Fliers Claim TSA Have Deactivated Body Scanners

gizmondo ^ | 11/24/10 | staff

[Nachum]

According to tweeting travelers, many backscatter and millimeter-wave AIT scanning machines at airports are not in use at all, making opting out impossible. We've asked DHS/TSA for comment, but you can help us confirm. Not every airport in the country even has the "Advanced Imaging Technology" scanners installed. (A post at FlyerTalk.com has an up-to-date list of airports with the machines, as well as specific terminals.

[AndyJackson]

Maybe you should go back and read Carroll yourself. Among other things the court held:

[i]t would be intolerable and unreasonable if a prohibition agent were authorized to stop every automobile on the chance of finding liquor, and thus subject all persons lawfully using the highways to the inconvenience and indignity of such a search... . [T]hose lawfully within the country, entitled to use the public highways, have a right to free passage without interruption or search unless there is known to a competent official, authorized to search, probable cause for believing that their vehicles are carrying contraband or illegal merchandise

Tell me wher ethere is probable cause for believing that a 4 year old girl, or granny or a nun or a speedo-clad caucasian male with screw Janet Napolitano written on his back is carrying PETN in a body cavityl. Please please please tell us so we all can know. Please please please Mr. Lawman.

[del4hope]

You are correct, because if one does not belong to an organization, religion, or group which sanctions and encourages the killing of those who disagree with such organization, religion, or group, there is no probable cause for a search. A warrant is required for searching based upon current law.

Instead, guilt has been assumed for the innocent without warrant.

Profile and question those associated with such organizations, religions, or groups.

I really think that many were patient with the security procedures considering we were a country at war. Now that the public is seeing sympathy towards those who want us dead, resistance is in the early stages.

[freedomwarrior998]

I did answer your question. You just didn’t like my answer. Too bad, you won’t get any other.

[CitizenUSA]

Excellent post!

The government certainly has the right to search an entire aircraft or airport for bombs, including pat downs, but it has to have actionable intelligence that demonstrates probable cause. If, for example, the government had intelligence that a specific aircraft or flight was targeted by terrorists using powder explosives, they could get a warrant and conduct the search. What they cannot do is search everyone in every airport on the mere chance that a terrorist might want to attack the airlines.

The TSA is conducting illegal searches. They have no probable cause that the peoples being searched are terrorists.

[freedomwarrior998]

Your silly notions are not the law.

[maine-iac7]

Wwe have THE RIGHT TO FLY

read it sllooowwwwwwwly - and maybey you’ll get it.

49 U.S.C. § 40103 : US Code - Section 40103: Sovereignty and use of airspace

http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/49/VII/A/I/401/40103

(a) Sovereignty and Public Right of Transit. - (1) The United
States Government has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the
United States.
(2) A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit
through the navigable airspace

[Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears]

Oh, the “apples and oranges” dodge. Got it.

[freedomwarrior998]

Yet the other poster here was actually trying to twist Supreme Court rulings to make them say that there is a right to the means of travel.

You say you read your Constitution? OK, please point to the exact phrase which grants you a “right to fly” (or use any other specific means of travel). The right to travel is not synonymous with the means by which you travel.

If you want to read things into the Constitution, you are no better than a Kagan or Sotomayor, you just want to read different things into the Constitution than they do.

[Freedom56v2]

So it was imperative that we have this enhanced security starting Nov1,yet machines are quietly turned off on the busiest travel day of the year to short circuit the opponents of the TSA procedures...Hmmm love it when politics enters our security....

[freedomwarrior998]

Hey genius, we are talking about a CONSTITUTIONAL right to fly, which does not exist. You are actually disproving your point, (although you don’t realize it yet.) You quote the United States code, which does give one a statutory right to use the airspace. That statutory right is subject to the other regulations that Congress enacts. Read through the rest of the provisions of the U.S.C. related to air travel.

When you get a J.D. come back and talk to me then. As I said to the other poster, silly notions are not the law.

[freedomwarrior998]

No, you should actually read Carroll, in context, rather than cherry picking and twisting dicta. Carroll definitively rejects the proposition that was asserted by another poster here, that the clause after the “,” that I pointed out refers to the first clause before the comma. This is patently incorrect, and Carroll definitely established that a search may proceed in certain circumstances without a warrant.

Your dicta is irrelevant to the context of air travel, which is indeed interstate commerce and subject directly to Federal Regulation under the Constitution. If you don’t like it, change the Constitution.

[maine-iac7]

And if the Times Square bomber was successful, would you be okay with TSA officers pulling people out of their cars at roadblocks and doing the same thing? And fining them $11,000 for non-compliance?”

get ready for this to happen. Remember, this groping is based on the panty bomber - he was NOT successful either.

These newer TSA agents - 10's of thousands of them and more to come - are dressed in blue shirts..."obummer blue"? Remember his goal is to have his own 'civilian military' (separate from our military, our guard, our state police, our sheriffs and our local cops.

this is the way Hitler got his foot on the peoples necks...he started, not with the Storm Troops or the Gestapo. He started with his own 'police force' the Brown Shirts, recruited from the streets and gangs.

Nothing but brain dead thugs who would follow orders and enjoy authority over people while being allowed to break the law.

There was no funding to put his personal troops in uniform so he went to the warehouses for WW1 shirts - hence, the Brown Shirts. Once he got the people cowed and submissive, he put in the SS and the Gestapo. And that is the playbook.

Obummer just has to hire his 'army' of Acorn thugs across the land and give them blue shirts - and set 'em loose...lot of ground to cover: bus stations, railway depots, banks, and yes, our cars and persons.

"He who does not know history is doomed to repeat it>"

[Grizzled Bear]

If you don't like the proceedures, you don't have to fly.

The government has intruded where the government does not belong. Should similar measures be instituted at the enterences of shopping malls, I guess you will say "Shopping at the mall is no more a Constitutional Right than having a Driver's License is a Constitutional Right."

[CitizenUSA]

I haven’t read or thought much about a constitutional “right to fly,” so I don’t have an opinion on it. My previous posts pertained to the 4th Amendment and what constitutes an unreasonable search.

The government COULD follow the 4th Amendment and still stop the terrorists. Special courts could be set up to quickly handle warrant requests based on probable cause. If the government had intelligence that specific passengers or flights were involved, a warrant could be issued. Since they wouldn’t be targeting the entire traveling public, they would be able to focus resources where they would be most effective. For some reason, government has decided to do illegal searches instead.

[The Antiyuppie]

“If you don’t like the proceedures (sic), you don’t have to fly.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement

This argument, like all others in the form, “if you don’t like X, then you don’t have to Y” is inherently weak.

Walking to another state or driving cross-country in the course of doing interstate business is clearly not practical in a modern, fast-moving world.

[Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears]

You assume I am for these procedures. Exactly the opposite is true.

I am against the TSA abuse, which is why I illustrated it by showing the next logical step, which are Gestapo tactics. ;-)

I posed it as a question so people would see where we’re headed if we don’t stop this now.

[maine-iac7]

Tell you what. Go to Maryland or Virginia, rent a Cessna, and buzz the capitol for a while. Then we’ll see how your 49 U.S.C. § 40103 holds up.

are your that dumb or do you assume I am?

We have the right to fly, as I posted - the code doesn't say we have the right to fly into restricted air space...any more than you'd have the right to drive over the White House lawn - or anyone's lawn.

[achilles2000]

You have a common law right and a constitutional right to travel. Those rights can’t be burdened by a demand that you surrender your 4th Amendment rights any more than your 1st Amendment rights can be burdened by a demand that you give up your 4th Amendment rights in order to read a book.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

"Unreasonable" is the key word there
I submit that probable cause is also key.

A member of the travelling public has not demonstrated probable cause for an unwarranted, unreasonable search of his/her possessions or being.

[maine-iac7]

49 U.S.C. § 40103 : US Code - Section 40103: Sovereignty and use of airspace

http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/49/VII/A/I/401/40103

(a) Sovereignty and Public Right of Transit. - (1) The United
States Government has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the
United States.
(2) A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit
through the navigable airspace

******also, what is the difference between what they doing at the airports and this?

Carroll yourself. Among other things the court held:
[i]t would be intolerable and unreasonable if a prohibition agent were authorized to stop every automobile on the chance of finding liquor, and thus subject all persons lawfully using the highways to the inconvenience and indignity of such a search... . [T]hose lawfully within the country, entitled to use the public highways, have a right to free passage without interruption or search unless there is known to a competent official, authorized to search, probable cause for believing that their vehicles are carrying contraband or illegal merchandise