Originally Posted by ttjoseph
If someone can walk away from a search at a TSA checkpoint, a malicious group can simply keep testing the checkpoint using different methods of concealment until one works.
Originally Posted by Trollkilla'
That was the logic the courts used to hold up a supposed consensual search that you can't revoke consent on.
As was summed up quaintly in
United States v. Christian Hartwell, thusly, with the pertinent part put in bold:
Hartwell argues that once the TSA agents identified the object in his
pocket and he refused to reveal it, he should have had the right to leave rather than empty his pockets. We reject this theory. As several courts have noted, a right to leave once screening procedures begin “would constitute a one-way street for the benefit of a party planning airport mischief,” United States v. Herzbrun, 723 F.2d 773, 776 (11th Cir. 1984) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), and “would ‘encourage airline terrorism by providing a secure exit where detection was threatened,’” People v. Heimel, 812 P.2d 1177, 1182 (Colo. 1991) (quoting Pulido-Baquerizo, 800 F.2d at 902). See also Torbet v. United Airlines, Inc., 298 F.3d 1087, 1089 (9th Cir. 2002) (“To avoid search, a passenger must elect not to fly before placing his bag on the x-ray belt.” (citation omitted))