I'm curious if any lawyers from the EFF have put themselves through this so that they have good grounds to sue the federal government for violation of constitutional rights?
Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
81–90 of 185 posts
Re: Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are three "levels of scrutiny" used to determine if a law is valid. The lowest level, the level which every law must meet is rational basis. Government may not enforce a law which makes absolutely no sense. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review .
>There are three "levels of scrutiny" used to determine if a law is valid. The lowest level, the level which every law must meet is rational basis. Government may not enforce a law which makes absolutely no sense. The article that you linked to indicates that "rational basis review" applies to laws which may be related to the 5th or 14th Amendments, which is substantially narrower than what you've appeared to say. I'…
Both the fifth amendment and the fourteenth mention "due process" as in: no person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The fifth fifth applies to the federal government, and the fourteenth to the state governments. When the government passes a law that infringes on a person's right, one way a person can challenge it is to claim that the law violates (substantive) due process. The idea is that government has to have a reason for depriving a person of his right.
How important the government's reason has to be depends on the importance of the right being infringed. If the right is "fundamental" (1st amendment, voting, interstate travel, or privacy,) then the government must have a very good reason for infringing the right and it must not infringe more than necessary. This is "strict scrutiny". If the right involved is not very important, the government need only show that it had some acceptable reason (the law must be rationally related to a legitimate government purpose.) This is rational basis. Every law that fails rational basis must also fail strict scrutiny. But not every law that fails strict scrutiny must also fail rational basis. The vast majority of the laws pass rational basis.
It's true that the law being challenged has to relate to the fifth or fourteenth amendments, but that's not a very hard test to meet. Almost anytime a person would legitimately want to challenge a law, it would be because the law is depriving him of some right. And in every such case, the law must at least have a rational basis.
This is case here. The traveler has a right to travel, the government was going to deprive the traveler of this right. The government must have a rational basis at least.
Re: Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
#83If you look at the way this was handled it actually speaks to the professionalism of most of those involved. Regardless of your objection to the policy, which is not the decision of these people, the police and tsa seemed rational and accommodating. Just think how this might have been handled in other countries.
In other countries this idiocy would not have taken place to begin with.
If you refuse to cooperate with security in England, Germany, France, Italy, China, Burma, India, or any other place I can imagine, you would not have a policeman calmly understanding of how you were asserting your constitutional rights.
Re: Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing that came out in this blog post -- it seems there may be a policy that the TSA employees are specifically forbidden to wear radiation dosimetry badges. What!? How in the world is this a sane policy? Who is this policy meant to protect?
If a lot of TSA employees wore dosimeters, chances are there would be at least one false positive and the media would latch onto it.
Of course, the chance of there being a true positive is nill. Government equipment never malfunctions. So it's better to ban dosimeters and eliminate the possibility of a media problem.
Re: Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
#85I just want to know what the TSA supervisor expected would happen if he DID choose to go back to customs. Then what? Where does he go? He has no ticket, no boarding pass. He can't get on a plane. I don't see how refusing could possible end any other way than for him to walk out of there. Surely even as he was saying this, he'd have realised how absurd it was. As a tourist, I wouldn't risk it...too easy to put you bac…
>"I just want to know what the TSA supervisor expected would happen if he DID choose to go back to customs. Then what? Where does he go? He has no ticket, no boarding pass. He can't get on a plane. I don't see how refusing could possible end any other way than for him to walk out of there."
The assumption is almost certainly that the passenger either eventually caves due to boredom, hunger, thirst, or need to go to the bathroom. I assume they're figuring the passenger will have to cave before they will - I mean, unless he stays there until he somehow passes out from thirst and is removed, unconscious, by an ambulance days later, he's going to have to cave eventually.
Re: Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
In other countries this idiocy would not have taken place to begin with.
If you refuse to cooperate with security in England, Germany, France, Italy, China, Burma, India, or any other place I can imagine, you would not have a policeman calmly understanding of how you were asserting your constitutional rights.
Burma, India you are probably right, Italy I can't vouch for, England, France and Germany you'd be fine.
Re: Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
#87I just want to know what the TSA supervisor expected would happen if he DID choose to go back to customs. Then what? Where does he go? He has no ticket, no boarding pass. He can't get on a plane. I don't see how refusing could possible end any other way than for him to walk out of there. Surely even as he was saying this, he'd have realised how absurd it was. As a tourist, I wouldn't risk it...too easy to put you bac…
> Then what? Where does he go?
Re: Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
#88The trouble with the Internet is that it's so hard for the government to keep secrets anymore. It's exciting to see in real time how American citizens are working together to challenge and change unreasonable government policy. First by broadcasting government abuse and now by documenting successful tactics.
One thing that came out in this blog post -- it seems there may be a policy that the TSA employees are specifically forbidden to wear radiation dosimetry badges. What!? How in the world is this a sane policy? Who is this policy meant to protect?
I was under the impression that all of the "x-ray" scanners aren't x-rays. Instead they are high frequency (100GHz+) back scattering machines.
The ones in the MKE air port are L3 ProVisions which fit the description I was aware of (http://www.sds.l-3com.com/products/mmwave.htm). No ionizing radiation means no "x-rays" etc.
I haven't been subjected to them yet, but before I walked into the airport I made my decision if I was going to be scanned or not.
Re: Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
#89If you do not like the TSA's policies, please take a moment to write your representatives:
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/reference/common/faq/How_to_contact_se...
Re: Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a lot of TSA employees wore dosimeters, chances are there would be at least one false positive and the media would latch onto it.
Of course, the chance of there being a true positive is nill. Government equipment never malfunctions. So it's better to ban dosimeters and eliminate the possibility of a media problem.
I did not say anything like what you are suggesting. Those are all things to be concerned about, but dosimeters aren't an effective way to measure or prevent them. If the backscatter machines are completely safe, dosimeters for such a large group will still cause a panic because there will be false positives. There are other devices that can measure radiation more accurately and reliably.
I feel contempt for the TSA as much as everyone else around here, but one has to be aware of the halo/horn effect. I don't know if banning dosimeters is the best decision, but I can see why they did it, and it seems rather unobjectionable compared to most of the TSA's actions and policies.