FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - TSA: Search your iPhone? Yes we can!
View Single Post
Old Jul 24, 2012, 9:55 am
  #25  
FliesWay2Much
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: An NPR mind living in a Fox News world
Posts: 14,153
Originally Posted by UshuaiaHammerfest
They didn't claim that. The blogger/OP did.

The judge hasn't ruled yet, either, so I'm pretty we don't know the judge's attention span -- or your cat's, for that matter.

The iPhone was thrown in by the blogger to generate a sensationalistic headline that would grab readers. There is nowhere in the Motion to Dismiss that in any way suggests that TSA believes it's acceptable to search someone's phone under the guise of seeking "Identification media."

In fact, the MTD & Memorandum in support that the blogger posted don't even contain the phrase "identification media," or the quote that the blogger called out on the post. (ETA: The MTD doesn't contain it; the Memorandum does.)

What's sad is that, this lawsuit might *actually* have some merit to determining how constitutional some of TSA's policies are, but as long as the blogger turns every question or issue into a slippery slope, the mainstream won't listen.
Wait just a minute --

The TSA has never been held accountable, for (among other things) defining the limits of their version of an "administrative search." In the real world, there is a precedent called something like the "elephant under the coffee table" standard. If you are a government actor conducting a search for an elephant, anything you find under the coffee table is inadmissible and out of bounds because an elephant can't hide under a coffee table. The TSA has never had to justify the minimum size of a prohibited item. That's our fault -- the American People -- for allowing that to happen. The smallest stable substance in the known universe is an atom of hydrogen. Since an atom of hydrogen is flammable, and, since the TSA has never been held accountable, they can claim that they have to search for items as small as an atom of hydrogen. That's their justification for looking inside personal papers, wallets, and other small areas and "discovering" joints, pills, cash, blank checks, and multiple credit cards and driver's licenses.

The whole ID nonsense got started when a former TSA administrator simply declared that "ID matters." (Hawley, circa 2008.) As is the case with prohibited items, there is no limit to what they define as ID, nor do they have to justify why they detain and otherwise harass someone they find with multiple "identification media" (again, an undefined term) that anyone of them hired off a pizza box determines to be fraudulent.

Does "ID matters" mean it's against TSA rules to fly with multiple IDs with different names? How about movie stars and even the local TV weather man with a stage name they may have on a company badge? How about a woman who just got married or divorced? How about an intelligence officer in a cover status? How about spouses with different surnames? Heck, "ID matters" doesn't even define an "ID." The TSA web site sort of does, but, places no limits on the TSA's ability to question anything with a name on it -- hard copy, electronic, tattoo, etc. "Throwing in an iPhone to generate a sensationalist headline..." is very much in bounds because the TSA has never said that searching electronic media of any type for undefined "identification media" is out of bounds.

It's clear that the TSA is looking to establish a new foothold on intrusiveness. If a judge and his/her law clerks don't do their homework, yes, he/she will have an attention span less than my cat's and do us all a huge disservice by driving another nail into the coffin containing the U.S. Constitution.
FliesWay2Much is offline