FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
You guys need to read your ticket some time.
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mightyjongyoSour CrrmEast Bay, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
While not related specifically to the backscatter/search discussion, I would like to point out that the TSA is also in charge of checking luggage - including opening them up at random, and whatever else they do to make sure there are no threats in there. You could extend the privacy argument to include that.
While not related specifically to the backscatter/search discussion, I would like to point out that the TSA is also in charge of checking luggage - including opening them up at random, and whatever else they do to make sure there are no threats in there. You could extend the privacy argument to include that.
I don't really understand the point of doing so, outside of highlighting the fact that pretty much everyone is willing to accept some degree of intrusion of privacy to ensure security and most of this is just arguing over price. Most people don't have a problem with their bag being searched in some room in the back of the airport. It is rarely humiliating(not always due to the TSA trolls being a bunch of unprofessional chucklefucks) and isn't much of an inconvenience(typically, see earlier parenthetical). However most folks here do feel being irradiated, having an outline of their junk projected on a screen where anyone walking by can see it, the potential for a public manhandling of their manly bits, the definite inconvenience of having to arrive stupidly early, and the potential inconvenience of missing flights to be too much of a burden.
Unless something has changed, the TSA can make a bitwise copy of just about any for of digital media you bring with you on a flight. I believe the standard of justification they have to meet to do this is approximately, 'I felt like doing it'. That's kinda another issue most people don't care about, mostly because it doesn't effect them.
do you agree that all bags should be xrayed before going on the plane?
what do you feel would be reasonable procedures? if there is a search of every passenger before entering the terminal, there is always a nonzero chance you will miss your flight because of delays through no fault of your own. the only way to avoid that is to not have searching.
I'm fine with baggage x-rays, and I'm fine with checked bags being opened and inspected (as long as TSA agents don't steal anything out of them). It's also not particularly reassuring that the people responsible for ensuring the safety and contents of checked baggage have so little oversight that they can commit theft.
As for backscatter devices, I personally don't object to them, though I respect other people who do.
My main issue is that there have been numerous examples in the news of people being detained for indefinite periods of time and/or publicly humiliated for various reasons, from having body piercings to colostomy and urostomy bags to simply having dirt on their hands. These issues - at least the ones that are reported on in the media - are dealt with in a manner that is neither timely nor discrete.
Also, the following are minor inconveniences, but it's worth mentioning that both the liquids guidelines and the removal of shoes are fucking retarded and need to stop.
Meanwhile there is a litany of voices out there telling us that the intense scrutiny at the TSA checkpoint does very little to keep us safe, and may actually increase risk - whether by making the checkpoint snarl itself a tempting target to a terrorist (or a massacre shooter, in light of recent events) or by diverting travelers to automotive travel, which is far more dangerous per mile.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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mightyjongyoSour CrrmEast Bay, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
Isn't removal of shoes in place because people tried to hide plastic explosive in a shoe? Without backscatter or millimeter wave tech, the only way to catch that is to put it through the carry-on bag scanner. In light of the objections and opt-out of backscatter/mmwave, taking shoes off is the only way to address that.
i'll admit liquids make less sense.
re: TSA oversight, that is where it really has problems. Hiring more people to oversee that doesn't do much, though, nor is it cost effective. You're hiring more people to stand around and do nothing.
I can also agree with the checkpoint snarl being a problem. But if you can improve the scan time of the machines (both body and carry-on scanners), and reduce pat-downs, that would go a long way towards improving the congestion.
Finally got my official Brown Person stamp. Missed a flight (which I'll be real, I probably wasn't gonna make anyway) because I was detained for further questioning in the back room at JFK for an hour.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
I click "awesome" completely ironically there... Ugh.
Today, in this edition of: "It's Good to be White."
So I have two stories.
An ex once set off the chemical detectors. Turns out she was using the same handbag she used to store her Ochem lab notes so the fabric had picked up trace amounts of...questionable materials. Now my ex was a 100 pound blond girl so after a quick double check of the bag we were free to continue.
;
While visiting Las Vegas I had my wallet and phone stolen. I was pretty nervous about having to fly home since I had literally no piece of identifying material on me, nothing with a name, nothing with a picture. So I go to the airport and explain my dilemma. The official calls up an agency that proceeds to ask me a couple of questions about my life, each one getting gradually more specific. After question number 5, in which I'm asked my maternal grandmother's maiden name, I'm given the go ahead. I get a thorough pat down and am allowed to board; whole procedure takes less than 30 minutes.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I have to say, I'm a little taken aback at show stringently some here guard their privacy and person without much concern for context.
Because I generally just do not give a shit at all.
As a white male, I'm routinely stopped in airports around the world. I think it's because people see a vaguely aryan-looking 6'4" male with bluish gray eyes and skin so white it's almost translucent, and they think, "score, I can stop thirty more Armenians without anyone accusing me of racial profiling once I've finished spilling this guy's underwear all over the floor of this security checkpoint and unwrapped the gifts he's bringing home for his niece."
Finally got my official Brown Person stamp. Missed a flight (which I'll be real, I probably wasn't gonna make anyway) because I was detained for further questioning in the back room at JFK for an hour.
Between my mobilization and returning for graduate school, I ended up leaving and returning Taiwan multiple times in the last few years. It was returning from conscription that the TSA appeared for the first time in a US airport (LAX in this case), though for all I know, I just lucked out when I left more than a year earlier.
I've never had any problem with them. At least once, the scanner was broken so it was a nonissue. The rest of the times, it was pretty painless-no pat down, just stand in front of the machine, then proceed through.
I guess being Asian who can speak English pretty fluently is awesome at US airports.
do you agree that all bags should be xrayed before going on the plane?
what do you feel would be reasonable procedures? if there is a search of every passenger before entering the terminal, there is always a nonzero chance you will miss your flight because of delays through no fault of your own. the only way to avoid that is to not have searching.
I'm fine with baggage x-rays, and I'm fine with checked bags being opened and inspected (as long as TSA agents don't steal anything out of them). It's also not particularly reassuring that the people responsible for ensuring the safety and contents of checked baggage have so little oversight that they can commit theft.
As for backscatter devices, I personally don't object to them, though I respect other people who do.
My main issue is that there have been numerous examples in the news of people being detained for indefinite periods of time and/or publicly humiliated for various reasons, from having body piercings to colostomy and urostomy bags to simply having dirt on their hands. These issues - at least the ones that are reported on in the media - are dealt with in a manner that is neither timely nor discrete.
Also, the following are minor inconveniences, but it's worth mentioning that both the liquids guidelines and the removal of shoes are fucking retarded and need to stop.
Meanwhile there is a litany of voices out there telling us that the intense scrutiny at the TSA checkpoint does very little to keep us safe, and may actually increase risk - whether by making the checkpoint snarl itself a tempting target to a terrorist (or a massacre shooter, in light of recent events) or by diverting travelers to automotive travel, which is far more dangerous per mile.
it seems that you don't like implied consent to search when you fly because the current implementation of the actual search is not good. which I don't think anyone would disagree with.
Europe doesn't make you take your shoes off, IIRC.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I never understand the ladies that wear, like, giant strappy sandals to the airport.
I never understand the ladies that wear, like, giant strappy sandals most places. Female human beings in DC call those their "work shoes," because the shoes live in the bottom drawer of their desk at work. They change into cross-trainers at the end of the day to walk to the metro.
Europe doesn't make you take your shoes off, IIRC.
I had to in London and Edinburgh. I won't forget that, because it was winter and I had the most impossible pair of boots on.
The only time I've had to take my shoes off in the past little while while flying is to/from the US. Canada -> Europe and back, nope. Domestic flights, nope, only when going to the US
Europe doesn't make you take your shoes off, IIRC.
I had to in London and Edinburgh. I won't forget that, because it was winter and I had the most impossible pair of boots on.
The only time I've had to take my shoes off in the past little while while flying is to/from the US. Canada -> Europe and back, nope. Domestic flights, nope, only when going to the US
The to/from is important, yes. The FAA makes entry for commercial international flights into US airspace contingent upon certain security requirements that they've negotiated with the government authorities that run the airports on the originating side. Recall that every incident of terrorism that's involved airtravel in the US since 9/11 involved a flight that originated outside of the US. The "shoebomber" who is responsible for making you take off your footwear boarded a flight bound to the US from Paris. The underwear bomber who didn't realize apparently that you need a container to explosively detonate a combustible material incinerated his testicles in Detroit, but he boarded that plane in Amsterdam.
Our government is responsible for most of the shit you have to deal with when flying overseas into an American airport. Although I happen to think that there's some more reasonable grounds for putting you through this: that's where we've seen attempted terrorist activity.
it seems that you don't like implied consent to search when you fly because the current implementation of the actual search is not good. which I don't think anyone would disagree with.
Europe doesn't make you take your shoes off, IIRC.
Well, no, not exactly. You asked me to elaborate on the reasonableness of the procedures, rather than on my opinions on implied consent.
To be fair to your point, I do think implied consent excuses a wider breadth of privacy intrusion than would be justifiable without implied consent. Just as a contrasting example: there's no implied consent in a pedestrian Terry stop, consequently a Terry stop search justifies a minimal amount of privacy invasion necessary to protect the safety of the officers and the public.
But my issue with implied consent is a little more basic: I think we need to be very careful with assuming consent in situations where the supposedly-consenting actor has limited alternative choices and no negotiation power. As I mentioned above, flying is critical enough that the federal government has bailed out the major airlines multiple times; refusing to fly may bring significant personal or financial repercussions. I think a lot of citizens accept TSA practices not because they consent to them, but under grievance - they feel they have no other choice but to accept whatever the TSA throws at them.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Finally got my official Brown Person stamp. Missed a flight (which I'll be real, I probably wasn't gonna make anyway) because I was detained for further questioning in the back room at JFK for an hour.
Between my mobilization and returning for graduate school, I ended up leaving and returning Taiwan multiple times in the last few years. It was returning from conscription that the TSA appeared for the first time in a US airport (LAX in this case), though for all I know, I just lucked out when I left more than a year earlier.
I've never had any problem with them. At least once, the scanner was broken so it was a nonissue. The rest of the times, it was pretty painless-no pat down, just stand in front of the machine, then proceed through.
I guess being Asian who can speak English pretty fluently is awesome at US airports.
Well everybody knows Asians aren't the problem. :P
I will say, that backroom was pretty awful. Like there were only two guys there handling a roomful (so, like, 30 people) of disgruntled travelers who'd been detained. High Latino representation, maybe because it was JFK. There were guys who'd apparently been in there for the past four hours. I also had the misfortune of hearing about one old Indian dude's history of criminal transgressions in some depth, because he was standing at the front of the room elaborating on them for one of the two guys, with the aid of a Hindi translator; apparently he'd sold alcohol to minors in his store, but was charged with the sale of marijuana. I feel my visit to JFK was thoroughly enriched by having been witness (along with 29 other people) to the painstakingly detailed recounting of this middle-aged man's criminal record.
My deal was pretty much having to tell someone why I'd bought a one-way ticket to Dubai and what I'd been doing there; then, why I'd gone to Karachi for two weeks, and what I'd done there. I asked the guy why I'd been detained, and he pretty much told me it was because I'd been to Dubai and Pakistan.
Implied consent is an interesting term. When you google it, you find it actually has two very different meanings.
One is where we can reasonably assume that the person would consent if they could, or if they were asked. Things like touching someone who is unconscious and needs first aid, or the liberties a firefighter might need to take with your front door to rescue you. Basically, helping people and assuming you don't need to ask first,
Then we have this other 'X is a privilege not a right, and so if you do X, we are going to assume you consent to Y, which is related to the management of X'. And these are things which supposedly benefit society, not that particular individual.
I think we need two different terms, because they aren't the same thing at all.
I haven't seen anyone in the thread get confused about which we were talking about...
True, but I think it's quite a misleading term to use for the second type of 'implied consent', and that colours people's reactions to discussions about it.
You explicitly consent to the rules on searches when you buy a ticket. Perhaps, then, that information should be clearly presented and consent forms should be signed etc etc. I'm not sure if that would have any effect on the TSA in the US, but it would create a useful focal point for discussion between customer and airline, and a point at which objections can be raised, perhaps even tickets left unbought.
There's no need to call it implied consent and avoid the issue of obtaining consent. We can do that openly and explicitly.
I haven't seen anyone in the thread get confused about which we were talking about...
True, but I think it's quite a misleading term to use for the second type of 'implied consent', and that colours people's reactions to discussions about it.
You explicitly consent to the rules on searches when you buy a ticket. Perhaps, then, that information should be clearly presented and consent forms should be signed etc etc. I'm not sure if that would have any effect on the TSA in the US, but it would create a useful focal point for discussion between customer and airline, and a point at which objections can be raised, perhaps even tickets left unbought.
I don't think branding is the problem here. Also, deciding that we're going to call this "explicit" consent is a fraught proposition because in order to explicitly consent to something, it has to be explicitly declared what you are consenting to in unambiguous terms. I don't think very many people would like that; you start running into situations where, for instance, let's say that two weeks ago, a passenger attempted to ignite a combustible liquid sealed in an airtight container, and the TSA decides that the best way to prevent this tactic from being used in the future is to open all airtight containers going forward, but when I purchased my ticket six weeks ago, that was not explicitly enumerated among the various searches to which I had consented.
Finally got my official Brown Person stamp. Missed a flight (which I'll be real, I probably wasn't gonna make anyway) because I was detained for further questioning in the back room at JFK for an hour.
Between my mobilization and returning for graduate school, I ended up leaving and returning Taiwan multiple times in the last few years. It was returning from conscription that the TSA appeared for the first time in a US airport (LAX in this case), though for all I know, I just lucked out when I left more than a year earlier.
I've never had any problem with them. At least once, the scanner was broken so it was a nonissue. The rest of the times, it was pretty painless-no pat down, just stand in front of the machine, then proceed through.
I guess being Asian who can speak English pretty fluently is awesome at US airports.
Well everybody knows Asians aren't the problem. :P
I will say, that backroom was pretty awful. Like there were only two guys there handling a roomful (so, like, 30 people) of disgruntled travelers who'd been detained. High Latino representation, maybe because it was JFK. There were guys who'd apparently been in there for the past four hours. I also had the misfortune of hearing about one old Indian dude's history of criminal transgressions in some depth, because he was standing at the front of the room elaborating on them for one of the two guys, with the aid of a Hindi translator; apparently he'd sold alcohol to minors in his store, but was charged with the sale of marijuana. I feel my visit to JFK was thoroughly enriched by having been witness (along with 29 other people) to the painstakingly detailed recounting of this middle-aged man's criminal record.
My deal was pretty much having to tell someone why I'd bought a one-way ticket to Dubai and what I'd been doing there; then, why I'd gone to Karachi for two weeks, and what I'd done there. I asked the guy why I'd been detained, and he pretty much told me it was because I'd been to Dubai and Pakistan.
I don't know if it's white guy awesome, but yeah, it's a pretty sweet gig. I can only speculate that I lucked out further because Taiwanese come in two "flavors"--yellow and brown--and they're pretty much interchangeable (the cousin I most closely grew up with is multiple shades darker than his mother, and his sister is multiple shades lighter than he is)
The best part is I was leaving military service. "Former military personnel returning to our country? Go right ahead!" Honestly, it may have been coming from the fact that I was coming from a country with a known drug enforcement policy that is way, way stricter. I'm really suspect inadvertently smuggling pot out of Taiwan still caries a punishment worse than inadvertently smuggling it into US, so that's one area clear. I still don't know exactly what I would have said if they asked me to elaborate the year and a half I spent in Taiwan beyond "I was born there." "Well, I'm a citizen and wasn't deferred from service...so I was in the army scrubbing laundry and digging ditches."
I haven't seen anyone in the thread get confused about which we were talking about...
True, but I think it's quite a misleading term to use for the second type of 'implied consent', and that colours people's reactions to discussions about it.
You explicitly consent to the rules on searches when you buy a ticket. Perhaps, then, that information should be clearly presented and consent forms should be signed etc etc. I'm not sure if that would have any effect on the TSA in the US, but it would create a useful focal point for discussion between customer and airline, and a point at which objections can be raised, perhaps even tickets left unbought.
So I finally got around to reading the opinion on why exactly the new, enhanced searches are not a violation of the fourth amendment.
Just to reiterate for our non-American friends, the fourth amendment of our constitution prohibits our government from conducting unreasonable searches without a warrant and/or probable cause. The TSA is a government agency and are therefore subject to that law.
This right is stringently protected. For example, the courts have ruled that cops can't just arbitrarily stop pedestrians and frisk them without probable cause.
I've quoted the most important bit here:
Finally, the petitioners argue that using AIT for primary screening violates the Fourth Amendment because it is more invasive than is necessary to detect weapons or explosives. In view of the Supreme Court’s “repeated[] refus[al] to declare that only the least intrusive search practicable can be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,” [...], and considering the measures taken by the TSA to safeguard personal privacy, we hold AIT screening does not violate the Fourth Amendment.
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. An administrative search does not require individualized suspicion. [...] (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.”
That balance clearly favors the Government here. The need to search airline passengers “to ensure public safety can be particularly acute,” [...], and, crucially, an AIT scanner, unlike a magnetometer, is capable of detecting, and therefore of deterring, attempts to carry aboard airplanes explosives in liquid or powder form. On the other side of the balance, we must acknowledge the steps the TSA has already taken to protect passenger privacy, in particular distorting the image created using AIT and deleting it as soon as the passenger has been cleared. More telling, any passenger may opt-out of AIT screening in favor of a patdown, which allows him to decide which of the two options for detecting a concealed, nonmetallic weapon or explosive is least invasive.
Contrary to the EPIC’s argument, it is not determinative that AIT is not the last step in a potentially escalating series of search techniques. In Hartwell, from which the petitioners tease out this argument, the Third Circuit upheld an airport search that started with a walk-through magnetometer, thence to scanning with a hand-held magnetometer and, when the TSA officer encountered a bulge in the passenger’s pocket, progressed (according to the passenger) to the officer’s removing a package of crack cocaine from that pocket. [...] The court noted, however, that its opinion, while describing the search at issue there as “minimally intrusive,” did “not purport to set the outer limits of intrusiveness in the airport context.” [...]
Nothing in Hartwell, that is, suggests the AIT scanners must be minimally intrusive to be consistent with the Fourth Amendment.
I disagree with the courts.
I think they've made a mistake when it comes to their reasoning around the "least intrusive search." They've said that the TSA is not obligated to perform the "least intrusive search" that satisfies their obligation to find weapons and explosives. But I completely disagree. The courts have granted an exception to the fourth amendment. As such, that exception should be made in the most limited fashion available. I think maintaining privacy as much as we can is core to the spirit of the constitution.
I think they've overestimated the TSA's commitment to privacy, which seems very important to the decision. I'd be interested in seeing another petition centered around demonstrating the TSA's systemic lack of respect of traveler's privacy. (Hell, maybe my balls could become plaintiffs.)
I think the courts have underestimated the harm that a full body scan or a manual search causes some air travelers. I would be interested in seeing petitions by transgendered plaintiffs, for example, or others who are done harm by a search.
I also think think that they have not fully considered the escalating nature of these types of screenings -- in other words, if the only grounds the government needs to conduct an administrative search is the possibility of terrorism, then it follows that these types of screenings would be permissible almost everywhere. Such a world, however, would absolutely violate the fourth amendment. Else, the court should clearly outline what makes airports special, which they haven't done.
I also think that they're doing some strange reasoning with the "administrative search." They've said that "the primary goal is not to determine whether any passenger has committed a crime but rather to protect the public from a terrorist attack." That might be the primary goal, but it's not the actual result. The actual result is a complete search for all illegal activity. I think that the court should have conducted their reasoning in light of that fact, as they have seem to do with other searches. In fact, they don't have any real test for that being a "primary goal" -- they just take the TSA at face value. But in fact, I would wager that the overwhelming majority (99+%) of persons arrested at TSA checkpoints have not been agents of terrorism. Given that fact, the reasoning about preventing terrorism as a primary goal seems extremely dubious. (Contrast that with breathilizer checkpoints on New Year's Eve, for example, or other kinds of administrative searches.)
I will note that the "you can choose not to fly" argument is not found in the decision. So can we stop using that please?
I also think think that they have not fully considered the escalating nature of these types of screenings -- in other words, if the only grounds the government needs to conduct an administrative search is the possibility of terrorism, then it follows that these types of screenings would be permissible almost everywhere. Such a world, however, would absolutely violate the fourth amendment. Else, the court should clearly outline what makes airports special, which they haven't done.
I think the courts didn't feel the need to explicitly specify why airline passengers are a unique population when it comes to administrative searches. Do you really think the court needed to spend a paragraph or two explaining why airports are special?
The goal and intent behind the search is paramount to whether it is an administrative search. The actual result is not the focus of the 4th amendment analysis.
They aren't really a exemption to the fourth, they just use a different standard of reasonable.
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mightyjongyoSour CrrmEast Bay, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
Well...I, personally, don't have much of a problem with it, because I can't think of another way besides AIT which could possibly discover threats of a non-metal nature. Granted other people have different thresholds. But perceived effectiveness aside, how would you propose to discover liquid and plastic explosives without AIT? Besides this, the only other thing to address is how to force the TSA to take privacy more seriously.
I think I would also like to hear more about why people are so upset about it.
No one here is a stickler for rote legality in each and every instance. America has a long history of amending its laws to better fit the needs of the times, so merely breaking Constitutionality can't be it, can it?
I mean, we're not all prohibitionists here are we? And we still agree that the 13th Amendment is a good thing?
I think I would also like to hear more about why people are so upset about it.
No here is a stickler for rote legality in each and every instance. America has a long history of amending its laws to better fit the needs of the times, so merely breaking Constitutionality can't be it, can it?
I mean, we're not all prohibitionists here are we? And we still agree that the 13th Amendment is a good thing?
Ross, the reason why people are so upset is all over this thread.
I also think think that they have not fully considered the escalating nature of these types of screenings -- in other words, if the only grounds the government needs to conduct an administrative search is the possibility of terrorism, then it follows that these types of screenings would be permissible almost everywhere. Such a world, however, would absolutely violate the fourth amendment. Else, the court should clearly outline what makes airports special, which they haven't done.
I think the courts didn't feel the need to explicitly specify why airline passengers are a unique population when it comes to administrative searches. Do you really think the court needed to spend a paragraph or two explaining why airports are special?
The goal and intent behind the search is paramount to whether it is an administrative search. The actual result is not the focus of the 4th amendment analysis.
The goal and intent, how are those verifiable? I had a paragraph in my response about it:
I also think that they're doing some strange reasoning with the "administrative search." They've said that "the primary goal is not to determine whether any passenger has committed a crime but rather to protect the public from a terrorist attack." That might be the primary goal, but it's not the actual result. The actual result is a complete search for all illegal activity. I think that the court should have conducted their reasoning in light of that fact, as they have seem to do with other searches. In fact, they don't have any real test for that being a "primary goal" -- they just take the TSA at face value. But in fact, I would wager that the overwhelming majority (99+%) of persons arrested at TSA checkpoints have not been agents of terrorism. Given that fact, the reasoning about preventing terrorism as a primary goal seems extremely dubious. (Contrast that with breathilizer checkpoints on New Year's Eve, for example, or other kinds of administrative searches.)
I had the native born safety at least when dealing with the TSA. I have very generic name, so somewhere there was another person with my full name who had done something terrible to get on the watchlist. From 2001-2007, it was anywhere from 10-45 minutes extra at the airport because of this to make sure I wasn't the terrorist John Doe. It finally stopped once the airline databases and the TSA linked properly. According to the airline workers at the desk, the terror watchlist in the beginning was a manual database. They had to go into a back room and Ctrl+F the name and compare the data they had to make sure it didn't match.
The main thing I learned from them is that the government only cares about you for the brief moment you are in their sights. Things would probably be easier if they did keep better track of people. There are foreign born coworkers who seem to have to give their life story every time to get back into the U.S. That makes no sense.
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Mostly because as Fencingsax points out you agreed to that search when you bought your ticket.
I don't really understand the point of doing so, outside of highlighting the fact that pretty much everyone is willing to accept some degree of intrusion of privacy to ensure security and most of this is just arguing over price. Most people don't have a problem with their bag being searched in some room in the back of the airport. It is rarely humiliating(not always due to the TSA trolls being a bunch of unprofessional chucklefucks) and isn't much of an inconvenience(typically, see earlier parenthetical). However most folks here do feel being irradiated, having an outline of their junk projected on a screen where anyone walking by can see it, the potential for a public manhandling of their manly bits, the definite inconvenience of having to arrive stupidly early, and the potential inconvenience of missing flights to be too much of a burden.
Unless something has changed, the TSA can make a bitwise copy of just about any for of digital media you bring with you on a flight. I believe the standard of justification they have to meet to do this is approximately, 'I felt like doing it'. That's kinda another issue most people don't care about, mostly because it doesn't effect them.
I'm fine with baggage x-rays, and I'm fine with checked bags being opened and inspected (as long as TSA agents don't steal anything out of them). It's also not particularly reassuring that the people responsible for ensuring the safety and contents of checked baggage have so little oversight that they can commit theft.
As for backscatter devices, I personally don't object to them, though I respect other people who do.
My main issue is that there have been numerous examples in the news of people being detained for indefinite periods of time and/or publicly humiliated for various reasons, from having body piercings to colostomy and urostomy bags to simply having dirt on their hands. These issues - at least the ones that are reported on in the media - are dealt with in a manner that is neither timely nor discrete.
Also, the following are minor inconveniences, but it's worth mentioning that both the liquids guidelines and the removal of shoes are fucking retarded and need to stop.
Meanwhile there is a litany of voices out there telling us that the intense scrutiny at the TSA checkpoint does very little to keep us safe, and may actually increase risk - whether by making the checkpoint snarl itself a tempting target to a terrorist (or a massacre shooter, in light of recent events) or by diverting travelers to automotive travel, which is far more dangerous per mile.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
i'll admit liquids make less sense.
re: TSA oversight, that is where it really has problems. Hiring more people to oversee that doesn't do much, though, nor is it cost effective. You're hiring more people to stand around and do nothing.
I can also agree with the checkpoint snarl being a problem. But if you can improve the scan time of the machines (both body and carry-on scanners), and reduce pat-downs, that would go a long way towards improving the congestion.
So I have two stories.
An ex once set off the chemical detectors. Turns out she was using the same handbag she used to store her Ochem lab notes so the fabric had picked up trace amounts of...questionable materials. Now my ex was a 100 pound blond girl so after a quick double check of the bag we were free to continue.
;
While visiting Las Vegas I had my wallet and phone stolen. I was pretty nervous about having to fly home since I had literally no piece of identifying material on me, nothing with a name, nothing with a picture. So I go to the airport and explain my dilemma. The official calls up an agency that proceeds to ask me a couple of questions about my life, each one getting gradually more specific. After question number 5, in which I'm asked my maternal grandmother's maiden name, I'm given the go ahead. I get a thorough pat down and am allowed to board; whole procedure takes less than 30 minutes.
Because I generally just do not give a shit at all.
Between my mobilization and returning for graduate school, I ended up leaving and returning Taiwan multiple times in the last few years. It was returning from conscription that the TSA appeared for the first time in a US airport (LAX in this case), though for all I know, I just lucked out when I left more than a year earlier.
I've never had any problem with them. At least once, the scanner was broken so it was a nonissue. The rest of the times, it was pretty painless-no pat down, just stand in front of the machine, then proceed through.
I guess being Asian who can speak English pretty fluently is awesome at US airports.
it seems that you don't like implied consent to search when you fly because the current implementation of the actual search is not good. which I don't think anyone would disagree with.
Europe doesn't make you take your shoes off, IIRC.
I had to in London and Edinburgh. I won't forget that, because it was winter and I had the most impossible pair of boots on.
I've flown a lot in my life. I usually wear shoes that are easy to take off now.
Generally my rule as well, but winter in Northern Scotland might have a person rethinking a thing or two.
Edinburgh during winter is not conducive to shoes that slip off easily, unfortunately.
Hell, the wind in Edinburgh will likely blow off any footwear not lashed on tightly.
I never understand the ladies that wear, like, giant strappy sandals most places. Female human beings in DC call those their "work shoes," because the shoes live in the bottom drawer of their desk at work. They change into cross-trainers at the end of the day to walk to the metro.
The only time I've had to take my shoes off in the past little while while flying is to/from the US. Canada -> Europe and back, nope. Domestic flights, nope, only when going to the US
The to/from is important, yes. The FAA makes entry for commercial international flights into US airspace contingent upon certain security requirements that they've negotiated with the government authorities that run the airports on the originating side. Recall that every incident of terrorism that's involved airtravel in the US since 9/11 involved a flight that originated outside of the US. The "shoebomber" who is responsible for making you take off your footwear boarded a flight bound to the US from Paris. The underwear bomber who didn't realize apparently that you need a container to explosively detonate a combustible material incinerated his testicles in Detroit, but he boarded that plane in Amsterdam.
Our government is responsible for most of the shit you have to deal with when flying overseas into an American airport. Although I happen to think that there's some more reasonable grounds for putting you through this: that's where we've seen attempted terrorist activity.
Well, no, not exactly. You asked me to elaborate on the reasonableness of the procedures, rather than on my opinions on implied consent.
To be fair to your point, I do think implied consent excuses a wider breadth of privacy intrusion than would be justifiable without implied consent. Just as a contrasting example: there's no implied consent in a pedestrian Terry stop, consequently a Terry stop search justifies a minimal amount of privacy invasion necessary to protect the safety of the officers and the public.
But my issue with implied consent is a little more basic: I think we need to be very careful with assuming consent in situations where the supposedly-consenting actor has limited alternative choices and no negotiation power. As I mentioned above, flying is critical enough that the federal government has bailed out the major airlines multiple times; refusing to fly may bring significant personal or financial repercussions. I think a lot of citizens accept TSA practices not because they consent to them, but under grievance - they feel they have no other choice but to accept whatever the TSA throws at them.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Well everybody knows Asians aren't the problem. :P
I will say, that backroom was pretty awful. Like there were only two guys there handling a roomful (so, like, 30 people) of disgruntled travelers who'd been detained. High Latino representation, maybe because it was JFK. There were guys who'd apparently been in there for the past four hours. I also had the misfortune of hearing about one old Indian dude's history of criminal transgressions in some depth, because he was standing at the front of the room elaborating on them for one of the two guys, with the aid of a Hindi translator; apparently he'd sold alcohol to minors in his store, but was charged with the sale of marijuana. I feel my visit to JFK was thoroughly enriched by having been witness (along with 29 other people) to the painstakingly detailed recounting of this middle-aged man's criminal record.
My deal was pretty much having to tell someone why I'd bought a one-way ticket to Dubai and what I'd been doing there; then, why I'd gone to Karachi for two weeks, and what I'd done there. I asked the guy why I'd been detained, and he pretty much told me it was because I'd been to Dubai and Pakistan.
One is where we can reasonably assume that the person would consent if they could, or if they were asked. Things like touching someone who is unconscious and needs first aid, or the liberties a firefighter might need to take with your front door to rescue you. Basically, helping people and assuming you don't need to ask first,
Then we have this other 'X is a privilege not a right, and so if you do X, we are going to assume you consent to Y, which is related to the management of X'. And these are things which supposedly benefit society, not that particular individual.
I think we need two different terms, because they aren't the same thing at all.
True, but I think it's quite a misleading term to use for the second type of 'implied consent', and that colours people's reactions to discussions about it.
You explicitly consent to the rules on searches when you buy a ticket. Perhaps, then, that information should be clearly presented and consent forms should be signed etc etc. I'm not sure if that would have any effect on the TSA in the US, but it would create a useful focal point for discussion between customer and airline, and a point at which objections can be raised, perhaps even tickets left unbought.
There's no need to call it implied consent and avoid the issue of obtaining consent. We can do that openly and explicitly.
I don't think branding is the problem here. Also, deciding that we're going to call this "explicit" consent is a fraught proposition because in order to explicitly consent to something, it has to be explicitly declared what you are consenting to in unambiguous terms. I don't think very many people would like that; you start running into situations where, for instance, let's say that two weeks ago, a passenger attempted to ignite a combustible liquid sealed in an airtight container, and the TSA decides that the best way to prevent this tactic from being used in the future is to open all airtight containers going forward, but when I purchased my ticket six weeks ago, that was not explicitly enumerated among the various searches to which I had consented.
I don't know if it's white guy awesome, but yeah, it's a pretty sweet gig. I can only speculate that I lucked out further because Taiwanese come in two "flavors"--yellow and brown--and they're pretty much interchangeable (the cousin I most closely grew up with is multiple shades darker than his mother, and his sister is multiple shades lighter than he is)
The best part is I was leaving military service. "Former military personnel returning to our country? Go right ahead!" Honestly, it may have been coming from the fact that I was coming from a country with a known drug enforcement policy that is way, way stricter. I'm really suspect inadvertently smuggling pot out of Taiwan still caries a punishment worse than inadvertently smuggling it into US, so that's one area clear. I still don't know exactly what I would have said if they asked me to elaborate the year and a half I spent in Taiwan beyond "I was born there." "Well, I'm a citizen and wasn't deferred from service...so I was in the army scrubbing laundry and digging ditches."
Me neither.
Just to reiterate for our non-American friends, the fourth amendment of our constitution prohibits our government from conducting unreasonable searches without a warrant and/or probable cause. The TSA is a government agency and are therefore subject to that law.
This right is stringently protected. For example, the courts have ruled that cops can't just arbitrarily stop pedestrians and frisk them without probable cause.
I've quoted the most important bit here:
I disagree with the courts.
I think they've made a mistake when it comes to their reasoning around the "least intrusive search." They've said that the TSA is not obligated to perform the "least intrusive search" that satisfies their obligation to find weapons and explosives. But I completely disagree. The courts have granted an exception to the fourth amendment. As such, that exception should be made in the most limited fashion available. I think maintaining privacy as much as we can is core to the spirit of the constitution.
I think they've overestimated the TSA's commitment to privacy, which seems very important to the decision. I'd be interested in seeing another petition centered around demonstrating the TSA's systemic lack of respect of traveler's privacy. (Hell, maybe my balls could become plaintiffs.)
I think the courts have underestimated the harm that a full body scan or a manual search causes some air travelers. I would be interested in seeing petitions by transgendered plaintiffs, for example, or others who are done harm by a search.
I also think think that they have not fully considered the escalating nature of these types of screenings -- in other words, if the only grounds the government needs to conduct an administrative search is the possibility of terrorism, then it follows that these types of screenings would be permissible almost everywhere. Such a world, however, would absolutely violate the fourth amendment. Else, the court should clearly outline what makes airports special, which they haven't done.
I also think that they're doing some strange reasoning with the "administrative search." They've said that "the primary goal is not to determine whether any passenger has committed a crime but rather to protect the public from a terrorist attack." That might be the primary goal, but it's not the actual result. The actual result is a complete search for all illegal activity. I think that the court should have conducted their reasoning in light of that fact, as they have seem to do with other searches. In fact, they don't have any real test for that being a "primary goal" -- they just take the TSA at face value. But in fact, I would wager that the overwhelming majority (99+%) of persons arrested at TSA checkpoints have not been agents of terrorism. Given that fact, the reasoning about preventing terrorism as a primary goal seems extremely dubious. (Contrast that with breathilizer checkpoints on New Year's Eve, for example, or other kinds of administrative searches.)
I will note that the "you can choose not to fly" argument is not found in the decision. So can we stop using that please?
I think the courts didn't feel the need to explicitly specify why airline passengers are a unique population when it comes to administrative searches. Do you really think the court needed to spend a paragraph or two explaining why airports are special?
The goal and intent behind the search is paramount to whether it is an administrative search. The actual result is not the focus of the 4th amendment analysis.
They aren't really a exemption to the fourth, they just use a different standard of reasonable.
also Melk I'm not trying to be flippant here
S+S law has a long tradition of contradicting itself, and not making sense except for some obviously desired result by the court was reached.
however I feel like this opinion is pretty solid.
I think I would also like to hear more about why people are so upset about it.
No one here is a stickler for rote legality in each and every instance. America has a long history of amending its laws to better fit the needs of the times, so merely breaking Constitutionality can't be it, can it?
I mean, we're not all prohibitionists here are we? And we still agree that the 13th Amendment is a good thing?
Ross, the reason why people are so upset is all over this thread.
The goal and intent, how are those verifiable? I had a paragraph in my response about it:
The main thing I learned from them is that the government only cares about you for the brief moment you are in their sights. Things would probably be easier if they did keep better track of people. There are foreign born coworkers who seem to have to give their life story every time to get back into the U.S. That makes no sense.