Jaunted posits VIPR as the greater long-term problem

Etc.

Bottom line is that they nabbed this guy for transporting drugs, not for anything dangerous he was harboring to bring down a plane. It's overreach.

Other than that, I don't know how you guys read this stuff. So many qualifications, so many subordinate clauses, so many citations of previous case law. Yeesh.

 

Oh, god, if only all this were true:

 

Your guess is as good as mine.

Yes.

I think eventually one will.

 

They might find airport searches unreasonable. And this is why I hold out hope.

From Hartwell you can see what an administrative search, even with 'special needs' thrown in, looks like. What the TSA is currently doing does not look like Hartwell at all. The strip searches of little old ladies, child molestations, medical devices checking, separation of kids from parents, exposures to radiation, and the theft! None of these things are envisioned in an administrative search. We just have to get one good case to the Supreme Court.

 

Where are all the other judges out there? Aren't they flying? Aren't their friends/family members/colleagues flying? It's mind-boggling.

 

But the search itself wasn't done unreasonably in an area where he knew there would be an administrative search, so even though we think of it as an overreach, it wasn't really -- at least in the eyes of the law.

And I try very hard not to talk like that here, but I'm thinking it, and it often comes out. I also try to look for accessible cites when I do cite. This is why I try to cite to wikipedia on TUG - wikipedia is usually pretty readable, although not always entirely correct. If I cite to too many actual cases, it's just too painful.

 

Judges can't just rule on cases. A case has to be brought to them. And as we know, we have to overcome the jurisdictional issue before any case can be heard on the merits.

 

During the days approaching the tenth anniversary of 9/11/01, the NYPD ran checkpoints of personal vehicles, where trunks were opened.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/n...-as-security-is-increased.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1AD6kDOYQo

As far as I know, no one challenged this practice in court. I do not know how much, or whether, DHS was involved, but it would no surprise me if these checkpoints were directed by DHS.

It seems that all it would take would be a declaration of an imminent threat -- as was announced repeatedly against NY during that week -- for the TSA to perform warrantless highway searches.

 

TSA, police work together at Amtrak station
http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/operations-67982-security-tsa.html

 

IIRC, one also needed identification to prove they had business or lived in the area around the WTC.

 

The NYPD pulled that crap a few months ago during the Occupy protests and eviction.

I worked blocks from the Twin Towers in 2001, and a week later, when we were able to return to our office, we had to show proof that we worked in the area. At the time, it somewhat made sense, given the destruction blocks away, but I remarked to a friend --

The seeds of the TSA and "anything for security" had thus been planted within days of the attacks.

 

Your prescience is frightening.

 

I sent the following e-mail to the author of this article about a VIPR operation at a small Amtrak station in Illinois.

http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/operations-67982-security-tsa.html

The author just sent me the following reply.

I imagine this is a scenario played out at newspapers across the country, and it's a shame that so much of journalism has been reduced to, "get a photo; get some quotes about what's going on; get the story out within a half-hour."

 

I could have written a caption for the photograph in about 30 seconds:

"Well, folks, here they are the DHS/TSA doing what they do best, secret stuff for secret purposes that waste our tax dollars and add to their bloated bureaucracy."

Done!

 

Journalism standards have sunk a bit in Alton since Elijah Parish Lovejoy, editor of the Alton Observer, took a stand against slavery and was lynched by a mob from the other side of the river.

 

I've moved the posts about the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel operation to the own thread:

VIPR strikes again: 90 minute traffic backup & multiple accidents @ Hampton weigh-station operation