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Old Apr 15, 2009 | 1:36 pm
  #23  
FliesWay2Much
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Originally Posted by polonius
How are you to know what "blatantly illegal contraband" is? You guys are like a bunch of nine years old who have just gotten their plastic "agent" badges and decoder rings out of the cereal box and you think that qualifies you to somehow "know" contraband when you see it. This is the kind of pig-ignorance that led to the arrest of Janet Lee. Disturbing to see you haven't learned from such incidents.




So you believe it's OK for the articulation of "suspicion" by an untrained TSO/burger flipper to serve as the basis for justifying a search by law enforcement, hence depriving all travellers of the presumption of innocence?
This is my biggest gripe. There is absolutely no reasonable suspicion standard for a screener. The cops love it because THEY don't need articulable reasonable suspicion -- all they have to do is to respond to a screener's whim.

The cops get to do everything that they normally can only do with reasonable suspicion -- demand an ID to run a warrant check, perform what is now a warrantless criminal search of a passenger and their property, and arrest someone, such as Ms Lee, with absolutely no compliance with any sort of reasonable suspicion or probable cause standards.

Ms Lee had to expend considerable funds herself, take time off from college, and even defend herself against a charge of something like "faking drugs". I don't recall the specific charge they tried to lay on her after it was clear that the condoms didn't contain illegal drugs, but, it had something to do with the fact that it's apparently a crime to make up something to look like illegal drugs.

Now, despite the civil settlement and the criminal charges being dropped, Ms Lee now has an arrest record based on an untrained screener thinking they had made the "big catch." I hope Ms Lee never needs a security clearance for a job, because the arrest, no matter how bogus, will makeit difficult, if not impossible, for her to get a clearance. And, the screener will NEVER be held accountable. This is just plain disgusting.

Last edited by FliesWay2Much; Apr 15, 2009 at 1:58 pm
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