FredAnderssen

From here:

bolding mine.

So, judge, what does "basic common sense" tell you about the possibility of an airplane being brought down with pieces of paper?

FredAnderssen

Further:

bolding mine.

Again, judge, how do you equate pieces of paper with underwear bombs?

I swear, you can't make this stuff up.

Spiff

That pinko judge has no common sense and should be removed from the bench.

I hope this case is further appealed.

TheOneTheOnly

"judges" have too much power. They're basically an un-checked, un-balanced branch of the government. 5 of them rewrote a piece of legislation this summer, a clear breach of their power yet nothing can happen to them because we've let them be deemed "untouchable." I hate the tsa and the other alphabet soup agencies running loose under the executive branch, but the judicial branch's improprieties is truly scary.

FredAnderssen

The comment from the lawyer for the ACLU also misses the mark:

Again, who cares about how suspicious you find a person to be, as long as they don't have the means to destroy the airplane!?

How the hell do you down a plane with pieces of paper with words on them?

Caradoc

I'm sure one of the TSA shills will be along shortly to explain that card stock (used for flash cards) can be folded into a paper knife tough enough to carve its way through a locked cockpit door, and to slash the throats of passengers who don't cooperate.

FredAnderssen

Yes, but only the cards with "bomb" or "terrorist" written on them are capable of penetrating the cockpit door.

greggarious

This isn't the final say. I'm sure there will be an appeal.

roberino

Land of the free, my arse...

sriki

Going off on a tangent. I understand what you are saying but having strong judiciary is very much needed to keep check on the legislative branch. There are places where politicians are so bad that they wouldn't even pass laws that are vital to a civic society and judiciary is the sole light at the end of the tunnel and the way they can do that is by using the power they have. Even they need to be checked when overreaching their boundaries and one part is why judges are appointed. This circle exists for a reason but there are far many cases where it wouldn't work for the common person and on that I agree with you

Oshkosh105

Perhaps I am too closed minded, but I do not see why such a huge deal was made of this. I will be among the first to admit that paranoia with the TSA is abnormally strong. At the same time, this person, at least from the few details I read, did not have any crime committed against him. The only things TSA are at fault for was the 5 hour detention and the resulting missed flights, based on the fact that he was carrying some flash cards with Arabic translations of words associated with attacks on aviation in the past 10 years.

What charges were brought against the TSA? What monetary damages? Was he assaulted in the process? If I walk through a checkpoint with "bomb" and "terrorist" in English, Spanish, etc., I guarantee the same thing would happen to me. Are the pieces of paper innately dangerous? No. Is having a regular looking, young, american man who can shout commands in Arabic to take down an aircraft potentially dangerous? I would argue yes. It is the world we live in and foresight from a senior in college should have alerted him that it was not the brightest idea to bring those cards.

Caradoc

Why is the TSA even reading the cards? Once identified as "cards," they're eliminated as a threat to aviation. The TSA's "administrative search" ends RIGHT THERE. Reading the text on the cards is not in scope.

tkey75

Please go on then...

FredAnderssen

Just wow. I don't know where you hail from, but here in the U.S., we have things known as constitutional rights. Those rights include things such as the freedom of speech (first amendment), the right to be secure personally in papers and effects (fourth amendment), not to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process (fifth amendment). These things are pretty important to us here. This man shouldn't have been deprived of his constitutional rights for five seconds, much less five hours.

Why? How about you walk through the checkpoint with a Koran or a Bible? Are these also scary pieces of papers that would get you detained for five hours? Both of these books have some pretty dangerous things written in them.

You're kidding, right? So you think that young men are carrying around note cards with commands for their Muslim brethren to take down an airplane? How does that work? Do they shout "terrorist" in Arabic as a signal to their Muslim cohorts to do what exactly? How about white guys shouting out something in German to do the exact same thing? It's a horrible thought, isn't it? I guess the solution is to ban all paper! But then the terrorists would have to memorize two words. Impossible!

Why? Because he should know that cards written in Arabic automatically means that the constitution will be suspended for him at various places in the United States? How is ANYONE supposed to know that? Or that he should know that only Muslims are terrorists? Am I to go through all the papers that I have with me for my next trip to see if there isn't something that may trigger a "constitution-suspending" response the next time I travel?

What about information on your computer? Should you purge anything that has the word "bomb" or "terrorist" in any language on your laptop before you travel?

laggers

What a waste of a thread.
Nothing better too do?? It sounds as though the student is retarded.