The War on Terror is over.

Terror won.

Essentially, the police now can use the TSA do do searches which are ILLEGAL FOR POLICE and then anything found from those searches can be used to prosecute one criminally. There is no 4th amendment when they carve out "no 4th amendment zones" for travel. If you don't submit to a coercive search, you are not allowed to travel.

Welcome to the U.S.S.A.

Bastards.

"Contraband"? What is this, the eighth grade? Are they finding bottles of cinnamon-soaked toothpicks in people's bags?

They want it all, and they want it now.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/tsa

I really hate wordpress.

Made a comment, answered "c**s".

It told me I had answered that incorrectly and made me go back. Answered again "c**s".

Wordpress told me I had made too many comments in too short a time.

I still wonder what will happen when a TSA agent comes up against a legal CCW holder and/or a person that knows their rights.

Especially with a video camera.

How many times have terrorists shot up Social Security offices?
I went to visit the local Social Security office. At the door, a private security guard insisted on looking inside my "man purse"... for what? I asked. Being a private contract hire, he isn't required to swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution... but, neither am I.

I'm no lawyer, but I'm really interested in exactly why this searching is considered legal. Is it somehow due to the TSA not having law enforcement authority? I seem to have missed that provision of the Fourth Amendment.

What if I was being searched by the TSA and asked the police officer accompanying him/her to arrest said TSA person for this violation? I think I know how that would go down but wouldn't it be cool if the cop abided?

By the way, if TSA peeps don't have powers of arrest or law enforcement, why do some people keep calling them "officers"?

I'm no lawyer, but I'm really interested in exactly why this searching is considered legal. Is it somehow due to the TSA not having law enforcement authority? I seem to have missed that provision of the Fourth Amendment.

I asked a friend of mine who happens to be a lawyer and he said that the courts have ruled that we have no right to fly. A recent law school graduate I know pointed out that we have voluntarily agreed to these searches when we signed our ticket contracts.

I don't believe I know enough on the topic to give an informed opinion. So, I don't try to. In one respect, the posters on this blog remind me of the birthers I routinely engage; suddenly they're constitutional experts. (For the record, no one here has ever shown themselves to be an authority on the Constitution.)

You could argue, I suppose, if we have this supposed "right to fly," that we buy our own planes, obtain pilot licenses, build our own runways, and then we can fly all we want without being searched. However, by using commercial airlines and airports we are availing ourselves of a private industry's services, and they can impose restrictions. You might have a right to keep and bear arms, for example, but you voluntarily surrender those rights when you enter a private business that doesn't allow guns. Yoiur only other option is not to use those services.

So, I suppose you could argue that your right to be secure from unreasonable searches stops at the airport.

However, this line of reasoning prompts two questions. 1) Why is the government involved in these searches at all? The airlines might be private industries that have the right to impose restrictions upon those who choose to avail themselves of their services, but the government is bound to respect our right not to be searched without probable cause. So, how do they have the right to create an organization that can search passengers without probable cause? If searches must be conducted, then shouldn't it be done by a private industry?

2) How does this authority to search us extend outside the airport?

Lujlp and Radwaste should be along any minute now. The fact that I refuse to share my opinions on this topic drives them to distraction.

Dance, puppets! Dance!

I get the airport arguments. I'm sure it could be done better.

Isn't Amtrak still heavily subsidized by the government? If so, wouldn't that put it into the realm of public space to some degree?

As far as searches at rest stops are concerned, nobody signs up for that by simply pulling in to take a leak, stretch their legs or whatever. If I have a right to travel, and the roads and rest stops are paid for with tax dollars, then all of my other rights are reserved.

Its not that you refuse to give your opinion Patrick, its that you refuse to disagree.

You have no problem disagreeing when Texas troopers LITERALLY finger multiple women's assholes without changing gloves, even though technically there is no 'right to drive' and they use the same administrative search reasoning that the TSA is based on

Patrick-- How do the courts reconcile the difference between flying as a right, versus TRAVEL as a right? The right of travel has been upheld all the way to the UN, not so that of flying. Legally speaking, the pilot flies the plane, the rest of us are travelers. If we travel by air, we should have the same rights as anyone on the ground or at sea. Our founding fathers considered the right to travel so basic, like eating and breathing, that it didn't need to be included in the Constitution. Where it gets confusing is when peopel use "flying" and "traveling" interchangeably. This becomes a matter of correct legalese. To say that we have no specific right to travel by air is utter garbage... not unlike the FDA telling us we have no right to choose what we eat.

Jefe, I wish I could tell you. The best guess I can offer is that when you avail yourself of a private industry, meaning the airlines, they are not bound to honor your constitutional rights.

For instance, you have the right to keep and bear arms. You also have the right to make purchases. However, if you wish to purchase a ring from a jewelry store that has a "No Guns Allowed" sign, you can't bring your gun into that store.

To compare this to the airlines, you have a right to be secure in your person from unreasonable searches. However, like the jewelry store is not obligated to honor your right to keep and bear arms on their premises, the airline is not obligated to honor your right to be secure from unreasonable searches on their premises. And you agreed to this when you purchased the ticket.

Again, I suppose that if you owned your own flying vehicle, such as a helicopter or jet. You could probably fly all you want without being unreasonably searched. However, what about the airports? Those are private property, unless you own your own. They can create a contract with you that compels you to accept unreasonable searches if you use their airports.

You could also argue that we've been consenting to searches long before the TSA. Our bags were being x-rayed and we walked through metal detectors. I'm sure some might argue that the body-scanners are merely an "upgrade" to the metal detectors.

Again, I have no opinion on this. I'm merely trying to make sense of this.

Ah, but Patrick, the fact you always so studiously avoid is the airlines are not the ones conducting the search, nor are they the ones demanding the search.

The fact that pipe bombs still move across the country in airplanes is proof that you dont even need to carry the weapons yourself