Why 'stop and frisk' is worse than NSA surveillance

We have to make distinctions between what gives us the willies and what hurts or harms us

New York Police Department officers monitor a march against stop-and-frisk tactics used by police on February 23.
(Image credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

My black friends in New York, particularly those who don't live in the fancier precincts of Manhattan, have been harassed by the NYPD in a way that I, as a white guy, will never experience.

They've been stopped and frisked, for reasons known only to the officers. Almost every young black male I know has a story to tell.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.