Originally Posted by
law dawg
The only way that would be justified is:
1) They're looking in the wad of cash to make sure that there are no dangerous items secreted or hidden there (briefcase full of money with knife in middle, etc. Preposterous example, I know, but you get the point. I once had a guy I arrested hide a razor blade in a briefcase full of papers. Bad day, that one.)
Nasty. One obvious point, however: upon arrest, you are allowed to search the suspect and his immediate possessions to ensure officer safety, which would include going through the papers in his briefcase. Airline passengers are not suspects, nor are they under arrest when the administrative search takes place. TSO are not LEOs and have no power to detain or conduct a search that is anything more than minimally-intrusive and designed
solely to determine whether the passenger has anything that threatens air safety. Moreover, there is a hierarchy of escalation: a search of a wallet, for example, is not justified if the metal detector didn't sound, though swabbing it might be.
2) In the course of looking for dangerous items they discover a large amount of cash. They can then call LEOs over to investigate whether or not the rules about transporting cash were followed.
They can call over LEOs, but they may not detain the cash. They have no powers of seizure.