Originally Posted by
gsoltso
There are many arguments (many of them have been presented here) that the consent given at a checkpoint is not an informed consent due to the nature of the regulations and SSI and such - I can see that argument and understand the point made by it.
It's more than a consent issue, though, and one of the cases that the government lost in an excusionary hearing (I think it was the one relating to kiddy porn) raised the issue. TSOs are being told "you're only supposed to
look for WEI, but if you
see something else illegal, you're required to report it". Is this a "distinction without a difference"? Is there really that much of a difference between "look for" and "see"? This is especially true if there's
any kind of a "reward" for making the report, including just "a pat on the back".
To me, this is likely to be the larger issue in court than the consent one. Is requiring (or even encouraging) TSOs to report things that they "see" that are not within the bounds to "look for" in the administrative search causing them to effectively "look" for them and hence overstepping the bounds of the administrative search? If so, then consent is irrelevant.