Wade
  • Wade
  • Veteran Member
13 years ago
Going to respond just Re: #1. The unreasonable search argument has little to do with the right to travel argument.

It is about the right to decide when a body is restrictable/invadable. Even if I had no "right to air travel", I have a right not to be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures.

Yes, you can search me if there is one of several public purposes (e.g. public safety) justifying it. But your search must still be reasonable. And reasonable is more than just saying "people might die if we don't do it." Reasonable is establishing a relationship between the search and achievement of the goal to be achieved.

And the burden of proof -- and this is key, and almost always forgotten -- is ON THE GOVT AGENT SEEKING TO SEARCH. The burden is NOT on the person being searched.

And the GOVT AGENT SEEKING TO SEARCH is supposed to satisfy a significant part of that burden of proof BEFORE the search is authorized. That is why "having a search warrant" is the default.

And it is supposed to satisfy that burden of proof with respect to the individual being searched and the extent of the search. You don't get to get a search warrant against "all possible drug dealers" or "all possible terrorist" much less against "all citizens who fly."

The TSA engages in millions of searches each day. Millions of times that it fails to establish with respect to the individual being searched that it believes it has just cause to believe that said individual is breaking any law.

The state can *always* come up with a clear and present danger to justify use the police power. The 4th amendment is there because the founders believed that search of the individual demanded individual justification for search, not just a clear and present fear.

Terrorists may have weapons of mass destruction in their USA apartments. Drug dealers may be concealing their drugs in bodily cavities. Neither fact, however true it might be, gives the FBI or local law enforcement legitimate power to go door to door and search everyone's apartment. Neither fact, however true it might be, gives the FBI or BAT the power to stop everyone walking past a particular intersection in a particular town.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
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Porforis
13 years ago
To be fair, people usually pay ME to touch my junk, not fine me for not allowing them to touch it.
Pack93z
13 years ago
Wade.. the US supreme court adopted several similar independent rulings of to detain a citizen where "society's need is great and no other effective means of meeting the need is available".

See cases..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Dept._of_State_Police_v._Sitz 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Martinez-Fuerte 

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0440_0648_ZS.html 

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-1060.ZS.html 

In all cases, they allowed for discretion less searches upon US citizens that haven't given any just cause other than being there on their own accord.

You purchase the ticket to get from point A to Point B.. which is your right to that ticket, but in my mind, once your agree to the exchange you in essence waive your 4th amendment right to travel using this method.
"The oranges are dry; the apples are mealy; and the papayas... I don't know what's going on with the papayas!"
DakotaT
13 years ago

in one way we are worse than a traditional police state. Our society's shared belief in "social contract" democracy means we give the interferers with liberty a legitimacy they never have in authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. We forget that the ability to withhold "consent of the governed" doesn't disappear just because a majority says otherwise.

"Wade" wrote:



For as smart as you are, you can be worse than those dumbass hippies back in the sixties. Did the government go to for with the Patriot Act, sure they did? But something had to be done because this nation wasn't safe and still isn't. In my state the state capital is wide open and could be taken out at any time just like McVey did in OKlahoma, and if a person really wanted to, the Garrison Dam could be taken out causing billions of dollars of flood damage all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. And we're not even mentioning all the nucs we have in missile form out on the prairie.
I'll step up to the Xray every time I fly, not a big deal and I wouldn't admire the guy that was keeping me from my seat in a timely manner.
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4PackGirl
13 years ago
zombie - just cuz you agree with wade doesn't mean he 'gets' it any more than anyone else. wait - that could be taken so many different directions. ;)

in another thread there was a discussion about how if you had a daughter, she'd be a slut & that would make you happy. ok, if she's a slut, do you not try to help her prevent pregnancy & teach her about responsible sex?

to me, having screenings is a preventative thing much like the condom, the pill, the iud, and/or the sponge.

lookie there - i somehow made this about sex - go figure. LMAO!!
djcubez
13 years ago

You purchase the ticket to get from point A to Point B.. which is your right to that ticket, but in my mind, once your agree to the exchange you in essence waive your 4th amendment right to travel using this method.



Exactly. Planes are privately owned so by purchasing a ticket you're entering a contract in which you agree to what would normally be an unlawful search.

I myself think it's overboard. Everyone is so worried about another 9/11 plane attack but what prevents terrorists from striking us by other means? Why couldn't a terrorist just pack a private plane full of explosives and slam it into a building? Or a car even? It's ridiculous to think that we are actually preventing future terrorist attacks by using this screening technology. It instills fear into US citizens and grants more power to the government so that they further constrain and butcher our rights. It's sickening.


On several overlapping grounds, among them:
1. Unreasonable search under 4th amendment.
2. Invasion of natural right of privacy.
3. Restriction of natural right to travel.
4. Patriot Act should have been held unconsitutional.
5. Fear doesn't stop terrorism, it encourages it.
6. TSA has regularly adopted procedures that don't work; we should believe them this time because...?
7. If you have to presume that the average traveller is a criminal, then you've already lost.
8. Threatening a civil lawsuit if you fail to go through the screening? On what grounds, pray tell?



Awesome post Wade +1.
djcubez
13 years ago

zombie - just cuz you agree with wade doesn't mean he 'gets' it any more than anyone else. wait - that could be taken so many different directions. ;)

in another thread there was a discussion about how if you had a daughter, she'd be a slut & that would make you happy. ok, if she's a slut, do you not try to help her prevent pregnancy & teach her about responsible sex?

to me, having screenings is a preventative thing much like the condom, the pill, the iud, and/or the sponge.

lookie there - i somehow made this about sex - go figure. LMAO!!

"4PackGirl" wrote:



But America isn't built on preventative measures it's built on trial after misdeed and innocent until proven guilty. Usually the only aspect in which America takes preventative measures is in instances of national security.

The problem I have with the passenger condom is that it goes too far. Should everyone getting a bus get screened lest they decapitate another passenger?  9/11 happened once and yet it "changed the world." Sure it's sad but come on people, you really think that all this is actually preventing terrorist attacks? I mean last Christmas a guy brought an improvised explosive on an INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT. The system is bogus.

If no one on a plane has any weapons that means two things: 1. A person can't attack with a weapon and 2. A person can't defend themselves when attacked. Who is to say a group of 10 able-bodied terrorist couldn't wrestle the rest of the passengers and force their way into the cabin? From what I remember of the 9/11 attacks the terrorists didn't even have guns they had small knives. Give me a half hour and I could make a shiv out of anything. My point is that this screening really does nothing. It's an attempt by the government to make it look like something is being done.

The Patriot Act. God don't get me started. Did you know that most Senators had less than 24 hours to read the Patriot Act before voting on it? There's no way you could understand the whole thing thoroughly enough in that time frame to pass it.
Porforis
13 years ago

Exactly. Planes are privately owned so by purchasing a ticket you're entering a contract in which you agree to what would normally be an unlawful search.

"djcubez" wrote:



I think there's a difference between a private company mandating this on their flights and the government getting involved in private industry and mandating it, regardless of if an individual company wants it or not. Sure, government should be involved in security for air travel as there's a distinct and legitimate national security interest here. But I think this has gone too far. You can turn airports into a complete police state, make people fly naked without luggage and there's still the potential for terrorist acts. One of which is making people too damned scared/inconvenienced to fly.

Free market capitalism says that if society doesn't accept the searches as a reasonable cost for security, they'll fly with someone else and the policy will change or the company will go out of business. If the government comes in and says "No, you have to do this anyways", that's the end of it until and if the Supreme Court says they can't do that. I'm not saying that a laissez-faire attitude here is a good thing, but massive state control isn't either.
Nonstopdrivel
13 years ago

Planes are privately owned so by purchasing a ticket you're entering a contract in which you agree to what would normally be an unlawful search.

"djcubez" wrote:



Ah, but here you're glossing over a very important concept. Yes, purchasing the ticket amounts to a contract with the privately owned airline. Therefore, the customer must agree to abide by whatever regulations the airline itself imposes upon its own property, just as when your'e a guest in my house, you must obey by my rules or I have every right to kick you out.

The issue people like Wade, zombieslayer, and myself have with the TSA arrangement is that the government has taken it upon itself to impose these security provisions. When I purchase that ticket, my contract is with the airline, not with the government, which has (without my consent) made itself a third party to that contract.

I don't think any of us would have an issue with submitting to reasonable security procedures implemented by the airlines themselves. They obviously have a vested interest in protecting their own assets. When the entities implementing the security protocols are agents of the government, though, they should have to abide by constitutional guidelines, which (no matter what the Supreme Court for the sake of expediency may have found) I don't believe they are.
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djcubez
13 years ago
I had edited this into my previous post but thought I would re-post it because it's looooong. Maybe it should be it's own thread?

I hate the Patriot Act.

The events of 9/11, however, created such shock within the population, including among those in Congress, that it provided a political opportunity to get restrictive policies in place. Less than 60 days after the attack, Congress was asked to vote on a lengthy (over 200 pages) and extremely complex piece of legislation that, in its final form, was only presented to members of Congress less than 24 hours before the vote. Few members of Congress would have been familiar with the history of new security theory and with the types of new programs and changes to the law proposed, and the very complexity of the act, and the need to understand interactions among various provisions of the act and between the act and other changes in the law made it very difficult to understand just what all of the changes would mean. The difficulty of the analysis required, the fact that additional changes to the law have followed almost non-stop, and the generation of a political situation in which expressions of concerns about civil liberties have been chilled all combined to slow down public and congressional debate over whether or not all of the new changes to the law are actually acceptable, constitutional, appropriate, and even effective as applied to achieve their stated goals.



What about the sunset provisions included in the act?

Some -- but not all -- of the Act's provisions included a sunset in 2004; when a provision has a sunset clause it expires unless it is explicitly renewed when the time set for the sunset arrives. Even before Congress discussed whether to allow those provisions to lapse, renew them for another limited period, or make them permanent, the notion of a sunset was more rhetorical than something that would have a major impact: The original sunset provision did not apply to electronic surveillance and other key elements of the Act. The original sunset provision did not apply to the national database of information about individuals being established under the Act. And the original sunset provision did not apply to any investigations that are ongoing. Because the language being used to describe pursuit of terrorism defines the effort extremely broadly, this means that almost any investigation could be carried out just as it was before sunset because it could be defined as related to terrorism. This aspect of the sunset provision significantly limited its actual effectiveness.



And does anyone really know exactly what the act does?

Since 9/11, restrictions to civil liberties include not only this same restriction on speech, but also a reduction in the following rights:
- the right to a fair trial,
- the right to associate with others,
- the right to privacy, and
- the right to access government information.



In the past it was always understood that any restrictions on civil liberties during wartime would be put in place for a limited period of a few years at most. This was an important element in their acceptability to the citizens of the United States. The Patriot Act and related policies are being put in place for a much more extended period: From the start, President Bush has claimed the war on terrorism will last for at least 50 years, which would mean at least two generations of US citizens would live their lives without basic civil liberties. Bush has also explicitly described the conditions being established as permanent new conditions; should other changes in statutory and regulatory law put in place after the Patriot Act remain, these would in fact make the new environment for civil liberties permanent. Thus while what is being built is described as necessary for wartime conditions, in fact what is being put in place is potentially a permanent and quite radical loss of many of the civil liberties that have been defining features of the US.



The PATRIOT Act works retroactively going back 15 years, so activities that were perfectly legal at the time they took place could now be considered terrorist and, therefore, criminal.



Insane right?

Support for the PATRIOT Act when it was passed, and for related changes in the law ever since, has depended upon the governments argument that the new provisions put in place for purposes like surveillance and curtailing the release of government information were necessary in order to protect national security (now often referred to as homeland security). Very shortly after the PATRIOT Act was passed, however, the government began using its surveillance provisions to do things such as investigate financial fraud and scams against the elderly, neither of which can be defined as national security issues even under the broadest interpretations of the categories of the enemy under new security theory.



Historically the government has drawn the line between acceptable and unacceptable political speech that is critical of the government at the line drawn by the clear and present danger test. This provision of the Patriot Act, however, redraws the line of unacceptability at "intimidation or coercion" in the attempt to change government policy. The Patriot Act did so by defining a new category of terrorism called "domestic terrorism." A domestic terrorist is one who illegally threatens human life or appears to intend to
- intimidate or coerce a civilian population or
- influence the policy of a government by intimidation or
coercion or
- affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction,
assassination or kidnapping
The definition of the illegal action of concern here is extremely vague and loose and does not require intentionality. If a group of demonstrators unintentionally knocks over a fence on government property because there are so many people pressing forward, for example, the activity could be defined as terrorist under this definition.



The right to associate with others -- part of the right to assemble protected by the First Amendment -- is important to political speech because through association voices are amplified. It is also important to political speech because through association individuals learn and develop their ideas. Up until the changes put in place by the Patriot Act, individuals were held responsible only for their own actions. Even if one were involved with a group in which others took part in illegal activities, association with the group and promotion of its ideas were protected as constitutional rights.
Under the provisions of the Patriot Act, however, one can be treated as a terrorist not on the basis of one's own actions, but because one is associated with a group any member of which has been involved in illegal activity -- whether or not it is sanctioned by the group and whether or not one is aware of this activity.



having access to government information is considered of fundamental importance to a functioning democracy. Two ways in which that access has been restricted since 9/11 include making it more difficult to successfully request information from the government under the Freedom of Information Act, and reducing the amount of information in the governments as opposed to individual hands by making it easy for presidents to withhold documents from the national archive, which provides our historical memory.
The national security exemption in the FOIA, which justifies withholding information requested if releasing it would endanger national security, is being interpreted much more broadly. Kinds of information never before covered by this exemption are now included, such as property maps, environmental information, and data about hazardous waste sites. This change makes it possible to withhold much more information legally. The Department of Justice has particularly encouraged communities and states to withhold information regarding the civil infrastructure (roads, sewer lines, power lines, etc.).
In October of 2001, President Bush signed an executive order allowing sitting or former presidents to veto the release of presidential papers. If there should be a disagreement between the sitting president and a former president regarding the release of the latter's papers, a decision by either to withhold the documents is sufficient to prevent their release. Thus even if a former president believes his papers should be made available to scholars and reporters, a sitting president can keep this from happening.




the federal government has authority to prosecute only violations of federal law, while states prosecute violations of state law. However, the Patriot Act gives the federal government authority to prosecute violations of state law. This provision makes it possible for the attorney general to determine on a case by case basis which crimes should be considered crimes against the federal government and thus definable as terrorism.



All top government officials are either elected or appointed. The president and vice president are elected (though we arent free to vote on this separately rather than as a team), and the members of the cabinet, who head the departments of the federal government, are presidential appointees who must be approved by Congress. As we have seen several times in recent years, there are times when Congress will not approve a presidential appointee, and then someone else will be considered, so the role of Congress in selecting the most influential leaders in the federal government is critical. After 9/11, however, President Bush issued an executive order that gave him the right to completely replace every member of the cabinet with his own choices without Congress being involved at all -- should a national emergency be declared. It is the president who declares a national emergency.



There are three ways the Patriot Act and related policies affect the right to a fair trial as established by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution: The right to know what evidence is being used against you has been lost, the right of confidentiality in conversations with your attorney has been lost, and the right to have an open courtroom during your trial so that the media and others would know what is actually going on has been threatened.



Under the Patriot Act, information gathered via secret surveillance can be kept secret, even from someone charged with a crime on the basis of the evidence and even from that person's attorney. Thus one could be charged, convicted, and even sentenced to death without ever knowing the evidence upon which such decisions are based.



Historically a law enforcement officer needed to meet the following criteria to
get a search warrant:
- a specific individual had to be named
- a specific crime had to be involved
- a judge had to be convinced to grant the search warrant on the basis
of probable cause that the named individual was involved with the specific
crime identified
Under the Patriot Act, all that is required to get a search warrant is:
- telling a judge that the search being requested would be related to
an ongoing investigation
This means that:
- individuals not named in a search warrant can be searched
- no specific crime need be identified
- no evidence has to be produced that individuals being searched actually
have anything to do with any crimes



The Patriot Act reverses historical precedent by making it possible to conduct covert (secret) searches. Historically such searches have been illegal. Police must knock and announce their presence before searching, and must leave a notice and receipt at the place from which property was taken. While the FBI has in the past conducted covert searches occasionally, it did not have legal authority to do so. The Patriot Act makes covert searches legal not only in cases involving terrorism, but in any federal criminal case. Covert searches make it much more likely that search warrants will be abused. Covert searches make it impossible for the terms of a search warrant to be contested by individuals asserting their Fourth Amendment rights to protect against searches of the wrong home or outside the terms of the search warrant. Covert searches can also be used to place equipment for ongoing surveillance in place.



Under the Patriot Act, damage to a computer system that costs more than $5,000
to repair is considered terrorism. The damage can be cumulative over time. Thus someone who playfully hacks a system in order to send his girlfriend a love note might be deemed a terrorist if the organization that was hacked can claim it cost it more than $5,000 to repair the hack or to change the system in such a way that it would be protected from similar activities in the future. Intention is irrelevant, as is the question of whether or not there was actual harm to the government, society, or an organization.



If you took the time to actually read this there's no way you could possibly approve of an act that tramples all over our rights like this. It's insane.

EDIT: The source of this information is from an essay my teacher wrote for a class I'm currently taking. The class is mainly about the first amendment and your right to expression.
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