Posted on 07/09/2009 12:41:39 PM PDT by BGHater
This is good news:
A federal judge in June threw out seizure of three fake passports from a traveler, saying that TSA screeners violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. Congress authorizes TSA to search travelers for weapons and explosives; beyond that, the agency is overstepping its bounds, U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley said.
"The extent of the search went beyond the permissible purpose of detecting weapons and explosives and was instead motivated by a desire to uncover contraband evidencing ordinary criminal wrongdoing," Judge Marbley wrote.
In the second case, Steven Bierfeldt, treasurer for the Campaign for Liberty, a political organization launched from Ron Paul's presidential run, was detained at the St. Louis airport because he was carrying $4,700 in a lock box from the sale of tickets, T-shirts, bumper stickers and campaign paraphernalia. TSA screeners quizzed him about the cash, his employment and the purpose of his trip to St. Louis, then summoned local police and threatened him with arrest because he responded to their questions with a question of his own: What were his rights and could TSA legally require him to answer?
[...]
Mr. Bierfeldt's suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, seeks to bar TSA from "conducting suspicion-less pre-flight searches of passengers or their belongings for items other than weapons or explosives."
I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago:
...Obama should mandate that airport security be solely about terrorism, and not a general-purpose security checkpoint to catch everyone from pot smokers to deadbeat dads.
The Constitution provides us, both Americans and visitors to America, with strong protections against invasive police searches. Two exceptions come into play at airport security checkpoints. The first is "implied consent," which means that you cannot refuse to be searched; your consent is implied when you purchased your ticket. And the second is "plain view," which means that if the TSA officer happens to see something unrelated to airport security while screening you, he is allowed to act on that.
Both of these principles are well established and make sense, but it's their combination that turns airport security checkpoints into police-state-like checkpoints.
The TSA should limit its searches to bombs and weapons and leave general policing to the police -- where we know courts and the Constitution still apply.
Here’s your cocaine, your counterfeit $100 bills, and your child pornography. Have a nice flight sir.
Do you want them going through your ipod and laptop as you pass through security? Not to check for terrorist documents, but to look for improperly ripped mp3s that are hurting Time-Lies-Warner’s bottom line?
If the flying public refused to take any flights for one week these pinheads could be brought to heel. I’m doing my part. When they took a half tube of toothpaste from me I made my last flight.
TSA: Thousands Standing Around.
This is long overdue. An unusually invasive search that is specifically directed toward terrorist threats can be considered “reasonable” given the potential risk to the general public; however, a search of this type that is not so narrowly directed ceases to be “reasonable”.
The fake passports/cash should put up red flags, especially at an airport. They should've waterboarded that sucker on the spot, to make sure there were no terrorists at his destination waiting for 'em.
The Ron Paul campaigner should have been released immediately....and after he accounts for and pulls down all the signs he's put up, they should give him back his lockbox.
You’re probably joking about the cocaine, counterfeit money, and child porn. I always wonder what exactly are the laws regarding searches and seizures. I thought, for example, that some people get arrested for drugs when they were pulled over for a speeding ticket. If law enforcement people discover evidence of criminality when doing something else, what is the legal status? So if TSA people discover evidence of other crime, what is their legal obligation? I guess these court cases will draw lines around what they do.
They’re equated because the reaction by TSA was equal: nothing to do with airline security. Maybe the guy with multiple passports should have been screened further for being a possible threat thanks to the “red flag” of the passportS, but - they didn’t! It’s not TSA’s business to know, care, or do anything about anything not related to that airplane getting to its destination safely & on-time. TSA is not FBI, DEA, IRS, ATF, or any other TLA.
Why, the Hussein Justice Dept has already redefined terrorism. A terrorist is anybody who didn’t vote for Hussein!
NO. TSA is neither authorized nor trained to act on criminal matters pertaining to anything outside a strict formal definition of airport security. Law is far too complex for someone untrained in enforcement thereof to act contrary to one's rights based largely on outright ignorance.
In the case of the Ron Paul activist, there was NOTHING wrong with what he was doing. Travelling with $4700 is NOT ILLEGAL, and the TSA agents had absolutely no grounds for detaining & interrogating him. That they suspected wrongdoing was purely a matter of ignorance, not informed & authorized discretion.
That which legitimately may be suspect, but outside TSA's purview, may not be acted on precisely because if not for the coincidental search AND their deliberate action thereupon nobody would have known nuttin'. There are plenty of cases upholding the 4th Amendment when plain evidence of criminal wrongdoing was suppressed precisely because save for the vaguest suspicion of an unrelated issue the search would never have happened in the first place - and that's exactly what we have here: based solely on the totally lawful activity of taking a commercial flight, the search occurs and turns up something questionable that has absolutely nothing to do with the purpose of the search.
Unless TSA agents are suitably trained in matters which are the jurisiction of FBI, DEA, ATF, IRS, etc. then said agents have no business acting on ignorance-driven suspicions. (Commonly understood evidence of violent felonies may be acted on, but that's because ANYONE can reasonably & legally act on them.)
A terrorist is now (has the bill passed yet? or still pending?) whomever BHO’s hand-picked Attorney General declares is one.
Police officers are experts at bending rules, particularly in the “war on drugs.” As a police officer, I was taught to push the rules of the “Terry search,” which meant that if I articulated fear that a suspect might harm me, I could legally frisk suspects for weapons without probable cause. I know officers who towed cars, again legally, simply so they could “inventory” the contents (technically for safekeeping). In both cases, the real goal was to find illegal drugs and make an arrest.
One must expect law enforcement to use all its available tools. As a law enforcement officer, why deal with the tedious process of probable cause, judicial approval and paperwork?
In order to stop and search any suspect, not just a terrorism suspect, law enforcement need only wait for a person to enter an implied consent area such as a subway or a shopping mall. Their action justified by the “war on terror,” police may then conduct a full search. The true object of the search — most likely drug possession, but any contraband will do — is unrelated to terrorism.
Kudos to an honest cop!
parsy, who has met far too many of the other kind.
The legal status depends on whether the the legal issue is within their jurisdiction. A common cop is tasked with both issuing speeding tickets and arresting for drug possession - if he finds one while dealing with the other, it is indeed his problem to deal with. The same common cop is NOT tasked with, say, addressing tax fraud, so if he glimpses documents that he (in his legal ignorance) perceives as possible evidence thereof it is not his business to detain a driver and hand him bodily over to the IRS.
if TSA people discover evidence of other crime, what is their legal obligation?
On what grounds is the TSA agent authorized (and trained) to identify and act on such "crime"? Some issues may be plainly obvious to the public at large and thus acted on (say, finding someone's freshly-harvested ear in carry-on luggage), but anything not so obvious which the agent has not been trained to recognize & handle is not their business (say, possessing a cashbox is not grounds for detaining on an ill-understood law limiting how much cash can be travelled with, or what constitutes a passport one is not allowed to possess).
If they're not at least minimally trained & authorized to act on a perceived transgression, they are not to act thereon. That's the way the Constitution operates: governmental powers not granted do not exist.
Bierfeldt v. Napolitano audio evidence
Perhaps the guy would have made his life easier by just answering the questions at the onset, but after recently seeing the "Never Talk to the Police" Youtube videos, I would probably do the same thing to protect myself. The only thing different I would do is not cave and answer at the end.
Waste of time? Maybe, but this is our only recourse in the police state we have come to live in.
I'll give the guy credit, and say I'm really glad this wasn't me.
In your car, cops can make a safety sweep for weapons. Usually does not include trunk. They may ask for permission to search your car. IF DWI or DUI, they can impound your car and do an inventory search. They can seize stuff in plain view.
The problem is, that cops lie like dogs. They will search and then make up excuses for the search. They obtain search warrants the same way. They break the biggest and most important law in the land (the Constitution) to catch some druggie.
That is why “liberal” judges are really better. They tend to protect people against the gov’t. Its the word “liberal” that throws conservatives off. We just hate the “l” word even when it don’t mean what we think.
parsy, who is waiting for the Dirty Harry type movie that will make it ok for cops to seize guns and Bibles.
You’re right. Just commenting on the absurdity of the world.
Wow. Thanks for that link. It is full of gems.
You’re so much of sh*t ist isn’t funny. You’re in the wrong country if you think the government has the right to make this a totalitarian police state.
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