As the holidays unfold in full force, more and more travelers are talking about the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) full-body scanners cropping up in America’s airports, and the talk is getting loud.
So far, more than 400 scanners have been deployed at 70 airports around the country, with plans for some 1,000 to be installed as the system is fully enforced. And many US travelers are not happy about it. As the Thanksgiving holiday approached, an Internet boycott was encouraged, although it did not precipitate any actual participation, as many media outlets had predicted.
But, many argue the boycott served the purpose of bringing a serious issue to light – the act of being unlawfully or unreasonably searched and/or seized, which could amount to a violation of the 4th Amendment. This argument seems very apparent, but as with many Constitutional issues, the entire story is somewhat more complex, and is fixed in judicial precedent rather than in the specific wording of the Amendment.
As a matter of law, an airport security screening is considered an administrative search, and is allowable if executed for the specific purpose of attempting to locate weapons or explosives, and is exercised in a very limited way for that purpose. It is further argued, in a general sense, that flying is a privilege rather than a right (as with driving, and the resulting increased regulation in that arena), and that a person may simply forgo that privilege if she or he is uncomfortable with the established procedures involved.
Undeterred by this deconstruction of the legalese, and buoyed by the near unassailable power of the First Amendment, a bumper crop of techno-savvy protest clothing has sprung up to allow people to vent their frustrations. The clothing items, which include men’s and women’s underwear printed with metallic ink that will provide a sharp reminder to the TSA screener of the wearer’s Constitutional rights, may miss the mark in a more critical examination of the issue.
But, many feel it highlights a deeper, more fundamental matter – that basic rights are slowly being chipped away by a government that relies on fear to justify increasing invasions into the privacy of its citizens. What’s more, the very attentive have noticed that the Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, pushed the TSA to purchase scanners from Rapiscan, which takes consulting advice from the Chertoff Group.
Safety over privacy, though, seems to be the driving question within the debate. Can the US remain safe without full-body scanners? The answer right now, according to the TSA, is no. But, it is every citizen’s right, and some would even say duty, to ask whether these choices are in fact criminally negligent.
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Many that support the TSA ask, “if these pat downs stop one plane from hitting one building isn’t it worth it?” That question may be decided in court. When determining what is a ‘reasonable’ search under the fourth amendment, courts weigh the increase in security against the cost of invasion of privacy. Security experts agree that the enhanced pat-downs are not effective. The Govt. Accounting Office concluded that the (expensive) new scanners would not have detected the underwear bomber. These new measures are just ‘security theater’, making people feel safer with no actual increase in security.
These scanners are about safe as the government told us cigarettes were.
The shakedowns at the TSA screening points are illegal because the TSA is forcing citizens to “choose” which of their right they will surrender – which is no choice at all. They aren’t giving the traveller the right to decline to have their federally protected rights violated.
These are the choices:
1. surrender 4th amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure (porno-scan or grope)
2. surrender 8th amendment rights against excessive fines (11,000 dollars? Get real!)
3. surrender right described in U.S. Code 40103 (A)2 American citizen’s right to transit navigable airspace (avoid flying in order to avoid government sponsored abuse)
Please recall that the Bill of Rights was not intended to deny citizens rights not specifically enumerated, nor disparage these other rights. (That would be amendment 9, if you’re keeping track.)
Furthermore, the TSA and the DHS planned together to effect this denial of rights, which means their officials should be prosecuted for their malfeasance under
18 U.S.C. 241
and since these crimes are being committed “Under Color of Law”, many of the perpetrators should be prosecuted under
18 U.S.C. 242
Not that any of that is going to happen, but it would be best for the nation if the TSA was reformed or disbanded. These agregious violations of our rights need to stop.
Given the nautre of this forum, it is important that the reader fully consider the serious criminal nature of the “box” that the TSA designed to trap the traveling public into accepting their new backscatter Xray
Can you please address the issue of the government potentially forcing xrays onto a population that have been medically proven to enhance the development of cancer. Further, that said scanners are a form of medical equipment and by any other environment, would require the licensing and proper monitoring of said radiation. Why then is the TSA allowed to perform duties that disobey the laws.
I posted this message to Glenn Beck’s circus earlier this week.
John.
Mr. Beck,
While I am not a fan of your show, and I think you are a buffoon, the issue of TSA breaches of civil liberties is one issue where even you and I agree. In fact, this is one issue where Americans of all political persuasions can come together. TSA “big brother” tactics are clearly beyond the pale of any citizen who holds the 4th Amendment near and dear.
As a proud American socialist, I believe that government has a role in reining in the big business corporate oligarchy, and I want to see a non-profit health insurance system mandated by law. But this does not mean that I, like most socialists I know, are accepting of the TSA’s gross invasion of our privacy. Naked body scanners that reveal the bodies of teenage boys and girls (i.e., child porn) and the groping of genitalia by TSA officers (i.e., sexual molestation) are the kind of affronts that amount to fascist attacks on our personal rights. Of course, I hold the same opinions about laws against abortion, laws against gay marriage, and the use of waterboarding, initiated by the Bush administration and legally unchallenged by the Obama administration.
Mr. Beck, please do not frame the TSA security issue as a “left/right” issue. Although I am a socialist, I joined the Libertarian Party of Washington in protesting TSA measures on “Opt Out Day.” Concerns for our civil liberties are not a position defined by such narrow terms as “left” and “right” or “liberal” and “conservative.” On some issues, you and I will likely always be at loggerheads, but when the rare issue crops up that unites “left” and “right”, we should all take advantage of that to cooperate and work together.
Please let your audience know that this is NOT a left-right divide, but an opportunity for constructive cooperation to push back against the increasingly authoritarian use of government power. To give you some idea of how far to the “left” I am, I will remind you that I consider myself a socialist, and I will point out that Barack Obama, in my estimation, is a center-right corporate Democrat. As a real socialist, I can assure you that Obama is no socialist!
Even so, on the TSA issue, you and I have common ground, as do many of my colleagues. You and I may disagree on what constitutes tyranny, but on this point we are in close agreement. I hope that people like us can build on this common ground to stop the TSA procedures and restore a more sane, dignified environment for people who, like myself, worry about air travel security but are unwilling sacrifice “essential liberties” for the illusion of safety.
Mr. Beck, I am a college professor at an actually accredited institution (unlike your own “Beck U”). I would be happy to appear on your program to highlight the ways in which the far left and far right align on this issue. I can only think it would be a potentially constructive dialogue.
Thank you,
John.
I’m against full body scanners and always have been but if the TSA’s answer to the question of whether the US can remain safe without full body scanners is no, then why did they so readily shut them down and relax security on Opt-Out Day? The answer in my eyes is that they didn’t want people causing a scene in front of the media. Does it not show that they are more concerned with how they look than keeping us safe, when they let a few people protesting change the way they operate? Now I’m glad they turned off the scanners and treated people with dignity for once, but I just think they did it for all the wrong reasons. I’ve never thought the scanners and invasive pat-downs are for our safety but the fact that they do and they waived those so-called safety measures just goes to show how seriously they take safety. It also goes to show that we can do without the so-called safety measures since nothing happened without them.
Don’t put up with this garbage! Boycott Flying COMPLETELY, until sanity returns! Please join us: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Flying/126801010710392
It’s not the TSA that stops terrorists – It’s the CIA and the FBI. Sacrificing your diginity goes against the spirit of freedom; it’s simply disgusting that this hysterical garbage has been allowed- welcome to the realities of an orwellian system – where centralized state control calls the shots, and citizens are simply numbers.
it seems to me nobody is trying to hurt the system where it counts “financially” It is a matter of Law that Rights and the exercise their of can not be taxed
Murdock v Pennsylvania 319 US 105 “No state may convert a secured liberty into a privilege and issue a license or a fee for it”
Crandall v. Nevada Volume 6 Wall US 35 at page 46 “it may be said that a tax of one dollar for passing through the state cannot sensibly affect any function of government or deprive a citizen of any valuable right. but if a state can tax a passenger of one dollar…. it can tax him a thousand dollars”
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Alabama 373 US 262 “if a state does erroneously require a license or afee for the exercise of that right, the citizen may ignore the license and or fee and exercise the right with total impunity”