Originally Posted by
red456
I think what most questioners want to know is why has cash been declared contraband and lumped in with drugs? That's the question that they won't/can't answer.
I shake my head in amazement that the screeners get no training in identifying drugs yet they are required to report anything that they think is suspicious. That type of SOP certainly allows for the opening of a Pandora's box. You get a screener who thinks he/she is going to make the big catch and everything gets reported. Or you get a screen who partakes of drugs him/herself and that person probably doesn't say a word.
Do they keep stats on which screeners report "suspicious" items and the results of those reports?
Cops at any level have been forced into articulable reasonable suspicion before they can initiate a search of an individual and/or their property -- i.e.: the famous Terry Stop and other rulings.
At our nation's airports, reasonable suspicion has devolved into the unintelligible babble that this particular screener has written. Cops all over America have had a field day because reasonable suspicion has been handed to them on a silver platter wearing a spiffy dark blue uniform and wearing a spiffy brass badge. Cops all over the country have used this type of logic to turn administrative screenings into criminal searches and into demands for IDs and warrant searches.
I don't know about anyone else, but, I want OUR Constitution back!