I'd like to say "I'm glad I don't live in NYC anymore," but I'm afraid attempts like this are going to be happening everywhere soon enough.

Yes, police departments will soon be wanting this everywhere. I'm hoping/expecting that courts will regard this as a search requiring a warrant. (There seems to be an existing principle that if it requires a sensor, it's a search. I was just reading about this the other day in regard to see-through-walls devices that allow police to look inside of homes from the street. There is a case in which this was ruled as requiring a warrant.)

I should probably be pleased that most lawyers are too greedy and too lazy to do pro-bono work, but I am constantly amazed that I read about recent law school grads unable to find employment at the same time I read articles about TSA, 4th Amendment violations, drone strikes, (name your favorite cause.)

Software developers have now all learned to create projects on github, create web applications or phone applications.

Lawyers sit on their asses and complain.

Again, this is probably a good thing.

Most lawsuits require an actual case or controversy. There are significant barriers to hypothetically testing a law for constitutionality, in the absence of harm. Injuctions are one of the exceptions to this.
The experienced attorneys who understand the law are for the most part already making big bucks. They don't go around tilting at windmills prop bono.
The ones who have the time, don't usually have the experience to know at which point you file a lawsuit.
That said, this is a pretty clear violation of 4th Ammendment rights, unless the police don't plan to actually use any of the evidence obtained from these searches to file criminal charges.

It doesn't matter if they want to file charges on you based on what they find on their warrantless peeping. It's the fact that our 4th ammendment rights are supposed to prevent it in the first place without probable cause and warrants. They can't just do whatever they want and deem it to be safety. It is unlawful intrusion into the lives of private citizens.

I am not saying anyone should have to file a lawsuit to retain their rights.

I am saying this article about a software developer fighting the TSA and having to do his own lawyering

http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/lawsuit-filed-against-nypd-street-body-scanners/

should not exist on the same planet and timeline as this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/education/law-schools-applications-fall-as-costs-rise-and-jobs-are-cut.html?_r=2&

The first thing I would do in the morning, after graduating law school and having no job, would be, after reading reddit of course and seeing what's happening on okcupid, and listening to the new tunes on spotify, and tumblring my breakfast, and submitting a six second video of my crotch to vine, and buying a new hat and checking if the coffee house has the kopi luwak in, would be to form a non profit legal civil rights organization to fight any one of a dozen issues guaranteed to get my name in the NY Times.

But that's just me.

They don't go around tilting at windmills prop bono. -- Isab at January 31, 2013 10:29 AM

So you're talking about going after windmills without any vanity (vanes)?

-- Sorry. Couldn't resist that one. ;-)
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The Terry Stop and the subsequent rulings is the easy start to this one.

I was thinking about this last night (okay, early this morning while I was waiting for daughter #1 and her boyfriend to bring their cats to my house so I can watch them while they move this weekend), and I've come to the conclusion that we are no longer the "land of the free and the home of the brave", but the land of the suspicious and the home of the cowardly. And when the hell, and maybe more important, why the hell has this happened?

I've come to the conclusion that we are no longer the "land of the free and the home of the brave", but the land of the suspicious and the home of the cowardly. And when the hell, and maybe more important, why the hell has this happened? -- Flynne at February 1, 2013 5:16 AM

It has happened because society has slowly been changed over the years. You and me and everybody used to be responsible for ourselves and our immediate family. We used to have a secondary responsibility for for our extended family and our local community.

Then the federal government "stepped up" and did things like the New Deal etc. That took the "responsibility" from the community and put in the hands of big brother.

Things like Social Security were good ideas when the original intent is viewed. A temporary program to get the elderly through losing their savings in the great depression. But it should have had a permanent end date, a floating age for eligibility, no cap for income, etc. Then it would be sustainable. As it is you now have a shrinking pool of population sustaining the prior generation.

The problem that you are seeing is that there is no longer a community that you feel responsible to be a part of.

I consider myself an old sheepdog. There have always been the people who are not in the community but are still a part of it. We will respond to a true need, but are not bound to the community.

I'm pessimistic about the future of the country as a whole as well. But I am preparing for the fall but hoping it doesn't occur.

To turn this around, you can learn about the Constitution, original intent, and the founding fathers. Take the red pill to use the vernacular. Then any time someone says your are you responsible to provide your wealth, food or time to someone who could work for themselves ask "Why am I paying for that person?" Google Obamacash and Obamaphone.

Note that I'm not saying kill or abandon the disabled. I am saying that if you are able to work then get a job. Don't ask me for money.

If a collapse occurs, hope that you, your children, and grandchildren can adapt.