Originally Posted by
Trollkiller
Sorry dude you are judged by the company you keep. There are thousands of cases involving crooked cops and crooked agencies. You know as well as I do that a good portion of seizure cases are weak at best and fraud at worst.
A fraction of a percent that you seem to be exaggerating just to support your cause here. In every seizure case I have ever been involved in (going on 7 years), there has never been an ounce of doubt in my mind that the money was illegally obtained and being carried to go buy drugs. There are other factors at play aside from just the money itself, but I care not to divulge them here.
The more you claim this hogwash is consensual, the more your already minimal stature diminshes. Keep kidding yourself. I do not ever recollect giving explicit consent for the silliness that passes for a search at the typical airport check-point... Would seem that the recipients of a search would have to explicitly give consent in order for the search to be consensual.
Last I checked, walking into the checkpoint IS consenting to adhere to screening procedures to board an aircraft. Call it what you want, but no one is twisting your arm to have you and your belongings searched. It seems that the US Justices agree on this as well. I guess they're just supporting "hogwash."
While the TSA is an easy target both here on FT and in general, there are two major distinctions between then and now:
1) When the government gets involved, everyone has elevated responsibilities. Acme Security Screening Inc and the TSA are in two very different legal positions. The TSA is accountable in so many more ways than a private company would be. But it does go both ways-- they get federal benefits! Also, killing them is a federal crime.
2) Under the TSA, the option to withdraw consent during the (administrative) search was eliminated. I understand the security rationale for such a rule, but I think the result needs to be "blinders" on the TSA when it comes to things that aren't per se illegal. Otherwise the temptation is just too great-- not for the individual TSO-- but for more and more dragnet-type of procedures to be added. This is only one security directive.
While each of those distinctions seems minor, those are both major distinctions in the legal arena. I have not ignored the issue.
I disagree. While it is now a federal agency conducting the screening, those before the TSA were required to screen passengers according to federal law (per FAA). It was still federal rule that required passengers be screened and things to go reported should contraband be found during the screening process by contract employees. Although the Aukai ruling occurred under TSA's time, I think the outcome would have been the same would it have been contract security who discovered the drugs in Aukai's pocket(s). Whether TSA or contract doing the screening, it is TSA/DHS policies that the screeners must adhere to. The contract companies do not make up seperate (non-governmental) policies to enforce at federally-mandated checkpoints.
The retort you seem to come back with frequently is that it is obvious when someone shouldn't have lots of cash on them so you know they're criminals. But that doesn't explain how the TSOs could possibly know or be trained as such, nor why something that is not actually criminal in any way is considered suspect by anyone.
TSOs simply call the on-scene LEO to the money. From my training and experience dealing with interdiction, it only takes a couple of minutes (with other factors at play aside from the money) to figure out if this person is carrying his own money, or someone else's to buy the drugs. Like I mentioned before, there are far more people who carry cash who are questioned very little who come through the security checkpoint.
Isn't there someone taking pictures at your airport within your imagined one minute check-point response zone?
Still relishing on the past are we? Imagined one minute response? Feel free to cause a problem at the checkpoint at BNA and time the LE response. I would be glad to provide you lunch at one of our restaurants if you prove me wrong.