Originally Posted by studentff

A lot of us need to fly commercial to keep our jobs, see our families, etc. From that point of view, a TSA checkpoint is no more "consensual" that if the government put up a checkpoint outside my home's front door or on the commuter rail someone takes to work (and they're doing that too). Sure, you could say nobody is twisting my arm to leave my house, but it's not practical or realistic to avoid the checkpoint.

IANAL, but IMO the entire doctrine of "implied consent" is hogwash. There should be no implied consent. You either explicitly consent or you don't. And the checkpoints/dragnets the government seems to like putting up in our travel infrastructure (not just planes, but trains too, and who knows what's next) are not consensual searches, they are forced administrative (and effectively criminal too) searches (unfortunately) required to exercise our right to free movement.

If the government really wants "implied consent" administrative searches, they need to use the blinders listed in a previous post--anything outside the scope of their mandate that is not an immediate threat and not an obvious felony should be ignored. See a human head, report it. See a bunch of cash, white powder, glass pipes, or nude photos of someone who might be 19 or might be 17, ignore it.