Sept. 11," Jenn Michaels, Bellagio spokeswoman, said. "I think that, just like the airport, people are genuinely appreciative of the added security."

The more I think about it, the less secure I feel.

It's not so much that they looked, it's that I let them without question. And there are so many questions that need asking.

What was he looking for? What would he have done if he'd found it? If I intended to bomb the Bellagio or take out 200 people with a semi-automatic weapon, is some guy in a name tag actually going to stop me before I nail a dozen or so?

If I didn't look like a threat, then why search my car? And what does a "threat" look like?

If you're of Middle Eastern descent or possess similarly dark olive skin and dark hair, you know what we think a threat looks like. It looks like you, and you know you will not be boarding a commercial airliner without being manhandled in public by strangers who also root through your carefully packed underwear.

I don't know what a terrorist looks like or where to find one. But I'm reasonably sure you won't find one in the trunk of my car.

Terrorism is no more of a threat now than it was before Sept. 11. Those who hate us still are out there plotting and planning.

Which leads us to another question. How long will this search-at-will continue? Until the threat of terrorism ends? When will that be?

When no one in the whole world hates the United States?

We need to know what the end is supposed to look like if we hope to ever get there. I'm thinking that answer isn't in my trunk either.

A General Accounting Office report released Friday says we've spent about $10 billion of the $40 billion Emergency Response Fund on this Homeland McCarthyism campaign.

That's a chunk of change, and we still don't know much. We don't know what a terrorist looks like. We don't know where to find one. We don't even know when we've granted one a visa to be here legally. And they're worried about what's in the trunk of my car?

I surrendered my civil rights to a casino worker last week without question. Terrorists didn't take away my liberty. I gave it up. We all have. We've hobbled our liberty with the American flag and stopped asking questions.

This is turning into a very expensive war.