Thrust to the forefront of late are incidents of TSA pat downs, verging on the brink of sexual harassment, amidst the cries that any such search of those purchasing airline tickets are having their 4th Amendment rights violated.
Again, hyperbole reels out of control, with issues made more tawdry, using headlines such as “A 12 year old girl forced to submit to being naked in a scanner”…. a bizarre interpretation at best considering a girl, traveling with her girlfriend and her parents, was picked to walk thru the scanner at Tampa Int’l Airport. Fully dressed, of course. Oh my… the trauma. No intrustive pat downs, no threats. Just a walk thru a scanner.
Considering the scanners differ only slightly in appearance that the current common detectors, one would have to wonder just what it was that supposedly made the girl so “scared”… all the media hype ratcheting up perhaps? Do you think the average 12 year old girl, dreaming about boyfriends, dances and other youthful fantasies, has been focusing on news and talk shows talking about scanners and intrusive body searches? Searches, I might add, that are random incidents when you consider the amount of people that fly daily in this nation. Truly folks, it’s one thing to be thoroughly annoyed and offended, but have we gotten to the point with this nonsense that the goal is now to strike fear into 12 year old girls’ hearts, merely to walk thru either a detector or scanner at an airport?
While I’m not one to volunteer for the “love pats” – as a few weird Congress types like to call them – and I don’t fly often enough to panic about absorbing an inordinate amount of radiation from what may uncalibrated scanners, there comes a time when we need to separate all this emotional hype about TSA from the legal realities. Just because so many wish it to be a violation of the 4th Amendment, doesn’t make it so.
Here’s the ugly truth… we’re a little late to the party to complain about the appetizers being cold. Airport security has been an ever-evolving issue for decades. Airport security is a federal mandate for all airport owners/operators that service commercial flights as a result of the Aviation and Transportation Act of 2001… a Nov 2001 bill that federalized airport security. Looking for a party to blame? Too bad… Altho the bill was sponsored by SC’s Dem Sen. Ernest Hollings, and co-sponsored by 30 other Senators… seven of them Republican… it passed by a unanimous Senate vote, and in the House 410-9, (with 14 not voting).
Prior to that, screenings were in place for both passengers and baggage, provided by private security corporations. Even today, as the small airport in Sanford, FL opts out of TSA screening and employs a TSA approved private contract firm to do the same, that alternative screener must follow the TSA guidelines.
In other words, the players have changed, but the game has not in Sanford, FL.
Since that time, Congress has used the same Act to pile on, affect both aviation fuels excise taxes, as well as sundry airport (and other) “improvement” projects. The Act, like so many others, has proven to be the springboard for further spending and appropriations, and further expansion of powers in the name of national security.
The foundation of S-1447 created the TSA, and putting them in charge of the implementation and training for airport security programs. As per any legislation, the devil comes in the details, and Title 49, Chapter XII, SUBCHAPTER A–ADMINISTRATIVE AND PROCEDURAL RULES were created… Voila, the mandated security of passenger screening at airport gates, TSA style, was born.
Airlines, forced by federal mandate to comply, accommodated the security mandate by adding a security fee to all airline tickets, and have been doing so since 2003. In short, purchase an airline ticket, with the security fees, and you have just “agreed” and been served notice that your “expectation of privacy” now includes mandatory TSA screening at the gates and, therefore, is reduced “expectations” any US citizen can have when opting to fly as transportation.
In other words, you have just voluntarily waived your 4th Amendment rights, as you understand them.
In a recent move, some airlines are extending foregiveness to passengers who didn’t read the “fine print” of their terms of agreement to fly, and issuing refunds or vouchers to those opposed to the scanning or pat down security options.
What may be helpful is to see where we’ve been, when assessing where we are today. Fact is commercial flight hasn’t been around all that long in the scheme of things. The first commercial flight was back in Florida, over the bay from Tampa to St. Pete at an altitude of 15 ft back in 1914. This especially gives me a grin since the Pinellas peninsula of Florida is my childhood and early adult home. The cost of that flight was $175 and, when adjusted to inflation, would cost $3600 today.
Flying picked up in the 1930s, but was mostly limited to the wealthy upper class with a good reason to fly, since train travel was more cost effective. But it wasn’t until the late 50s and early 60s that some of we “common folk” could actually splurge on a prop flight with the domestic US. I remember my first flight with my grandmother, from FL to OH… dressed in my Easter best, walking the tarmac to the plane, ascending the stairs, and fighting with the siblings during the flight to press our noses against the window to watch in fascination.
My how times have changed, yes? Thoughts of hijackings and terrorist attacks never crossed our minds then. But all that changed with the infamous D.B. Cooper, and his heist and parachute escape in 1971. (here’s the Wiki history version of Cooper’s $200K hijacking sky theft…) When considering liberty over security, it all went downhill from there.
Annie Wu, from MN’s public radio, interviewed David Leach, one of the nation’s first sky marshals under Nixon. It was then the conundrum of keeping innocent passengers safe to fly, and the entry of the criminal element began. Enter… the metal detectors, originally rigged from similar devices used by loggers.
But even then the spectre of the 4th Amendment and privacy infringements were on the mind at many. As Leach said then:
“The courts, very fortunately for us and for the traveling public, made the determination that yes, it was a violation of the fourth amendment, but it was acceptable to the courts with two provisos. One, that it be applied universally so there’s no chance of any discrimination, and two, that the search be limited to looking for weapons and explosives.”
“Applied universally” to avoid discrimination, and confined to “looking for weapons and explosives”. So much for help from the Supreme robed ones today, save in incidents of obvious out of the norm harassment. They have sanctioned non-discriminatory searches for decades with limitations based on the object of the search…. Weaponry to take over an airline. Note, this does not give any specific TSA agent a blanket approval to “grope”, and certainly skin on skin type searches have some legal avenue for recourse. But again, when you purchase an airline ticket, and pay for security fees, you have agreed to subject yourself to the search methods currently employed by the TSA at the gate entry. Voluntary submittal to a search waives a certain portion of your rights to be searched at all… leaving only abuses of those searches left to potential litigation.
Prior to 2001, most security measures had been implemented via private entities for the FAA for more common criminal intent… hijackings for theft, and even incorporated for the War on Drugs. But, in 1988, the Pan Am Lockerbie bomber killed over 270 people… and airport security entered yet another new era of preventative measures. Again, from the linked above “Savvy Traveler” public radio link on the history of airport security.
In response, the FAA began to screen portable computers and radios more carefully on flights from Europe and the Middle East. It also required that only bags accompanied by a passenger may board a plane. Still, it’s not easy to protect a thin aluminum aircraft flying at 30,000 feet, says Irish Flynn with the FAA.
Flynn: “And into those aircraft go hundreds of millions of people every year. And billions of objects go into those aircraft. And our challenge is to ensure that things that are dangerous, lethally dangerous, don’t go aboard those aircraft.”
Until recently, the FAA has usually taken steps to improve air safety as a reaction to a hijacking or a bombing. Today, the government says it’s planning ahead, for example, developing ways for airlines to deal with hijackers armed with chemical or biological weapons.
Post 911 and the Aviation and Transportation Act, subtle security measures via regulations and bills have passed, with nary a glance of the American public. For example, following Richard Reid’s 2001 shoe bombing attempt, removing shoes prior to entering the gates’ area was incorporated… again with little resistance from the American public.
When a British attempt at an airline bombing in 2006 involved liquid explosives, the max limit of liquids… plus their display in a single quart ziplock/plastic bag – became a new regulation. And most recently, when the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to smuggle a poorly designed bomb in his crotch, the US feds responded with the quest to install the backscatter x-ray scanners.
Welcome to today… a history of slowly encroaching search techniques that every American agrees to abide by when purchasing an airline ticket.
A bit… and I do qualify this with “a bit”… of SCOTUS rulings on the 4th Amendment rulings. The most pertinent is Katz vs the United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967). This case, despite it’s controversial history of held/reversed opinion changes, forms the cornerstone of what constitutes an illegal search and seizure under the 4th Amendment. While the Petitioner’s own counsel was the one who raised the issue of whether there was an expectation of privacy in a phone booth to conduct what was, unquestionably, illegal activities, Justice Harlan is creditied for the dual test of privacy expectations, as considered by the High Court.
There are two types of expectations of privacy:
* A subjective expectation of privacy is an opinion of a person that a certain location or situation is private. These obviously vary greatly from person to person.
* An objective, legitimate or reasonable expectation of privacy is an expectation of privacy generally recognized by society.
Examples of places where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy are person’s residence and public places which have been specifically provided by businesses or the public sector to ensure privacy, such as public restrooms, private portions of jailhouses,[1] or a phone booth.[2][3]
In general, one cannot have an expectation of privacy in public places, with the exceptions mentioned above. A well-known example is denial of privacy for garbage left for collection in a public place.[1]
While a person may have a subjective expectation of privacy in his car, it is not always an objective one, unlike a person’s home.[4]
The privacy laws of the United States include the notion of a person’s “open fields”; that is, places where a person’s possessions do not have an objective expectation of privacy.[5]
An example of subjective expectation of privacy may be found in the SCOTUS opinion on Kyllo v. US in 2001. Danny Lee Kyllo was convicted of growing marijuana in a triplex after law enforcement used thermal imaging to scan the building. The Ninth Circuit upheld Kyllo’s conviction, saying Kyllo had no expectation of privacy since he had done nothing to conceal the emanating heat from the grow lamp operation.
But the High Court, with opinion delivered by Scalia, reversed the decision:
While it may be difficult to refine the Katz test in some instances, in the case of the search of a home’s interior–the prototypical and hence most commonly litigated area of protected privacy–there is a ready criterion, with roots deep in the common law, of the minimal expectation of privacy that exists, and that is acknowledged to be reasonable. To withdraw protection of this minimum expectation would be to permit police technology to erode the privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.
When considering this base rule of “privacy”, per SCOTUS, can anyone “subjectively” anticipate privacy when purchasing an airline ticket that charges a fee for mandated federal screening to enter the very public and secured gate area?
In a long shot, possibly… that is if you hope your case will fly using the intent to “conceal” exactly what the screeners are actually looking for. Using that approach, not having a bomb, plainly visible in plastic ziplocks, may actually make the 4th Amendment work in the favor of a terrorist. But highly unlikely (as you’ll see that didn’t work out so well for David Lee Moore below).
In the case of airport security, no subjective assumption of privacy can be had when you know, full well, that federal law requires screeners and scanners await you prior to the gate for a flight, and you’ve paid a fee to the airlines to cover the costs of this same screening. Such an avenue would be difficult to argue for innocent travelers who oppose the latest TSA screening methods.
Also on the “expectation of privacy” trail has been the cyber world, as exhibited by a Wired op-ed back in March of 2009. While not addressing airport security as the foundation, they do diss the Katz “expectation” test of privacy as a ruling that “…will rapidly leave us with no privacy at all.” Despite the disparity in subject matter, it’s a hard conclusion to argue.
The second “expectation” test – an “objective” expectation that is considered “reasonable” by society – is another hurdle. Certainly “society” – at large – expects the federal government to hunt for the bad guys, and expects to fly without fear of terrorists aboard. And, in fact, were stringent screening bypassed, and a terrorist incident did take place, what would society say to their elected officials? We’ve already seen the outrage when it was citizens, not the government, who stopped the Times Square bomber.
Others will be arguing that the pat downs are beyond what travelers agree to. Certainly, in the cases of obvious abuse (which you can litigate, as is our system), this is unquestionably true. But when you assume that TSA agents are merely doing the task they are appointed to do, and under their guidelines of operations, the legal avenues may be more limited.
Since SCOTUS precedents are never apples to apples, what about a few other specifics? Like, for example, the body search? So many erroneously separate their luggage and belongings from their person when it comes to 4th Amendment searches. Yet what is needed for law enforcment agents to conduct a search? According to the SCOTUS certiorari INRE VA vs David Lee Moore in 2008, enough probable cause.
David Moore, a suspected drug dealer, was arrested on driving with a suspended license. A body search turned up 16 grams of crack cocaine, and over $500 cash at the time. Since states can relax 4th Amendment search rights, but not make them more stringent, Moore should have been issued a citation under VA law.
Moore was charged with intent to distribute, but challenged the search as legal under the 4th Amendment. A bench court found him guilty. It was subsequently reversed and reinstated by sundry intermediate courts post in the appellate process, finally reaching the VA Supreme Court… who ruled that since the arresting officers should have issued Moore a citation under state law, and the Fourth Amendment does not permit search incidents to citation, the arrest search violated the Fourth Amendment. However the request for certiorari was sent to the High Court who, after some dissent (and with some justices sitting out the consideration), did review the case.
While the High Court had reversed prior decisions for searches/4th Amendment violations as they related to state law, they did disagree with the VA Supremes INRE Moore, stating:
We reaffirm against a novel challenge what we have signaled for more than half a century. When officers have probable cause to believe that a person has committed a crime in their presence, the Fourth Amendment permits them to make an arrest, and to search the suspect in order to safeguard evidence and ensure their own safety. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Is setting off a scanner enough to provoke “probable cause” for a search? Likely. Is refusal to be searched or scanned, combined with the demand for entry to the secure (or adjacent to secure tarmac areas) gate areas also enough to raise eyebrows?
Another case took a very similar path when two officers discovered cocaine when they searched a suitcase belonging to Terrance Bostick on a bus. After examining his ticket and ID, they asked for consent to search after a cursory “grab” at his canvas bag… advising him he had the right to refuse. He didn’t.
As even the liberal justice O’Connor notes in in the SCOTUS opinion on Florida v. Bostick,….“…the Fourth Amendment permits police officers to approach individuals at random in airport lobbies and other public places to ask them questions and to request consent to search their luggage, so long as a reasonable person would understand that he or she could refuse to cooperate.“
Refusing, as any traveler knows, remains the right of any citizen attempting to enter the airport gate area. You are given the choice of detectors, scanning (in airports where they are installed), or a physical search.
However refusing does not mean you are allowed to bypass the security without screening. With refusal come repercussions.
So where does this leave us? TSA was created by Dems and a few GOPers in the wake of 911, overwhelmingly voted into law by both parties and in both chambers, and the regulations and specifics were left to TSA officials.
A social public, used to metal detectors for years, as well as screening at other events – such arena concert events – showed nary a whit of dissent… until the scanners and new age media came out with more than a few incidents of not so recent intrusive pat downs.
Looking at the legal avenues available, I don’t see much hope in striking down the very existence of the TSA and their ability to search based on the larger issue of national security and public safety. Can and should TSA agents, operating outside the boundaries of intent, be prosecuted? Absolutely. If those are made example of, fewer incidents should ensue.
But what of the future of airport security screening? Would I prefer this was never our option? Even more absolutely. But I sure don’t know where we go from here… certainly we need to have security for airliners. I’m all for profiling, but as SCOTUS noted with the metal detectors, such screening must be universal, not discriminating… which means pulling random people out so you can pull out potential bad guys.
Eliminating the TSA would take an act of Congress unlikely to happen. And arguing a lofty 4th Amendment cause in a lawsuit is unlikely to be a friendly SCOTUS ruling in the wake of many precedents.
This leaves us where? Probably exactly the place where the terrorists wanted us to land… busy being proactive to their efforts and implementing politically correct measures that dance on the fringe of our beliefs, all in the name of national defense. It’s one rock and hard place to be… and somewhere out there, a jihadist is dancing in delight at our conundrum and hysteria.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
There is another, perhaps stupidly obvious aspect to the TSA screening process that seems so clear that it is astonishing.
When suicide boomers attack what is their primary target?
Locations where large groups of people gather . . . cafes, buses/bus stops . . . markets & bazzars . . . oh and amazingly . . . SECURITY CHECK POINTS!
The Israelies again have this all figured out . . . why? . . . because they HAVE been attacked by suicide boomers at all these locations.
So what does our TSA do . . . they CENTRALIZE ALL OF US . . . in a crazily designed cattle chute process . . . surround us with GLASS and FLIMSY metal enclosures.
DO YOU FEEL SAFE AT THE SECURITY CHECK POINTS? HELL NO!!! I want to get through the process as fast as I can . . . if they want to feel my JUNK . . . please get it over with . . . LET ME GET THE HELL AWAY from THE ABSOLUTE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE IN THE AIRPORT!!!
Where do they put the check points . . . In the most convenient location, centralized to the airport facility, easy walking distance to the drive through areas . . . oh, isn’t amazing that most suicide boomers are in VEHICLES that are filled with explosives.
GET IT?
The security process is much more than just individuals . . . it is cars, trucks, luggage, . . . and it does NOT begin after check in . . . it begins at the entrance to the airport . . . way out there on the road long before arriving any where near the building.
Do I advocate moving the security or making it all encompassing? NO . . . simply because each time you move the security location you move the location of the gathering of the crowd.
Airport “Security”?
By Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/11/23/airport_security
Thought provoking at the very least.
Can you remember a time when a Cabinet member in a free America boasted of having his “foot on the neck” of some business or when the President of the United States threatened on television to put his foot on another part of some citizens’ anatomy?
Ok. Let just ONE of those Pogues get the “Foot on the Throat” treatment ‘randomly’ and lets see if this travesty continues…
Will America be undermined from within by an administration obsessed with political correctness and intoxicated with the adolescent thrill of exercising its new-found powers?
Only if WE allow it. Thanks to the most politically illiterate and ill-informed Voting Populace ever, this is the outcome but only for 2 more years at the most. This Amateur Regime has no learning curve. They are Terminally flatline now. Stuck on Stupid.
Odd.
SCOTUS found a “right to privacy” in the Constitution in 1973 and now it’s not there?
We keep retreating and make the innocent bend over and take it in the backside as Islamic groups become more creative.
So when do we draw the line?
As I mentioned before, a suicide bomber has already blown himself up with a bomb in his rectum.
When we will begin to look for the bad people instead of the bad things?
Rush made a good observation: not one terrorist has been detained by TSA ever. Not once.
He also suggested, and this is based upon an article he read, that these unusual searches and love pats are intentionally publicized, so that we will choose to go through the scanners instead. They want a TSA patdown to be invasive.
Or, you can take the Beck view that, they are just seeing how far they can take us.
I flew to Israel and purposely chose El Al and baby, they gave me the full treatment. Which was fine with me, that’s why I flew El Al in the first place. Their ticket was $200 more and i still couldn’t have been happier. But Israel is tiny compared to our country, it would take massive resources to dup their system which isn’t to say there shouldn’t be profiling.
It’s akin to going into a private establishment that forbids guns. If you’re carrying, you can’t go in. If you want to fly, then walk through the effing scanner.
Now I don’t think these scanners are going to do much good when the terrorists start wearing rectum bombs with that kind of explosive that they just packed into the UPS bombs and could not detect despite going over and over the package and you can count on that but c’mon people, the radiation from one pass through is equal to flying at altitude for 2 minutes. And from walking around for 10 minutes. It’s NBD.
I’m sure it was a joke but the scanner that would set off any concealed explosive is a damned fine idea.
I disagree with the tone of this article and with many of its points. Sometimes you just have to say enough is enough. Appeasing these bureaucrats as they invade our privacy in more and more ways will not make us safer nor will it dissuade them from their next more intrusive proceedure. Already anal cavity searches are being discussed. The power to change this does not lie with the courts it lies with the people. I will not fly until the TSA is gone nor will I submit to naked scanning before a group of thugs who have sent images around and posted them on the internet. If that isn’t an invasion, and child abuse I don’t know what is. An enhanced pat down with hands inside my underwear or trousers is similarly outside the bounds of what I am willing to submit to in the absence of some specific cause to search.
If enough people feel as I do the airlines will go out of business. This administration only understands an outright rebellion and even then it is so deluded it tries to dig further into the sand. We are not a socialist or communist nation, and politically correct is so yesterday.
Today I see MSM news articles about how many in the public are OK with the scans and favor security rather than their privacy. That’s OK. However, why don’t they explain that IT IS STILL ILLEGAL to search all people at the airport going onto flights. IT IS PATENTLY AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION TO DO ANY KIND OF SEARCH BY ANYONE, INCLUDING THE FED, WITHOUT PROBABLE CAUSE. The language is as plain as the ugly nose on Obama’s face.
This illegality will not go away until the TSA is FORCED to relent. WE NEED THE SUPREME COURT TO RULE ON THIS ISSUE IMMEDIATELY. Until then, perhaps the American people need to establish a separate and independent policing agency, not connected to the current government, that will arrest and prosecute those who commit crimes and illegalities against the public – against the Constitution, including crimes by Obama.
If the people who feel searches are OK want to change the Constitution, they are welcome to begin a proper course of change; until then the TSA should cease and desist their wholesale illegal activity; which ARE CRIMES AGAINST THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.
The TSA groping issue may literally go viral. Adding to the Constitutional imperative that non-probable cause searches may end ALL searches is the issue of the public’s HEALTH. That’s right. I had thought about this days ago; but do the TSA agents, who wear gloves for health reasons, change them with each passenger. Or, do they use the same gloves that have been in sweaty arm pits and crotches on passenger after passenger.
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINES
Spreadin’ the glove: TSA infecting U.S.?
Latex coverings ‘have been in crotches, armpits, touching people who may be ill’
Article: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=231733.
It’s a health issue. The TSA killer from heaven. People need to focus on the disgusting treatment they are actually getting from the TSA agents as they’re patted-down with gloves that have been up somebody’s crotch and then onto your arms, neck and legs.
It’s time to really, really STOP THE TSA searches because of health reasons (I’m sure they can’t afford to change gloves for each of millions and millions of airline passengers) and STOP the scans for health and Constitutional issues. Think disease.
The claims by the TSA that the scanners are safe is bunk. ANY x-ray machine not only zaps you with rays, it is also subject to failure and settings may fluctuate into the un-safe zones. THIS IS TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COST.
@ AdrianS, it already has.
Anyone else notice that not only has not a single terrorist been caught with this program as noted above, but that all of the real efforts are incoming and not domestic or outgoing?
Mata wrote:
I read the link you offered to the “Interim Final Rule” and didn’t find any waiver of rights in there anywhere. Could you be more specific about where, exactly, a passenger waives his or her 4th Amendment rights?
What future does my beloved country have when even those who would be my ally in her defense delude themselves with folly?
Someone look up how a light bulb works,,, How does that stuff we call light get out and all over everything around it? Oh yeah. That’s radiated energy. Wow, that must be just like the radiated energy from a microwave! Or worse, like from a nuclear BOMB!!! The floresent lights are cooking us all to death!!! Run! Run for your lives! Find a cave and hide from the light!!!11!
Or not.
Excellent article as usually Matta. Thank you for trying to get some knowlege to everyone. And for the obvious effort to be complete, rational, open, and fair minded.
~ ~ ~ ~
I suddenly feel very tired.
“When the time comes, will you be the person standing in front of the tank or the person dutifully driving it?” Don’t blame the TSA agent. They are just “doing their job”. That’s what is so scary.
Adrian, you touch on something very important, to be include in a refusal to be search,
like in the hospitals the workers are subjected to stiff rules of self hygiene to protect the public
and themself from a massive general contamination, SO what is include in the rules of those agents as hygiene is concern to also protect the people and themself,as one flaw to another
amount to more danger to again contaminate a whole country who want to FLYE.
SPECIALY AFTER THEY BOARD THE PLANE, AND ALL CONFINE IN SAME AREA, WHERE
VIRUSES CAN GROW AND MATE LOVING THOSE WHO HAD ‘ LOVE PATS’ AND THOSE WHO GAVE IT EVEN MORE.
BYE
Adrians; SECURITY AGAINST SECURITY
@ Dr. John… Remember, Liberals do not REQUIRE proof, OR results to do something, they only need to simply “feel it’s so”… and that’s good enough for them!!! Sick and twisted?? YES, but it’s how they mentally operate… hence the phrase “feel good legislation” etc…. so NOT finding any BAD GUYS does not matter to them, because they “know” they are doing it right…. proof of such is NOT needed, by the empty minded!!! And so it goes….
as to Claire McCaskill and her “love pats”… I am one of MANY who will be actively be working VERY HARD to give her a “love pat”.. right OUT OF OFFICE next election!!!! She’s TOAST here in Missouri.. she knows it too. She has already started so “suck up/damage control” ads on TV.. trying to distance herself from the left…. but WE have the Videos of her, following the “Big O” around like a lovesick puppy during his election and since…. she can’t wash THAT stink off with a few Commercials…. she has a target on her back, and she WILL go down! Thank you “Big O”…. couldn’t have gotten rid of this Bitch WITHOUT your help!! 😆
@ Hankster58
*It’s fer Your Own Good
*It’s fer The Children
*It’s fer Saving the Planet
Or some other ill conceived Hogwash.
👿
@ ilovebeeswarzone, Yeah, like I want to catch a cold, the Flu or other illness from a TSA buffoon…
Hands off my body, don’t breathe your germs or viruses on me, Thank You.
@ OldTrooper.. yeah, I hear ya, now if we could only convince em we (evil Right) were going to destroy the planet, and their only hope, was a one way ticket to MARS, where NO CONSERVATIVES will ever be allowed……. 😉
Adrian S —
Part of the problem here is that you are conflating the right to be free from illegal search and seizure in a law enforcement custodial situation from that of a non-law enforcement and non-custodial situation.
Let me use an example:
If the cops wish to come to your house and search it, they have to have some idea what it is they are looking for and get a judge to sign off. If they see you do something on the street and arrest you, they have the right to do a “safety sweep” and search your person and anything within “grabbing range,” but they can’t toss your house because they arrested you in the doorway.
The airport is fundamentally different, as is the patdown before you go into a municipal football stadium. Why? Because (a) it is a security screen, not seeking evidence of other general “criminal conduct”; (b) you are not compelled to be there or to stay; (c) you control when or whether you are there in the first place; and (d) you can refuse if you wish . . . you just won’t be permitted to enter the gate or enter the stadium.
You do NOT have a constitutional right under the Second Amendment or the Fourth Amendment to carry a gun wherever you want, or to avoid a safety sweep, any more than you have an unfettered First Amendment right to distribute written escape plans in a prison or yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
Just as the screening works when you go to a court, everyone is fully aware of the rules when you want to fly. You have many options for travel: car, bus, train, boat. You do not have options on a police search, which is why the standards controlling the government’s actions are so strict.
A TSA employee remained hospitalized today after being accused of kidnapping a young female in Atlanta, then taking her to his Hogansville residence and sexually assaulting her.
Randall Scott King, whose age and street address were not given, abducted the woman Wednesday evening from a MARTA parking lot at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, police said.
Hogansville officers obtained search warrants and found King at his residence with what appeared to be self-inflicted wounds. Police did not describe the type or extent of his wounds. King was airlifted to Columbus Regional Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition this morning.
La Grange News – BREAKING NEWS
You’re not STUPID. This machine scans through your clothing and takes NAKED PICTURES OF YOU.
Forgive me if I’m not as enlightened as the columnist and think that common sense qualifies this as a violation of my person, my privacy, my rights as a human being and an American citizen. NO level of airport security gives them the right to grope your genitals or see you naked… and if the law says otherwise, the law is an ASS.
IT REMIND THE PAST HITLER REGIME, IN MANY WAYS
Mata, appreciate all the hard work on a well written post. I usually am all on board with your writings on here, but your post left me unconvinced and as opposed to the TSA and these scanners/searches as ever.
It’s beyond the legalities with me and I think a lot of people. It’s the principle of the thing. It’s finally gone too far, but it’s been beyond what is legal or prudent for years.
The whole thing… it’s gone too far. I slowed down flying a few years ago to only where I couldn’t drive because I hated all the rules for what sized what I could carry on. So I checked bags. Then the airlines started charging money for that. So I stopped flying. This is just icing on the cake, but I was already done.
The list of people subjected to scrutiny regardless of their risk is legion. From Grannies, to flight crew, to soldiers, it’s all about equal screening regardless, though they can’t point to ANY risk from unknown people, but can point to known risk and known extra-scrutiny-neccessary people.
So myself and lots of people have reached a point of fed-up. I was there last year, but it’s all in line with the same thing. They aren’t keeping us safe from jack-squat. It’s all a show…
And someone else smarter than me pointed out, this is how a police-state works. They control the population’s ability to move about their own country. Why couldn’t the TSA be expanded and placed at state borders to stop all traffic and search cars? It’s all for safety. I know.. it’s not likely, but it falls within the same rationale used to defend the current air security system. All the same arguments could be used. It’s for our safety and our own good. You have nothing to hide, why would you object?
yippie21, they will defend themself, by saying they create JOBS, AND WHO KNOWS WHAT OTHER SAME TYPE OF UNIONS JOBS THEY HAVE IN MINDS, ON ROADS NOT LIKELY?
SURE IS LIKELY ANY THING GO WITH THEM, IT’S HIS OWN ARMY THAT HE WISH FOR AND MENTIONNED IT,
@bees
I know it’s possible, that’s why I mention it, but the logical thought extention of the Government’s thinking on security enables those that talk about black helicopters and vans and whatnot. This enables and encourages groups within this country that are fearful of the government to train and plan for action. I hate that. It gives the left excuses to clamp down. It’s as if they are pushing the buttons to see if they can get the anti-government crowd in the US to overreact. That would help them take the target off of muslim extremists and say, the threat is everywhere… equally.
I fear we are walking a fine line and hopefully, cool heads will prevail and we can get through this administration without incident and then IF conservatives gain control of the government, a lot of this needs to be undone.
The politically correct agencies that we intrust our safety to must be reworked and a sense of sanity and human judgement returned. That will be a huge mountain to conquer.
TSA’s Newest Potential Terrorists: Soldiers Returning From Afghanistan
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/11/19/tsas-newest-potential-terrorists-soldiers-returning-from-afghanistan/
One word for this…STUPIDITY!
@ MataHarley: My compliments on a balanced and exceptionally informative presentation of a topic that unfortunately has been getting very little of that lately. It’s good to read a post and have a greater sense of clarity afterwards.
@ Gary Kukis, #4:
So far as I know that’s an accurate observation. On the other hand, how does one measure the effectiveness of practices that act as a deterrent?
I always lock the doors and latch the windows of my house when I leave. I’ve never returned to find my possessions stolen. Does that suggest making the rounds to lock up before leaving for an hour has been an effective deterrent, or a waste of time?
High-profile airport screening procedures send an obvious message that you can’t expect to simply walk into an airport and board an aircraft carrying a concealed weapon or explosive device. The fact that terrorists no longer attempt to do so might be taken as evidence that the deterrent is effective.
High-profile airport screening procedures send an obvious message that you can’t expect to simply walk into an airport and board an aircraft carrying a concealed weapon or explosive device. The fact that terrorists no longer attempt to do so might be taken as evidence that the deterrent is effective.
You’re arguing a negative with a positive. It’s working because they aren’t trying? How about, every one of the successful attempts have been clear-cut cases of individuals who trip all sorts of security tripwires and warning flags PRIOR to boarding the flight and yet were allowed to do so.
When one incident happens when a non-muslim trys something with an airplane, I’ll feel differently , but this is absurd if you ask me. No plot will be able to overcome the flying public’s enhanced collective aggressive attitude towards hijinx inflight. Should the flying public be counted on or expected to intervene? Not in a perfect world, but they are the perfect solution and the government should make it clear that no charges will EVER be filed toward people on a flight that act to protect the flight from someone trying to light a fuse or mix a gel in their seat.
THAT would be all you need. Send the message… it’s on in the air. You try and do something and we have no problem with passengers beating the life out of you . Then, if some false positives make the news and folks over reacted, then dial the program back a little… just a little.
The muslim that likes to pray out loud in flight should be the one not flying anymore, not me and not the granny or the kids or our soldiers. I’m sorry, but this is what they’ve driven me to. I’m intollerant!
YIPPIE; YOU ARE NOT INTOLERANT, NO SR, BUT THOSE WHO TRY TO PUSH PEOPLE
TO THEIR LIMIT OF TOLERANCE , THEY ARE, AND WILLINGLY TOO,
THEY ARE COUNTING ON THE TOLERANT PUBLIC, TO GET AWAY WITH WHAT THEY ARE AIMING FOR, THAT IS SUBJUGATE THE AMERICANS AND LOWER THEIR PRIDE TO BE AMERICAN IN AMERICA,BECAUSE THEY ARE HATERS EMPLOYED BY HATERS OF NON UNIONYSE PEOPLE, AND THEY ARE PROTECTED FROM TOP LEADER OF THIS AMERICA WHO HATE THE NON CONFORMIST TO HIS AGENDA AND GIVE ORDER APPROPRIATE TO INSULT HIS ENNEMIES, UNTIL THEY SUBMIT TO HIM AS THE SUPREME ‘ I WON ‘.
BYE
@ yippie21, #29:
So far as warning flags go, it’s always easy to see them in retrospect. An event always narrows focus; the tell-tale patterns that preceded it become clear, but by then it’s too late. In retrospect, for example, the likelihood of an event like 9/11 seems totally obvious.
I wouldn’t want to test the effectiveness of the deterrent by taking it away to see what happens. We shouldn’t think of the various approaches to aircraft security as being either/or propositions.
TSA’s chief, John Pistole, has already stated that body cavity searches aren’t on the TSA agenda… at least for now. Since the thrust of my post is what is legal (via SCOTUS precedents, legislation, etc) vs the emotions on the issue, I don’t know that they aren’t legally empowered to do so since I didn’t check out the specifics on that while doing the post. The only quick search revealed that a Rehnquist delivered SCOTUS opinion on Bell v. Wolfish in 1979 reversed a lower court ruling that pretrial detainees would have their 4th Amendment rights violated with body cavity searches after receiving visitors (among other issues in the same lawsuit). Meaning that pretrial defendents could indeed be subject to body cavity searches, and this would not be a violation of their 4th Amendment rights.
Since this (aka airport screening) is, as Billy Bob points out, a non law enforcement, non custodial screening, I doubt they would go that direction for domestic screening. But always keep a weather eye on the horizon.
I do agree that searching for weaponry and implements, instead of looking for bad guys, is a counterproductive, kneejerk measure.
Fully understand the sentiment, yippie. So sorry to disappoint, but hey… can’t have a 1000 batting average in the real world, right?
I didn’t write this thinking I would “convince” anyone opposed. Frankly, I’m not a happy camper about any of this either. Rather, I wake up, baffled at my country as it is today. The question of “How did we get here?” crosses my mind quite a bit of late. While the incremental becomes obvious in retrospect, as Greg says, it does seem that nation transformed overnight… tho that is not so in this case. If there was an overnight change, it happened between Sept 11 and Sept 12.
But the “principle” of the thing is to be considered. Because our principles are rooted and reflected in our rule of law. Thus why I labeled this a “conundrum”. Because what “feels” right in principles is actually firmly rooted in our laws and precedents already, and has been for decades. There is no expectation of privacy when you enter areas that are secured for one reason or another. And there is the expectation of safety from the nation’s citizens against terrorism.
Is the trade off of liberty vs national security off the charts? Not when it comes to the particulars of scanners or screening. Certainly if the pat downs are abused, it is.. and therein lies the recourse for the victims. But overall is security screening unconstitutional? Not in the eyes of decades of precedents, and of the citizens’ acceptance of screening prior to this.
Would it be acceptable, in the interest of profiling, to be required to disclose our choice of religion when purchasing an airline ticket? We already have to give our birthdates and gender, as of 2009… is that an improvement? I have to say no.. it’s just further erosion of our rights in the interest of national security, but would aid greatly in that unconstitutional type of profiling…. even if, in principle, it makes sense.
You also said:
Two things stand out here to me. First, you object to TSA’s power in airport screening, but now want that same power on the border (with TSA or the border patrol)? Somewhat incongruous, don’t you think? Either that degree of searching/screening is okay, or it’s not. I suspect that were you one needing to cross the border with the same frequency that you fly, you might think differently. But when it comes to the 4th Amendment, it matters not whether the screening is on the border, or in the airports. It is, afterall, mostly “innocents” flying/crossing borders that are subject to the same conditions of scrutiny.
The second thing is the “control the population’s ability to move about in their own country” bit. We already have that. Licenses required to drive the roadways, which we pay for in taxes. Drive into California and you are met with a checkpoint, asking you to produce any vegetables or fruit you are carrying. DUI check points have been deemed 4th Amendment constitutional via Michigan Dept of State Police vs Sitz in 1990. There are one way roads, speed limits, toll roads… all are a “control” over moving about in the country.
Again, it comes down to if that dividing line has crossed a legal line already delineated in the sand.
rh, the photo that accompanies my post is one of the two image scans from the TSA approved scanners. Most are familiar with the opaque backscatter scanner image. The above is the millimeter wave scanner system, and produces something that looks more like “The Terminator” or “Instant Recall”. I suspect that were a scanned photo of you were erroneously released, even your mother wouldn’t know it was you. If she did, you have a case for a lawsuit. Also, there is no “groping of genitals”, as you say, unless you refuse to walk the thru the seconds taken to scan you. Your choice. Have at it. Me? I’ll take the scanner.
That said, some are more sensitive to this stuff, and that’s okay. Me? I’ve seen the same in R rated movies, ballets, NFL football players in spandex, and art at museums or statutes in Italy (and they’remore explicit). It becomes even more bizarre when you think of where the American youth are… the revealing photos they post on the internet/facebook, or send each other via cells. When you look at these photos in the context of other things, are they really that revealing? In which case you should be making complaints over the below the crack pants styles today’s young men wear, or the skin tight just above the crotch jeans the young girls wear these days. You’ll see more on the streets in any urban city (weather permitting) than you do in these images.
As I said, what I wanted to was attempt to get another debate over this going that was more grounded, and not revolving around false assumptions of Constitutional rights… or hyperbole over the random incidents that are tantamount to a miniscule percentage when you consider everyone that flies. I’m not in to inciting kids into a panic about walking thru a scanner for 5 seconds (and I’ve been thru both personally).
And if we are to have a discussion about any options available for security vs liberty, it might be nice if it revolved around some legal realities. Certainly discussing non discriminatory profiling methods that are founded on the Israeli methods, but adapted for our volume, I’m all for it. But I’m certainly not interested in selectively deciding which of the Bill of Rights and Constitutional Amendments are worthy of evoking, and which are worth tossing over the side of the ship simultaneously.
While it’s nice to vent… just as everyone did for months over the “ground zero mosque”… what does it accomplish by ratcheting up all the hyped versions of incidents? Nothing… just as all the wringing of hands over Cordoba House accomplished nothing. You either want to moan and complain, or you want to find some solutions. That is what I’d rather engage in.
Denninger puts it all together…
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=173092
Mata, Thanks for the thorough replies. You misread my point about the TSA doing vehicle checks at state borders… that was say between Texas and Louisiana, not Texas and Mexico. I have driven through the border checkpoints here in Texas and don’t mind at all. That’s what the border patrol is there for.
The DUI checkpoints example burn me up. I don’t agree with them either. I don’t like the cities that set up checkpoints just to check for insurance, etc. Those behaviors are defendable to some, “and for the greater good”, but are too close to a police state for me.
I try to be consistant with my criticism and fair. Security as being practiced by the TSA could be easily defended expanded to all modes of transportation or entry into any large event or Government building. ( and like I mentioned, state to state travel ) . A certain amount of generalized searching is tollerable for flying and the like, but they’ve gone too far and the way in which the Government is unable to narrow the risk pool is what’s baffling. I am not an equal risk as a 20 year old student from Yemen.
Doing what is most secure and agrees with common sense is at odds with 20+ years of political correctness. I don’t know the answer, but I know they’ve taken it to the logical extention of where we’ve been going in airport security since the 70’s and they’ve finally gone too far with most people.
It’s going to take a nationwide reflection on PC policies vs common-sense police work. Look at how Sheriff Joe is treated by the left, for making life in county prison as memorable and unfriendly as he humanly can… and his repeat offender rate is low. Seems like common sense, but he has plenty of critics who say he’s too tough or rouge or out of control.
So there is room for political dialogue here and since 9/11, there is a part of society who refuse to see the threat or acknowledge who threatens the country. I acknowledge what changed and why, but am animated by being included in the risk pool by a system that is bound and determined to avert it’s resources from a select minority onto the entire populace equally.
And I didn’t take your post as trying to convert anyone. Just a well-done explination of why we’re here , and you did that. It’s appreciated.
Yup, yip… 😆 Can’t disagree. As a m’cycle rider, those checkpoints meant to abscond dollars for helmets, pipes and anything else they think the can do, has always been an annoyance to me. Not much different than security checkpoints or DUI checkpoints. But it all depends on where a person “lives” to find what gets on their nerves.
And it always comes down to one reality.. everyone is willing to infringe on someone else’s rights, as long is it lets them off the inconvenience hook. Short sighted, and so not about what this country is founded on.
I don’t always agree with SCOTUS, but we’re all subject to their “buck stops here” power when it comes to interpreting laws. It’s a bitch, eh?
This most certainly can spread to other modes of transportation and, in time, will. Thus a discussion about the best course of action… sans all the hyperbole… would be most welcomed. And I’m hoping that, at some point, maybe Curt can weigh on what he feels is that line in the sand for screening/profiling vs what is right in both principle and law. I suspect we’re all afloat on that boat to a no-named island on this one. We can’t profile because of our principles, and yet national security is another of our principles.
As I said… one heck of a conundrum, and I’m stymied as to direction. Seems we’re watching the sink drain of water, without a way to stop it within our frame work. Are our own freedoms and principles sinking the ship? In which case, how can you bail it out without it affecting the very freedoms we treasure? We start profiling for religion and political beliefs, and we’ve just drilled a new hole in the ship anyway.
Welcome to our new police state, the possibilities are limitless.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/130549-next-step-for-body-scanners-could-be-trains-boats-and-the-metro-
Yes the scanners are for our own safety. They have been operating for a few days, give Obama six months and see what is happening.
You want to ride in my cab, first I must check you out.
Did any of you read 1984?
CHuckFeney Reply:
November 23rd, 2010 at 5:54 pm
A Big TSA Supporter
To those men who are sick of the Nazi TSA
I offer a solution to this affront of the day
Report to the screening, with your boarding pass
Covering your jewels, but baring your ass!
Just take off your clothing, your shoes, and your socks
And go thru security with a well framed buttocks.
Yes, all of us fellows, who are fed up with this crap
Should report for boarding, wearing a smile and a jock strap!
Tightey whiteys or boxers aren’t the means to these ends
And all of you old guy will need to lose the Depends!
But don’t show up naked, or you’ll be under arrest
So just wear a jockstrap to this airport protest
Then refuse the scanner, and opt for the pat down
Just ask for a cleanup on the seat where you sat down.
If they want a good look at what little you’ve protected
Just lift up your package, to get thoroughly inspected!
The crowds will be astonished and totally impressed
Because you’ve made the effort to be minimally dressed.
If you happen to get interviewed by a TV reporter
Be sure to proudly tell them, you’re a big T.S.A. supporter!
Were supposed to be Americans, and not live in fear
Instead of getting felt up from your front to your rear
So show ‘em you’re not gonna stand for this farce
Just put on your jockstrap, and show ‘em your arse!
SKOOKUM, SO FUNNY, BUT WHAT ABOUT WOMEN SHOULD THEY DO THE SAME?
BYE
SKOOKUM I read your link, and OBAMA SAID BEFORE THA AMERICANS ARE SCARE,
well I say that the GOVERNMENT IS THE ONE WHO ARE SCARE STIFF AND FREAKING OUT,
WHAT KIND OF PILLLS THEIR DOCTORS ARE GIVING THEM, THEY ARE HALLUCINATING
BYE
@Skookum, the scanners (over 450) have been in 68 airports, deployment beginning since March of 2010. They are a courtesy of the ARRA stimulus package. If you’ll notice, most of the horror tales you all like to relate are not recent, but extend back to summer.
I, personally, have been thru the scanners back in spring 2010. Watch for my leaked naked photo… coming to a theatre near you. If you can recognize me, that is….
Fearless, I stopped flying regularly in 02 due to harassment over my dainty instruments and TSA consternation over why a guy in cowboy duds and moccasins is flying all over the world. I thought they were incredibly stupid and incompetent back then: the situation apparently has worsened; unfortunately, it is hard for a group to be better than its leadership.
There was humor on one occasion. I was in an office being interrogated for the typical hour or two when I should have been in the Elite lounge getting snockered for free. There were two agents with me trying to get me to crack about not really being what I said I was or who i said I was, when a Black guy came in with a suit on and an official looking clipboard. He picked up my McPherson speculum and said, “Ha, a horse dentist.” He was obviously a boss and had worked at a horse farm earlier in his life. The two wanna be Elliot Ness types just got up to leave when I busted out laughing in my very uninhibited style of laughter.
Other than that it was the same stupid questions at every airport, trying to make me forget who I was or what I do or where I was going. Some real top notch investigative work going on among those boys.
Yes, just because a guy looks different, dresses different, talks different, has an intense personality and an unusual trade doesn’t necessarily mean he is a terrorist. I quit flying because the TSA couldn’t come to terms with the possibility that some people are just different.
Now all you people are fairly similar, hmmm. Maybe that’s why you are all under scrutiny? 🙄
Bees there are few men who admire the feminine form more than me; however, in public places, femininity is enhanced with a certain amount of decorum and modesty.
Marxism hates these fragments of culture. They need to break down normal cultural conventions, the family, religion, and sexual morality. Once a truly amorphous society emerges, Marxist social engineering can then mold people into drones that think only in ‘group think’ terms about politically correct themes. Then dissension is punished and conformity is rewarded.
Therefore, in the best interests of society and to resist this Marxist urging, I believe it is best if only men wear supporters. Women like to wear thongs these days, on their feet and around the middle, that’s fine with me, but there is a time and place for everything.
I’ve been all over the place in my spare time.
SKOOKUM, THANKS ,I was just joking on the other link of your previous comment
CHUCK FENEY ON 37, FUNNY, BYE
Hi Skookum,
You haven’t flown regularly since 2002? That surprises me. On another thread, you make, what appears to be, several first-hand observations about the changing demographics of the TSA under Obama, and the harassing behavior you personally experienced from certain TSA agents since those changes. I assume you must still fly fairly frequently to have noticed the changing racial demographics of the security personnel at airports pre and post-2008.
I look forward to hearing from you here. , as promised.
Wishing you all the best.
Don’t worry Tom. I am preparing for you. Just got home tonight. I am tired and sore.
Actually, I have thought about you way more than you might think. I have at least two ‘race issue’ posts in my mind, driving and work gives me time to outline articles in my head. I touched on race in Debauching A Culture, but I will direct more effort towards race in the future. You might agree with me that Blacks are given a much wider rein to talk about race: Whites and others are more circumspect on racial issues, afraid to cross the imaginary line of Political Correctness that is not really defined except by Black demands and White guilt.
In college, as a foreigner, I was bewildered by this strange situation and when I asked to know how Blacks felt,I was rudely informed that I would never understand because I was not Black. Actually, I thought this was a cop out, it was like saying you couldn’t learn German if you weren’t a German.
In the service I had several Black friends. Years later I ran into one of them, sadly enough, he informed that a mutual Black friend was killed in a fight on base after I got out. I had anther Black fried who befriended me in a very unusual circumstance that I am going to write about. His name was Slim Shady, you will want to read that one Tom.
You must remember that the first time I ever saw a Black was on a vacation when I was 14 or so in Virginia. I asked my dad how come no Blacks live up North and he told me that they didn’t get enough sunlight in the winter. I think he was serious. I know Blacks live as far North as Toronto and Edmonton, they don’t seem to suffer any ill effects, no more than anyone else. It sounds funny, but not really, there are probably as many Blacks as any other race who believe the same wives’ tales
I suppose that is an innocent wive’s tale that people grow up believing, concerning other races. I am fortunate, I can walk though a horse show grounds and the Mexican grooms all say hi and speak to me in Spanish. You see I am one of the few people who treats them as an equal. Most wealthy people treat them like slaves or third class citizens. Maybe when I die, my family wont need to hire pall bearers.
It is true, without the Mexican, there would be no one willing to work on the horses. When I started working wealthy stables, the help was almost all Black, I haven’t seen but a few Blacks working on horses since the early 80’s. I suppose they have found better work.
In the past, I have wondered whether there was a genetic factor in determining politics. It seems that most Blacks are Democrats and many are Liberals and Marxists, but Thomas Sowell is one of the most brilliant contemporary writers I have ever read and he is a Conservative. Not only a Conservative, but one of the intellectual leaders of the Conservative movement. So the genetic theory is blown out of the water. I asked a professor during class (I don’t remember what class) why Blacks are Democrats and you would have thought he was going to start foaming at the mouth and asked me why a Black would ever vote Republican. If I had known the answer, I wouldn’t have asked the question. He was on the verge of being violent! So I sat there and said nothing. I was only seventeen and couldn’t think of a response. Some of those White Liberals in the ivory towers seem to be easily unhinged, especially when challenged by an undergraduate.
You don’t need to keep checking the old post. I will start a new one so that it will be up for at least a couple of days, traffic will determine how fast it drops off the bottom. I live way out in the country and it is really hard to go back through the history because of the weak connection.
I started my research last night but only read twenty pages or so before I passed out, my job is intense and dangerous, it drains you after a full day and then driving for hours. I have several books that I intend to use, there is another one I need, but I may need to go to a bookstore and buy it new, you know how Marx is such a popular author these days. Be patient Tom, I will try to be a worthy opponent.
Actually Tom, I gave up 95% of my flying business during the Bush presidency in 02. Either I wrote it wrong or you read it wrong. I only fly an average of two round trips a year and fly overseas out of Canada if at all possible. I think I explained that somewhere or maybe you are being a little hyper-sensitive.
It was a statement against the stupidity and incompetence of security insisting that a horse dentist and horse shoer had to be a terrorist that only succeeded in losing revenue for me. But I have already quit lying as a business on expensive circle trips and multiple trips a week. In reality, my work requires steady nerves. The horses sense when you are tense and everything can go to Hell in less time than it takes to blink your eye, so the increased security got to m a long time ago. I haven’t flown for over a year. but what a relief not to kep up with those schedules and all the hassles of flying, not to mention the new security. They can keep their problems, I’ve been driving since 02 as I mentioned on many different thread issues over the past 8 years. Taking boats over the Atlantic is not practical, but I will give up my business in Ireland if the Canadian security guards get ignorant. Flying for pleasure? What pleasure is there in being groped by strangers? No thanks, I’ll drive.
first of all i take issue with the “ruling” by the courts. so let’s challenge it and also get some politicans who love this country more than themselves. let’s redefine privacy. we as a whole have a right to privacy and a right to not be forecefully searched. our courts have bent over backwards to be politically correct. ok, now is the time for them to bend over backwards for the people they are supposed to protect. that’s right the average american the unwashed as kurtz so snidely said. and to hell with him by the way. i’d qualify as an elitist by education and income, but in my heart i am one of the unwashed millions(again that creep kurtz).
we have as a whole have a right for our courts to protect us but that doesn’t give them the right to demand that we all be mistreated while giving muslims the right to claim exception. let’s profile. hell, why not! they are profiling us calling us the unwashed middle. let’s remember ole barry calling us the religeous clinging to guns. the courts failed us in that ruling. i want a replay. i want some aclu types protecting the average american. how about that aclu?
@Mata
The SCOTUS has changed it’s mind before. It could just as easily rule that the nudie-scanners and genital touching “pat-downs” overstep the bounds.
I’ve read your dissertation and understood it. I do not reach the same conclusion, nor am I overly emotional in reaching my opinion. I simply agree with Judge Napolitano. The current TSA searches are over the line, period. If, (aside from body cavity searches,) these somewhat random scans and enhanced pat-downs do not violate the 4th amendment rights of “innocent until proven guilty citizens,” then there are no 4th Amendment rights, and the Terrorists have won. I’m fed up with you and others telling us that it’s no big deal. It is intrusive, unreasonable, we think it is unconstitutional, and as such is a very big deal to many of us. We don’t like it. We don’t want it, and we will continue to voice our opposition to it.
Some claim that without these searches a terrorist could get on a plane and blow it up. I’ve got news for you. With the TSA’s current incompetent security theater methods, it is certainly still very possible for an intelligent, dedicated, competent terrorist to get on a plane with an explosive charge hidden within a body cavity, and once on board assemble a bomb without ever arousing the suspicion of anyone in the TSA, or even others on the plane. That’s even ignoring the likely possibility that the terrorists may resort to other delivery methods. Or that they will change their targets and methods utterly and completely.
I say again. this is ineffective security theater, wasting time, effort and resources. forcing us to give up rights in order to feel safe, without really making any of us safer. The fact of terrorism is that, no matter what elaborate and focused methods you use to, it is impossible to make the world safe from terrorists. It is just like fighting guerrilla warfare, in that they will adapt and change their methods to ignore your response. That’s why they are best discovered and defeated through intelligence, criminal profiling, and through using smart, trained investigators. Not poorly trained “I was a fry cook last week, now I have a uniform and a line badge,” security hacks.
Ditto, nothing in my post above states that “it’s no big deal”. In fact, if you re’read the last six paragraphs of my post, it’s quite plain that we are in a conundum… trapped between our principles and rule of law, and opposing anything out of line in airline security screening.
Nor did I say it was wrong to oppose it.
This particular post is about the legalities as they exist. If there is a complaint about an over zealous screener that makes it’s way to SCOTUS, certainly they can rule that certain search methods are out of bounds for airport security screening. And frankly, considering the amount of people that fly and the age of these complaints coming to the surface, it’s the exception and not the norm.
SCOTUS is, however, unlikely to rule that any airport security screening is unconstitutional. Therein lies the point.
On other threads, I’ve tried to point out that you can oppose the scanners on many grounds that don’t include the absurd. Young boys are not being strip searched (SLC incident), and TSA does not request, nor wants any clothing removed. The same with headlines that young girls are standing “naked” in scanners… again, no clothes are being removed. I have no problem with the scan images themselves as the millimeter wave looks like “Total Recall” or the “Terminator”, and the backscatter x-ray looks like Casper the Friendly ghost or “Cocoon”. I doubt my mother would recognize one of me. And I’ve seen more revealed about the personal body shape in ballets, NFL football, museums and statutes, or walking the streets of any urban town in summer.
I do, however, have a problem with uncalibrated scanners and radiation exposure. I do have a problem with pat downs that are extreme. I’d also like to point out that while everyone seems to be up in arms about the “new” security measures, all the horror stories being recounted (save the false story about the SLC boy) took place before the new measures were even implemented.
I also have a problem when facts and truth are blown up out of proportion. I prefer to argue the merits based on our legal framework, and what we can do. Since the debate seems to center around *any* type of airport security for most (ala all such searches are against the 4th Amendment, which is not true…), I’m merely trying to drive it back to the middle and out of the conspiracy theory realm.
I agree that the scanners are like ineffective, and a waste of time and money. That also is a good debate. But there’s been enough focus on hyperbole and exaggerated truths, so it was time for a history and legal lesson on where we are. However I would appreciate it if you didn’t read into it that I was saying “it’s no big deal”, when the post clearly shows that we are in a rock and a hard place.
@stodghie, I agree that I haven’t liked the tone of the judicial system for quite some time. However the buck ends at SCOTUS, and our only recourse is to insure that the balance of the court doesn’t swing hard left in majority with having either a President that nominates Constitutional appointees, or a Congress that doesn’t let revisionist living Constitutionalists get confirmed. We’re not doing very well with that lately, considering what’s ruling the beltway in the past three years.
The Constitution allows for “Impeaching/Removing” S C Justices….Perhaps, it’s time we INVOKE this!!!
suek, hi, where are you, we haven’t read you from a long time,
@Hankster:
Bad idea until Obama’s out of office.