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Court Limits on TSA Searches
Schneier ^ | 08 July 2009 | Bruce Schneier

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.



TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: bigbrother; constitution; donutwatch; papersplease; policestate; privacy; ronpaul; search; tsa
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To: BGHater
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.

We do? I hadn't noticed. I was too distracted by the giant sucking sound generated as SCOTUS snatches from me anything vaguely resembling a civil right.

21 posted on 07/09/2009 3:39:40 PM PDT by Still Thinking (If ignorance is bliss, liberals must be ecstatic!)
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To: Oldpuppymax
Why, the Hussein Justice Dept has already redefined terrorism. A terrorist is anybody who didn’t vote for Hussein!

Well, he's terrified of us, so I guess it's technically correct. ;-)

22 posted on 07/09/2009 3:42:48 PM PDT by Still Thinking (If ignorance is bliss, liberals must be ecstatic!)
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To: parsifal

Can we just stop right here and decide drugs are OK? Please? Not a druggie. Have never done drugs other than alcohol, caffeine, etc. Not even once. But I’d rather live on a street full of hopheads than have even a single civil right weakened by so much as 1%. I’m not willing to live under totalitarian rule just to enable a futile, expensive attempt to insure my neighbors aren’t getting high.


23 posted on 07/09/2009 3:50:33 PM PDT by Still Thinking (If ignorance is bliss, liberals must be ecstatic!)
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To: Still Thinking

I don’t think you can ever legalize most of them. Maybe pot. The users are just such a drain on society. They would still have to steal to pay the rent. Cops just need to respect the law or watch cases get thrown out. Your average druggie is pretty stupid and if you don’t get him this time, you will the next. Some of this is just that the kind of person you need to be a cop, is often the kind of person who likes to abuse his power.

parsy, who thinks the courts have to start disrespecting the police until the police can earn it back. (and no, I don’t think all cops are bad, it just that cops tend to act like cops)


24 posted on 07/09/2009 3:57:20 PM PDT by parsifal ("Knock and ye shall receive!" (The Bible, somewhere.))
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To: parsifal

Actually that would be the best outcome from my perspective (jealous of civil rights, not fond of drugs), but the goobermints, federal state and lokel, seem to be incapable of operating in the mode you describe.


25 posted on 07/09/2009 4:09:38 PM PDT by Still Thinking (If ignorance is bliss, liberals must be ecstatic!)
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To: Still Thinking

That is why the courts have the exclusionary rule of evidence. Evidence obtained illegally can be suppressed. The court basically said that was the only way they could keep the cops honest. A pretty telling comment on the polizei.

A more “liberal” court may actually start cutting back further on illegal cop activity, such as pretextural stops.

parsy, who used to like Dirty Harry


26 posted on 07/09/2009 5:07:44 PM PDT by parsifal ("Knock and ye shall receive!" (The Bible, somewhere.))
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To: parsifal

I have mixed feelings about liberals on SCOTUS. While they have the reputation as defenders of the BOR, the ones on board now seem as much or more statist and government-sucking than the “conservatives”.


27 posted on 07/09/2009 5:21:55 PM PDT by Still Thinking (If ignorance is bliss, liberals must be ecstatic!)
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To: Still Thinking

Maybe so. I don’t follow them as much as I need to.

parsy, who wishes he had more time to keep up


28 posted on 07/09/2009 5:27:54 PM PDT by parsifal ("Knock and ye shall receive!" (The Bible, somewhere.))
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