TSA Super Thread

[AZRedhawk44]

CSD, I don't know how many times I have to tell you this...


The gizmodo pics of the Florida courthouse are using older tech.  However that tech is identical to what the TSA uses in some places, as well as the newer higher resolution machines.  Both devices have an SOP that dictates that no pics are to be saved.

But, these pics were obviously saved.

Ignore the quality of the images.

The fact that Gizmodo was able to obtain them at all is the concern.

They shouldn't exist in the first place.

[Regolith]

1)  The airlines aren't instituting these TSA programs.  The government is.  That makes it an unreasonable search and seizure under the 4th Amendment, because it's the government who is doing the searching, not private business.

2) Flying is the only way to travel without taking weeks or months out of your life in some instances (such as across the ocean), and the most efficient way for long distance travel.  There has been found to be a constitutional right to travel, and the US government can not get in the way of that, nor can they condition the ability to travel on the waiver of other constitutional rights. 

Saying that since you are free to travel via car, train or boat means that your right to travel isn't being interfered with is similar to saying that since you are free to defend yourself with a shotgun, banning pistols isn't a violation to your right to keep and bare arms. 

[Balog]

I wrote to my rep (Frank Wolf) using their web-form thingummy.

I was trying to use the word "alternative" in my message, and every time I wrote it, a dialog popped up telling me that, due to House regulations, I could not use the word "alter" in my message, and it edited it to spell it "al_ter".

So a couple things:

• What sort of idiotic program thinks that "alternative" and "alter" are equivalent?
• What sort of idiotic policy prohibits the use of the word "alter" in a message to a congressman?  Is it some sort of poor-man's SQL-injection filter?  I didn't use the words "insert", "drop", or "update" in my message; perhaps I should have, to see if they were on the Proscribed Words list, too.

[BrokenPaw]

Heh.  I was actually thinking of that strip when I posted.

As a web programmer, I understand the brown-trousers factor when it comes to allowing any J. Random User to store anything on your webserver.  But SQL-injection sanitization is really not all that hard, and if that's actually the reason that the website for the Congress is rejecting that word, then, well...somebody needs to find a new web coder.

[Hawkmoon]

Stopping the threat is the goal. Modern JHPs do that better than frangible.  No agency that I know of uses frangible ammo on aircraft. 

Are you certain? You're a pilot and I'm not, but last I knew Federal air marshals WERE issued and DID carry frangible ammo ... and ONLY frangible ammo.

If that changed, when did it change?

[Strings]

These people get to look at me naked?

Trust me, Jamis: I'm sure no TSA agent (nor anyone else) wants to see YOU nekkid...

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

you can fly without the circus.  just not on the airlines   general aviation might be for you


is that a no to my question

do you have a case where tsa saved images outside their training mode as outlined in the specs you so kindly provided?

[Angel Eyes]

The plot thickens: San Francisco Bay Area prosecutors warn TSA about "touching the junk":

http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county/ci_16641946?nclick_check=1

As nearly 2 million holiday travelers pack Bay Area airports starting Friday, local prosecutors have a warning for overzealous security agents performing the new federal pat-down: touch passengers the wrong way, and we'll throw you in jail

More fun developments at the link.

[Strings]

Wait... when did San Fran suddenly get a brain cell?

[AZRedhawk44]

Those guys who are rubbing down our junk and taking nekkid pictures of us:

Are they sworn LEOs?

My understanding is that they are low paid contract workers.  There are real sworn Federal (and state or city) LEOs near by, but it would take too many people at too high a pay grade to put sworn LEOs at every inspection point of an airport.

As such, are they legally empowered to even order you to allow them to touch you?

I basically consider them on par with a bouncer at a bar, or mall security.  I'm certainly not going to let either of those types frisk me.

[RevDisk]

I basically consider them on par with a bouncer at a bar, or mall security.  I'm certainly not going to let either of those types frisk me.

They can bar you from entry.

[Angel Eyes]

Wait... when did San Fran suddenly get a brain cell?

It was actually San Mateo and Santa Clara county prosecutors, so we don't have proof of the above.   

[AZRedhawk44]

Wait... when did San Fran suddenly get a brain cell?

The most likely place in the US where guy-guy pat-downs are going to elicit either a homoerotic or homophobic response.  Either the passenger is gay and doesn't like being touched by a straight, or the TSA agent is gay and perceived as being unprofessional with the pat-downs.

Most of the US has a gay population around 8-10%, and San Fran is around 15%.  The odds of a gay TSA agent breaking down the TSA structure of girl-girl and guy-guy pat-downs increases significantly there.

Oh!  Oh!  EOE problems!  Can a gay be a TSA inspection officer at the airport and do pat-downs, given our current rules?

[AZRedhawk44]

They can bar you from entry.

But the argument against "Don't touch my junk" guy is that he wanted to leave after already initiating the screening procedure and declining to allow further (bodily) inspection.

If TSA agents are not sworn, they cannot arrest you.

If you're not under arrest, then you're free to go.

Via that logic, TSA agents cannot compel you to allow them to touch you... if they aren't sworn LEO.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

But the argument against "Don't touch my junk" guy is that he wanted to leave after already initiating the screening procedure and declining to allow further (bodily) inspection.

If TSA agents are not sworn, they cannot arrest you.

If you're not under arrest, then you're free to go.

Via that logic, TSA agents cannot compel you to allow them to touch you... if they aren't sworn LEO.

the tsa guys call real cops  they arrest you   i hate to admit that the 9th circuits opinion on this makes sense but in the tradition of blind pigs and acorns they got this one right

[AZRedhawk44]

the tsa guys call real cops  they arrest you   i hate to admit that the 9th circuits opinion on this makes sense but in the tradition of blind pigs and acorns they got this one right

That's fine, real cops can cite either "probable cause" or "reasonable suspicion" and initiate a pat-down after I get their badge and their reason for cause/suspicion.  They can then tell the TSA agent that I am clean, or not, and I can either continue down the concourse, or be led back to the ticket counter to try for a refund.

Then I can file a complaint against the officer for finding a "probable cause" that I had contraband, simply because I didn't cede my 4th amendment rights to a nonsworn worker drone.  Cops can't just randomly search people.  No reason for unsworn TSA worker drones to do so either.

(If I choose to fly at all).

But, ceding the fact that non-sworn TSA worker drones have the power to compel a strip search or pat down is something I cannot do.

[BrokenPaw]

the tsa guys call real cops  they arrest you   i hate to admit that the 9th circuits opinion on this makes sense but in the tradition of blind pigs and acorns they got this one right

It was my understanding that all he was trying to do was leave, right?  He wasn't trying to get past the security gate without being inspected, he decided that the inspection was too much, and he decided to leave.

If that's the case, then on what  grounds could he be arrested?

The only reason the TSA minions have the power to search is because it's a condition of entry to the "secure" area.  If you are no longer trying to enter that area, they no longer have any reason to search you, and no reason to compel you to stay for a search.  To call the cops on him for trying to leave is like trying to call the cops on someone who almost stepped on your property, and having them arrest him for "leaving after failing to trespass".

[MicroBalrog]

The technical legality arguments are not going to stop the TSA madness.

The only way it will genuinely stop - rather than be reorganized temporarily along some new lines to assuage public anger and then continue again - is if the public alters its cost/risk analysis of the situation. If there will be an understanding that there is only that much people are willing to pay in time lost, dignity lost, money lost - over the practically non-existent, statistically, terrorist threat, then the madness will end. If people are still willing to forfeit rights, freedoms, time, money, honor, dignity, sanity itself whenever the magical word TERRORISM is uttered, then the best the current uproar will accomplish is a rearranging of the proverbial deck chairs.

[AZRedhawk44]

Before CSD gets tunnel vision here, I want to say for his benefit regarding the 9th Circus decision:

Not my intent to leave without getting pat down if a pat down is dictated by the bureaucratic dingleberries.

My intent is to not allow the TSA drone to do the pat-down.  Since he's not sworn.

I acknowledge his ability to block me from entering the secure area, much like a bar bouncer can block access to a bar, or a mall security guard can issue a trespass warning.

I don't acknowledge his perceived power to lay hands on me.  If court precedent says I cannot leave without a pat-down since I "could" be a terrorist that's trying to game the system, so be it.  A sworn LEO can do it.

I guess my intent is to float an addendum to the "Opt Out" day that dictates that passengers:
1. Opt out of nekkid scans
2. Prohibit TSA GED goons @$10/hr from touching them
3. Demand (with legal justification) that any pat-down is done by sworn LEO.

This will shatter the system, IMO.

[Jamisjockey]

TSA agents are .gov workers but are not sworn officers.

[vaskidmark]

As I understand the situation, it's really not the status of the goon groping you that is the crux of the problem.

Congress, in it's infinite wisdom  passed a law saying that TSA exists and can establish rules you have to comply with if you want to fly commercial aviation.  Under that law, TSA did in fact establish regs that call for nekkid pictures that cause cancer or being groped.  Nobody being groped is being accused of a criminal act until/unless the groping "discovers" an object where it probably sjouldn't be.

If getting groped caused the TSA prevert [sic - intentional spelling - ask me later for the backstory] to find somethiong they will call real cops to deal with the 4th Amendment search & seizure (or is it seizure & search?).

None of the above should be interpreted as being in favor of or supporting the groping of commercial air travellers.

stay safe.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

and initiate a pat-down after I get their badge and their reason for cause/suspicion. 


give that a whirl  report back how it works out

[Perd Hapley]

Nekkid pics is not the same thing as nekkid.

And we're back to my crusade against people taking naked baby pictures. 

[Tallpine]

And we're back to my crusade against people taking naked baby pictures. 

But it's okay when the TSA does it 

[Tallpine]

If there will be an understanding that there is only that much people are willing to pay in time lost, dignity lost, money lost - over the practically non-existent, statistically, terrorist threat, then the madness will end.

But then how would the guvermint control the people