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Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

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61–70 of 617 posts

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

#61
post #20

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

That's an interesting question. It's not restricted to only citizens (so applies to immigrants, etc.) but may not extend as travelers who are passing through or has no real connection to the country. Ref: US vs. Verdugo-Urquidez

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

#62

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…

This ruling has nothing to do with TSA. TSA does not control US borders.

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

#63
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'll (possibly inaccurately) assume this is in good faith. The most obvious reason that profiling is bad, even in your inaccurate and simplistic hypothetical scenario, is that just because all airplane terrorist attacks came from people of X country, does not imply that everyone from X country commits terrorist airplane attacks. Therefore you are unfairly and immorally forcing invasive searches on many innocent peopl…

> Therefore you are unfairly and immorally forcing invasive searches on many innocent people of X country. If you have any empathy for the innocent people of X country, you will realize how horrible this is.

Okay, we are talking about an extra 5 minutes of scrutiny, not cruel and unusual punishment. I don't think it's really that "horrible" to make people from countries with bad track records jump through some extra hoops.

To use a real example... it would be like me doing extra background checks on Chinese people applying to my company vs. Norwegian people. Not all Chinese people are spies, of course, but I've never heard of Norwegian moles infiltrating US companies and lifting IP back to the motherland being a rampant problem.

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

#64
> An immigration officer at Boston Logan Airport reportedly searched an incoming Harvard freshman’s cell phone and laptop, reprimanded the student for friends’ social media postings expressing views critical of the U.S. government, and denied the student entry into the country following the search.

Jesus Christ.

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

#66

OK, so what stops the TSA/DHS from saying "We suspect you are a terrorist; please unlock your phone"? Their actions have effectively said that for almost 20 years.

Presumably this gives you a much stronger case if you then decide to sue. If enough people do that, it starts to become a deterrent.

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

#67
post #32

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…

If it were the case (with 100% and 0%), then sure. But that is not the case.

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

#68
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Their phones can expose sources that depend on discretion, and it's not farfetched for some MAGA TSA agent to ratf--k a journalist.

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

#69
post #32

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…

Because it disproportionally burdens all innocent Xians who did nothing wrong.

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

#70
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not quite. I’m saying that liberal judges tend to ignore the law when it comes to highly political issues. For example, how many opinions have you read from Ginsburg where she says “I personally disagree with this outcome, but the law is clear.”? Quite rarely.

I would argue that this is not really a "liberal" thing. Up until the 1970's the courts (including the Supreme Court) regularly found that the right to bear arms was in the context of establishing a militia, and not really a personal right. They consistently citied the "A well regulated Militia" part. The law was clear.

Nowadays Supreme Court president effectively ignores the militia part, and has created a personal right mostly out of whole cloth. So 200 years of president out the window, mostly for a political issue.

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