Posted on 12/06/2004 2:52:00 PM PST by Angry Republican
Helen Chenoweth-Hage had a simple request. The former Idaho Congressman had been pulled aside at the Boise Airport for secondary screening to include a physical pat-down. Chenoweth-Hage had sailed through the metal detector without problem, but TSA officials wanted to scrutinize her some more.
The former Congressman simply asked to see the regulations that permitted TSA officials to pat her down. They refused. And she refused to allow them to pat her down. So they booted her off her flight.
Incidents like this have happened so many times that it is beyond absurd. The regulations of TSA, which should stand for "Thousands Standing Around," are cloaked in secrecy. In this case, a 66-year old former Member of Congress is told to submit to further scrutiny for reasons of political correctness and to inflate inspection numbers.
According to aviation industry sources, the TSA intentionally targets individuals for further scrutiny not because they pose a threat, but because their profiles fit those the least likely to complain. Groups getting extra scrutiny include government employees and the military. Other national security threats reportedly requiring further scrutiny in the past include former Vice President Al Gore and longtime Congressman John Dingell.
The two-part problem is this. First, inspecting people who clearly do not pose a threat distracts attention from those who could pose a threat. Second, the notion that TSA can subject the public to regulations that are not made public is ludicrous. It's like citing a motorist for speeding with the speed limit signs all covered.
The Transportation Security Administration has not provided real and responsible security to our nation's airlines and airports. Playing hide and seek with the regulations and subjecting innocents to absurd inspections in the name of political correctness is simply a waste of time and money.
And that's the Point.
I'm Mark Hyman.
"There is a contingent of folks here that believes that anyone who actually tries to act like a Free citizen (instead of simply believing the propoganda about freedom) is somehow mentally defective (i.e., an "idiot" or "nitwit")."
No, I believe that anyone who acts like a nitwit is a nitwit.
Yup. That was my point.
Profiling is the only answer. All else dilutes constitutional protections of the legal citizenry.
BTW, profiling includes all available info technology, not just pulling young arab-looking males from the line.
There's no law (at least here in the States) against filling out one of those forms with meaningless or random data when applying for a "club card".
This has the effect of corrupting their database.
If enough people entered BS data on those forms, then eventually it would render their databases useless, and actually cost them money :-)
Okay. I'll ask the same question that Ms. Chenoweth did. Please post the law or regulation that says so, in addition to the regulations saying you have to show identification and/or be subject to a 'patdown' in addition to simply going through the metal detectors.
Or are we just supposed to "know" the unwriten edicts, in addition to the millions of pages of written ones?
You are free to choose.
And it great to live in a free kountry, where we are "free" to obey the law?
or question the authority of the agents
"No one should dare do that. I say form a firing squad and shootem on sight."
The first part of my sentence is the relevant part-
" But, don't wait until you are in the security area ..to question the authority of the agents."
Was this questioner so well disguised that you couldn't tell whether he was a man or not?
I could be wrong, but unlike El Al, I don't think that US security has ever caught a hijacker before they got on the airplane.
Why not?
Are they better at patting down passengers than we?
Or, are they doing something we aren't?
Were you patted down? Or, did their security involve something other than 'laying on of hands'?
...But domestic US air travel would become obsolete if we employed the same level of scrutiny as El Al on domestic flights.
So, do you feel safer flying in the US or Israel?
"After Dophinarium and before Sbaro bombings" was more than three years ago. I think the person who interviewed me was a woman. But thinking about it now, it occurred to me that there might be some Jewish male travelers who wouldn't be comfortable talking to a woman not their wife, and so maybe my recollection wasn't correct, so maybe the Israelis wouldn't have women interviewing men. Okay?
ML/NJ
Norman Mineta should go.
WHY is Bush keeping this moron around??
WHY do the American people continue to behave like sheep in the face of this politically correct generated nonesense??
By tolerating this idiocy, we are merely encouraging the mindless bureaocrats and gutless politicians who control them to escalate this insanity.
AMENDMENT IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The way most people read this amendment is that as long as the searches and seizures are not "unreasonable," that it is ok for your government to proceed with such action.
Who defines "unreasonable?" The Supreme Court? The majority of citizens through their representatives?
The proper way to read the 4th amendment, from a presumption of liberty, is that the first part of the amendment is a "preamble" or the stated reason for the 4th amendment.
The "guts" of the 4th amendment states if there is a "probable" cause, supported an oath by the person stating that there is probable cause, that a citizen is about to harm other citizens, then a judge will issue a warrant describing exactly what is being looked for and what will be confiscated that is being used to probably harm other citizens.
Assuming that all airline passengers are potential terrorists without an affirmed probable cause and then searching them without a warrant describing what is being looked for, by the TSA, a government agency, is blatantly unconstiutional and violates the intent and stated design of the amendment. Any action to the contrary means that we are not really free.
If the airlines wish to hire their own security personnel to conduct such searches, they can do that without violating the constitution. It is their private property and they can defend and protect it as their hearts desire.
That is how "free" people handle this issue of airline security.
Free people use the tenants and covenants of liberty, private property ownership, and the free market powers of capitalism to solve this problem.
Communists and socialists ask their government to destroy the covenants of liberty, private property ownership, and capitalism for such a dubious goal.
"Were you patted down? Or, did their security involve something other than 'laying on of hands'?"
Physical check was about the same as the US. The real difference with El Al is the professional interrogation.
"So, do you feel safer flying in the US or Israel?"
About the same.
Getting all huffy is just not gonna pay off in any positive way for the pat-down-ee. But I do think they are not unreasonable in being annoyed by intrusive searches without any reason for it. If random patdown searches are acceptable, why aren't random strip searches or cavity searches? If it's okay that we lose the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure while walking onto an airplane, then why aren't the searches more effective, when it's certain that a suicide-bent terrorist could stuff plastique where the sun don't shine and do the job of taking down a plane that way, too--especially since your whole explanation for patdowns is that it's been done before in other places? God knows, DRUGS have been smuggled there at least hundreds of times.
So, I'll grant you that it's silly to get huffy and demand regulations permitting patdowns if you grant me that it's silly to do patdowns without any reason at all to suspect the person being patted down of being a terrorist. Cops have to have a reasonable fear for their own safety to pat down someone. I can get on a train or bus and a cop can't pat me down without concerns for their own safety, but as far as planes are concerned, that I'm just walking on makes it okay for even a ticket agent to deny me boarding or get my privates prodded on the basis of bare suspicion.
Great summation BUMP.
"Assuming that all airline passengers are potential terrorists without an affirmed probable cause and then searching them without a warrant describing what is being looked for, by the TSA, a government agency, is blatantly unconstitutional and violates the intent and stated design of the amendment."
Sez you. Take it to court and win, otherwise, submit to a search or take a hike.
"Any action to the contrary means that we are not really free."
Yeah, right. The terrorists have already won. Blah, blah, blah.
We are free to decide what is a reasonable search. The majority of the people believe that in light of the history of airline hijackings it is reasonable to search people for weapons and bombs before letting them on planes.
We also require people to go through metal detectors and have their effects searched when going into Federal Buildings and courtrooms.
It was the people's representatives who decided to create the TSA. The courts can decide that being searched before getting on airplanes are a violation of the constitution, but have not done so.
Only cranks believe that searches before getting on an airplane marks the line of demarcation between free and unfree people.
“Who defines "unreasonable?" The Supreme Court? The majority of citizens through their representatives?”
Ultimately, the Supreme Court. Thank heavens we are not using your standard for searches, needing a warrant before being able to search a person getting on an airplane, or we would have had many more deaths and probably would not have any commercial aviation.
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