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Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

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Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#51

Post by tenebrisalietum »

umvi wrote: post #32
Fellshard wrote: post #12

Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect? This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more c…

Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security? If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency. I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians an…

Xians can just start coming in from Y country.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#53

Post by ta999999171 »

c3534l wrote: post #38
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what stops the TSA/DHS from saying "We suspect you are a terrorist; please unlock your phone"? The same thing that stops all tyranny. A vigilant and engaged citizen body. Practically, this means donating to the ACLU and related groups. It also means, if you’re party to injustice, suing or reaching out to organisation who can help you sue to assert our rights.

So we're doomed, then.

Even the headline of the article suggests otherwise.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#54

Post by cdmcmahon »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #35

> the government’s suspicionless searches of international travelers’ smartphones and laptops at airports and other U.S. ports of entry violate the Fourth Amendment So, does this not apply to people flying domestically?

I don't have a source at the ready, but my understanding is that the existing law and/or case law determined that traveling domestically entitled one to such protection. Various federal agencies have determined via rule making that such protections do not extend to international ports of entry/airports for reasons of national security. Those determinations are what have been struck down in this case.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#55

Post by dreamcompiler »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #35

> the government’s suspicionless searches of international travelers’ smartphones and laptops at airports and other U.S. ports of entry violate the Fourth Amendment So, does this not apply to people flying domestically?

No. TSA doesn't search smartphones and laptops, and the searches they do apply to everybody. When you search everybody equally, courts have ruled it's not a 4th amendment violation. See drunk driving checkpoints.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#56

Post by ninetax »

umvi wrote: post #32
Fellshard wrote: post #12

Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect? This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more c…

Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security? If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency. I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians an…

Certainly an unpopular opinion, but perhaps the comment you're responding to means profiling in a different way?

The way I typically understand profiling is that it's done to anyone who has features (skin tone, facial hair, clothes, etc) similar to Xians regardless of those people's actual origin.

And since it's trivial to change your appearance from Xian to whatever-ian it seems pretty useless to profile in that way. Also, really annoying and alienating for those who happen to look like Xian.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#57

Post by knodi123 »

umvi wrote: post #32
Fellshard wrote: post #12

Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect? This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more c…

Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security? If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency. I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians an…

> why is profiling bad in context of airplane security?

Why is airplane security different than other contexts?

> 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country

That's not the real world. There have been white terrorists, christian terrorists, etc. There have been muslim terrorists from most countries. Sometimes they don't look culturally muslim at a glance - maybe we should bring back Fumi-e?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumi-e

> I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians and 0% of Yians.

As an islamic terrorist, you just gave me a fantastic idea about how to beat your security. I won't go into detail, don't want to make it too easy in case some other terror group also figures out how to look like a WASP.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#58

Post by claar »

ars wrote: post #31
MaupitiBlue wrote: post #7

Haven't read the opinion, but I'd anticipate that this will be reversed on appeal. My guess is that this was either an Obama or Clinton judge. Both my Crim Pro and Con Law professors skipped border search cases and summed them up with "you have no rights at the border." That's been the common law since King Tut.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_J._Casper Obama Judge. But you should realize you are basically saying Judges are not impartial arbiters, but rather biased based on who appointed them.

To interpret words, as a judge does, is inherently biased.

Just because two people disagree on an interpretation of law does not mean they are not applying that law in good faith - we all have worldviews and beliefs that naturally color our understanding of reality - which includes our understanding of laws.

We attempt to write laws clearly to avoid personal interpretation, but it's impossible to avoid all interpretation. Thus we appoint wise judges to do so for society. Even wise judges have unique worldviews.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#59

Post by DanTheManPR »

umvi wrote: post #32
Fellshard wrote: post #12

Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect? This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more c…

Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security? If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency. I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians an…

Bruce Schneier had a series of blog posts on that subject, as part of a debate with Sam Harris. Pursuing a strategy that discounts the effects of false negatives leads to whole categories of failures in identifying risks. It's analogous to debates about medical screening - by narrowly focusing on detection, we discount the negative effects of over testing, which can lead to perverse outcomes where we hurt patients more than we help.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/05/the_trouble_w...

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#60

Post by strictnein »

papito wrote: post #52
tus88 wrote: post #20

But are travelers (foreigners) part of "the people"?

There are cases of doing this to U.S. Citizens, in some cases, quite disturbingly, to journalists .

It's no more or less disturbing for journalists to be subjected to this. They're not some special class of protected people.
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