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Airport Security Is Killing Us

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101–110 of 262 posts

Re: Airport Security Is Killing Us

#101
post #59
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Custody searches in this context are forbidden by the fourth amendment, by the way, regardless of what the TSA's legal team may claim. As is x-raying baggage and body-scans. Fourth amendment rights don't apply to the same extent when you are on private property, when there are balancing security concerns, when you enter a courthouse, when you enter a school, etc. You know the deal when you enter these places and yo…

What's the point of a right if it can be violated where you most need it?

Why do you need the right to not be searched at an airport or courthouse more than any place else? Speaking in hyperbole, I would rather have my fourth amendment rights broken voluntarily at an airport or by necessity at a courthouse than, for example, while I'm at home sleeping with my family or walking down the street minding my own business. While I disagree with the TSA searches and do not fly for that very reason, I also fundamentally disagree that you most need the fourth amendment protections while entering an airport.

Re: Airport Security Is Killing Us

#102
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of a right if it can be violated where you most need it?

Why do you need the right to not be searched at an airport or courthouse more than any place else? Speaking in hyperbole, I would rather have my fourth amendment rights broken voluntarily at an airport or by necessity at a courthouse than, for example, while I'm at home sleeping with my family or walking down the street minding my own business. While I disagree with the TSA searches and do not fly for that very reaso…

We need standards and accountability if we're willing to accept that situations exist where safety trumps rights. I haven't seen a threat that warranted an ongoing suspension of rights.

Re: Airport Security Is Killing Us

#103
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they're not. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld an exemption for searches in the context of airport security under the doctrine of administrative searches, where the state's legitimate interest overrides the cost (to individuals) of the search, and where no one person is singled out by the searches. Your argument doesn't even follow logically, as all the 4th Amendment requires is that searches be "reasonable"…

It's also important to note that you consent to the search by choosing to travel by air in the United States.

That's such a bad argument. I do no such thing. However, the reality of my profession requires me to fly. So I "consent" only under considerable duress. The choice is literally "put food on the table" or submit to incredibly intrusive security.

That's not consent, that's coercion.

Re: Airport Security Is Killing Us

#104
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has the highest murder rate of the developed world, higher even than a chunk of developing countries. My quick glace showed America at 4.2, the next developed country is Finland at 2.2, so living in America you're 1.9 times more likely to be murdered than any other developed country. Of course, the vast majority of Developed countries have a murder rate less than 1.0 per 100,000 people. http://en.wikipedia.or…

The United States is very large, and the homicide rate varies wildly between states and cities. Where I live, Oregon, the homicide rate is 2.1 per 100,000 people, a little bit better than Finland as a whole. Hawaii is at 1.2, New Hampshire and Vermont are at 1.3, and Minnesota is at 1.4. Contrast those with Louisiana at 11.2 per 100,000 people (!), Mississippi at 8.0, New Mexico at 7.5, and South Carolina at 6.8. It'…

Yes but it's also fairly clear that homicide in the UK is also aligned with socio-economic and racial lines.

It's still far less prevalent than in the US.

Re: Airport Security Is Killing Us

#105
post #95
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be lawful for the TSA to search through your underwear, but not lawful for them to feel you up? Where would the Constitution be drawing that line? The fact of the matter is that it's SCOTUS that sets the standards here, not the Constitution.

Correct. My point is that SCOTUS has not said word one about these standards. "Constitutionally reasonable administrative searches" in the context of an airport are legal, per SCOTUS. Consent has nothing to do with it, that concept does not apply here. But, critically, SCOTUS has never ruled on whether the current TSA techniques are constitutionally reasonable. The only thing for sure is that the 3rd says that they m…

Nobody will cheer more loudly than I will if SCOTUS holds that electronic strip searches cross the line from "reasonable" to "unreasonable", but I don't know of a credible constitutional law source that predicts that they will do that, so baldly asserting that these searches are prima facie unconstitutional is a losing argument.

The case you've cited here is one where the 9th circuit held TSA's searches to be reasonable.

Re: Airport Security Is Killing Us

#106
post #75
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they're not. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld an exemption for searches in the context of airport security under the doctrine of administrative searches, where the state's legitimate interest overrides the cost (to individuals) of the search, and where no one person is singled out by the searches. Your argument doesn't even follow logically, as all the 4th Amendment requires is that searches be "reasonable"…

I'm very specifically talking about custody searches, not pat-downs or "enhanced pat-downs" (an imaginary term created by the TSA's marketing team). Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, there has been no Supreme court ruling on the constitutionality of any of these techniques in the context of airport security. I'm glad to be proven wrong. The most relevant ruling I know of was from a half century ago and it wasn't t…

Quoting from the DC Circuit opinion in "EPIC v. Department of Homeland Security":

"""As other circuits have held, and as the Supreme Court has strongly suggested, screening passengers at an airport is an "administrative search" because the primary goal is not to determine whether any passenger has committed a crime but rather to protect the public from a terrorist attack. See United States v. Aukai, 497 F.3d 955, 958–63 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc) (passenger search at airport checkpoint); United States v. Hartwell, 436 F.3d 174, 178–81 (3d Cir. 2006) (Alito, J.) (same); United States v. Edwards, 498 F.2d 496, 499–501 (2d Cir. 1974) (Friendly, J.) (carry-on baggage search at airport); see also Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419 (2004) (police set up checkpoint to obtain information about earlier crash); Mich. Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990) (sobriety checkpoint). An administrative search does not require individualized suspicion. City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 41, 47–48 (2000) (individualized suspicion required when police checkpoint is “primarily [for] general crime control,” that is, “to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing” unlike “searches at places like airports ... where the need for such measures to ensure public safety can be particularly acute”). Instead, whether an administrative search is “unreasonable” within the condemnation of the Fourth Amendment “is determined by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 118-19 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted)."""

The Edwards reference you mentioned is in there, but so are others. In "United States v. Aukai" (2007) the 9th Circuit said "We have held that airport screening searches, like the one at issue here, are constitutionally reasonable administrative searches because they are "conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme in furtherance of an administrative purpose, namely, to prevent the carrying of weapons or explosives aboard aircraft, and thereby to prevent hijackings."

In United States v. Hartwell (3d Cir. 2006), para. 8 "We hold that the search was permissible under the administrative search doctrine. Cf. United States v. Marquez, 410 F.3d 612, 616 (9th Cir.2005) ("Airport screenings of passengers and their baggage constitute administrative searches and are subject to the limitations of the Fourth Amendment.").

These were all easy to find.

Re: Airport Security Is Killing Us

#107
Guys with heavy beards... do you get more attention from the TSA? I heard that any male (regardless of race/religion) with a heavy beard is checked more closely. Has this been true for you or people you know with heavy beards?

Re: Airport Security Is Killing Us

#108
The sad fact is, I think TSA type security is hear to stay, and won't lighten up very much, regardless of the facts that question its efficacy.

Why? Picture this. Someone (likely a politician) crusades hard to have the TSA dismantled, and is successful. No matter how much better the system that replaces it is, there is always a chance that someone slips through and takes down a plane, and 300+ people are killed.

In the throng of people screaming that "something needs to be done to stop this from happening again", who wants to be "that guy" who lobbied to have the TSA dismantled/replaced? Former TSA proponents will jump up and down and scream "See! This is why we can't have nice things!"

I don't think anyone will touch it...

Re: Airport Security Is Killing Us

#109
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting when Americans don't want America as a whole to be compared to other countries as a whole, because inevitably it makes for an unfavorable comparison. Of course looking at a country-wide statistic is an average across the whole country - that's the entire point. I'm sure if you really wanted to, you could find a part of Oregon where the homicide rate is 0.1, but that doesn't tell us much about th…

America has a single federal government, yes. If you just want a ranking, you can go ahead and use the national average. However, America is ridiculously diverse culturally, and just using the national average is useless for understanding anything about America. Perhaps the Americans in the thread aren't trying to avoid an unfavorable comparison - it's not like Americans aren't aware of the pros and cons of their own…

> and just using the national average is useless for understanding anything about America.

I agree. We're talking about understanding America compared to other countries, not things about America internally.

>it's not like Americans aren't aware of the pros and cons of their own country

I completely disagree with that statement. How many times have you heard someone say "Best country in the world" with no understanding of the outside world? I'm continually shocked when meeting Americans that have absolutely no idea their infrastructure, education, health care, leave entitlements and general quality of life sucks compared to the developed world. They genuinely think they are the best in the world because that has been driven into them from day 1.

> relying on averages can be misleading.

Obviously looking at an average is exactly that. An average across the entire population, not a deep dive into where is the highest and where is the lowest, etc.

Re: Airport Security Is Killing Us

#110

Hear. Hear. I want to be able to walk into an airport with my shoes on and walk calmly to an arrival gate to greet arriving passengers there. And I want to be able to carry a Swiss Army knife in an airline carry-on bag. And I want the terrorists to be attacked relentlessly where they live, so that they have to hide in caves and ride on goats, while Americans and other people in developed countries get to lead civiliz…

Why do you assume that all terrorists live in places with caves and goats? The CIRA, RIRA, Irrintzi, and many other such organizations are still active. Assuming the big risk of terrorism is Islamic extremism (and originating from the Middle East) is a naïve, American-centric view: plenty of us live our lives more threatened by local separatist groups than by Islamic extremism. The big risk in the UK today is still I…

I think the IRA and the ANC are great examples to suggest that violence and "relentless attack" aren't necessarily the best options when trying to combat "terrorism".
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