Originally Posted by
amanuensis
While I am not excusing what the TSO and the airport police did, I feel that I need to point out the obvious -- that if the C4L activist had simply answered the screener's question about the cash, no escalation would have ocurred.
I beg to differ with this characterization. The escalation occurred not when Mr. Bierfeldt asked if he was required to answer the question. The escalations was when
the screener asked the question in the first place. From all accounts, Mr. Bierfeldt was going through the screening process in a completely straightforward, proper manner. No accounts of the incident have him behaving in anything other than a completely law-abiding, cooperative manner,
until the TSA screener started to question him about his belongings. Mr. Biefeldt did not rant and rave, he did not "artfully conceal" anything, he did not have a prohibited item, he did not have improper identification, he did absolutely nothing that a reasonable person could construe as a wrong act. The TSA screener initiated the escalation of this incident, not Mr Bierfeldt. He merely reacted, with remarkable grace and politeness, to the escalation.
Originally Posted by
amanuensis
Perhaps since boarding an aircraft is something that is done voluntarily, people should expect to have a reduced right to privacy during the process of so doing. While freedom of movement is, I am sure, something that could be logically assumed from the Freedom of Assembly clause in the First Amendment, as well as being an obvious basic human right, might a person who is in the process of preparing to board an aircraft be, by so doing, also voluntairly waiving a portion of those rights?
This attitude is disturbing to me. It is true that boarding an aircraft is done voluntarily. However; I don't understand how that leads to a reduced right of privacy. Each of us engage in many voluntary activities each day - walking to the corner store, going to the library, attending a ball game, visiting the library, mowing the lawn. I certainly don't expect to surrender my privacy or constitutional rights because I engage in those activities; I can't understand why I should surrender them when I board an aircraft.
I am not trying to pick a fight with amanuensis, but I cannot see where Mr. Bierfeldt was in any way in the wrong. This was 100% a TSA screw up.