Passengers have this authority too, I suppose, under the First Amendment. As a matter of fact, I think when I fly out of BNA this afternoon I just might use this authority to ask the screeners if they are also dirty enough to be infected with scabies, like their brethren at BOS.
Yes, but he probably didn't feel like letting TSA violate his privacy by rolling over and playing dead when it came to his fourth amendment rights.
Yes, but we all know that when you refuse to answer a TSO's questions they get all whiny and immature. Most TSA folks I've met can't stand it when reality contradicts their image of themselves as America's protector or front-line defense in the "war on terror". Refuse to answer a question, and they'll go running to an LEO, crying about they've just caught the next Timothy McVeigh.
This is where I think that many will still disagree with you. As an individual citizen, yes, we all have the right to ask questions of each other. But your (and any TSO's) role and freedoms as a private citizen stops the moment you put your bellhop uniform and Junior Detective badge on. You then become an agent of the government and any actions you take are acting on the government's behalf.
This is where a number of restrictions do come in to play... this is why TSOs do
not have the ability to detain people. (Doing so as an agent of the government without probable cause-- which TSOs are
not trained to detect-- is a flagrant civil rights violation.) I know you've asserted otherwise elsewhere on the forum, but I think that most attorneys would tell you that you're dead wrong. When acting as an agent of the government, there are certain things you can and can't do.