Originally Posted by
Trollkiller
If they have no legal authority to ask questions how can they do their jobs?
They can't. That's exactly my point. Their jobs are premised on unconstitutional conduct.
Example, if I have a totally legal battery pack but the TSO is suspicious about it, how can that TSO clear it as a non threat if he is unable to question me about it?
A TSO should be well-trained enough to differentiate a battery pack from an explosive. However, that's not to what I was referring. Arguably, such a question would be within the constitutional scope of an administrative search.
What the TSO can not do is say, "So, where are you headed today? Why are you traveling? Where are you coming from? Is this a business trip or pleasure? Who is your employer? Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" Such questions are outside the scope of the administrative search and you are not compelled to answer such questions.
To be clear, I have two specific constitutional objections to current TSA procedures:
1. Use of BDOs which, as I've explained above, I believe is unconstitutional.
2. Gate searches which, as currently implemented, I believe are unconstitutional because (a) they exceed the scope of the limited administrative search, and (b) the method of "random selection" is, in fact, not random and therefore violative of the standards set for this form of administrative search.
I do believe,
based on existing case law, that the "standard" WTMD checkpoint procedure of boarding pass and ID examination, passing through the WTMD, screening by wand (and, to a far more limited extent that is currently practiced, by hand), x-ray and subsequent discretionary hand search of carry-ons, is constitutional).
I'm certainly not going nit-pick over a TSO who, in an effort to clear me to the sterile area, picks up an odd-looking battery and says, "What's this?" just as I have no problem with a LEO who, seeing me holding a green bottle on the street under circumstances where it would be reasonable to assume it might be a beer bottle says, "So what you got there?"
I will, however, stand firm that there is no permissible constitutional basis to conditioning my entry into the sterile area on the answers to questions about where I'm going, where I've been, why I'm traveling, etc.