The TSA’s wholesale violation of our civil rights, including economic liberty

[elehhhhna]

Lynne is a brilliant economist & friend of the family. Read this!

The TSA’s wholesale violation of our civil rights, including economic liberty
January 6, 2011

Lynne Kiesling

I have been a too-silent opponent of the Patriot Act’s authorization of invasive surveillance in the name of national security. One of the consequences of that authorization has been the growth of the Department of Homeland Security and, under it, the formation and growth of the TSA. Those of us who travel frequently have known the TSA as “Thousands Standing Around” for years, and have derided the TSA policies on shoes (the “shoe carnival”) and liquids that are the security equivalent of locking the barn after the horse is stolen.

The TSA’s push to increase the intrusiveness of their physical search of passengers for specific items has pushed beyond laughable inconvenience and inefficiency into literally physically invasive search that does not qualify as a reasonable search under the administrative search carve-out of the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment, as written, protects individuals from unreasonable government search and seizure of their person and property, and the TSA operates under the administrative search carve-out from it — basically, if you put your bags on the conveyor you are presumed to have consented to the search of your person and possessions. The TSA are trying to claim that the new backscatter x-ray full-body scanners, millimeter wave full body scanners, and aggressive, frisking-style pat-downs are a sufficiently reasonable search that they should be considered legal under administrative search.

MORE:
http://knowledgeproblem.com/

[hlthe2b]

1. I'd like to point out a couple of things from this article...

To the handful of DUers who maintain this backscatter scanner plus groping program is so much more cost effective than any attempt to bring on many more highly trained bomb-sniffing dogs: "Did you know that each of these scanners costs $175,000? How many FBI intelligence agents and explosive-sniffing K-9 teams could we train and employ with the millions of dollars that Congress has already authorized for the purchase of these scanners?" (from the linked article in OP)

For those DUers who have maintained that flying is NOT a right, but a "privilege," from the same article: "If you have made some of these arguments yourself, you have probably heard the response that flying is not a right. That is wrong. The Supreme Court has ruled in several cases that flight falls under the individual rights we have to free movement under the Constitution, and this right was reinforced formally in language in the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. We do have the right to fly, and to fly without unreasonable search that strips us of our dignity."

[jberryhill]

3. $175,00 would be less than two specialist FBI agents annually

...and that's before you bought the dogs, let alone trained them.

[hlthe2b]

4. First of all that is initial cost, plus the cost of all the TSA agents...

plus the cost of maintenance, electricity, replacement costs, training, upgrading (since this technology is not stagnant). Do you realize HOW many of these things one would need in even ONE large airport? Honestly...:eyes:

[jberryhill]

5. Having been through two large airports that have them in the last month

For example, Miami International has two per terminal, and has six terminals, so that's a total of twelve.

So that's HOW many of these things that are in even ONE large airport.

You know how much an A320 costs?

There's a buttload of them. Parked at the gates.

[hlthe2b]

6. Yet, you are arguing training bomb snifffing dogs is

too expensive? Give me a break.

[enlightenment]

7. The government doesn't buy the airplanes, nor does

it provide for their maintenance; the training of the pilots that fly them and the crews that operate in them.

Your comparison is irrelevant.

[LibDemAlways]

2. Only two things can put an end to this. Either people curtail

discretionary flying to the point where it hurts the airlines' bottom line and they, in turn, go squealing to the government to make changes, or TSA's authority is challenged on 4th amendment grounds and changes are ordered because of successful litigation.

Obama's made it pretty clear he doesn't give a rat's ass that TSA has turned into the terrorizer.