Where everyone knows your name… and what's in your bag.

Last month, Boston transit cops announced plans to check "suspicious" passengers for ID.

Now, they want to randomly search any passengers:

Next month, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will become the first transit agency in the nation to institute a permanent policy of randomly inspecting passenger bags and packages on subway and commuter trains, MBTA police officials disclosed yesterday…

"I have no trepidation about being first," [MBTA Police Chief Joseph] Carter said. "I don't want to be the first to do an interview about having a serious incident that may have some terrorist indications to it. I want to be in a position to prevent and detect and apprehend someone prior to them causing damage. We want to do this to encourage people to feel safe on the MBTA, to utilize public transportation…"

Carter, who confirmed that the agency was developing the plans, said T officials have not announced the policy because he and other police officials are still working out the details on how to balance security and privacy concerns.

"Everything we do here is to protect and uphold and defend the constitutional rights of everyone, particuarly our patrons on the system," Carter said. "That is one of the reasons why the policy is not something that is just sitting there, ready for us to publish tomorrow morning. . . . How do we do this to make sure constitutional rights are in place? We don't want to abridge those rights, but in this era, we need the highest degree of security."