Originally Posted by
chollie
Cite?
That is not what the OP's cite says.
It says what we already knew: they are only 'allowed' (officially) to search for WEI. IF they encounter non-WEI contraband (marijuana, for instance) during their authorized search for WEI, then they have to notify LE. They can have ETD technology and explosive-sniffing dogs because explosives are prohibited. They are not supposed to have drug-sniffing dogs, because marijuana (or large amounts of currency) are not WEI, do not present a hazard to aviation security.
TSA has a statutory mandate which is pretty much WEI only. Some screening of people, too. Adding Marijuana to the list of prohibited items no more expands their statutory mandate beyond WEI than adding pink striped socks to the list of prohibited items. But an agency exceeding its statutory mandate is not necessarily a constitutional violation, and that makes it all the more difficult to detur agencies from exceeding their statutory mandates.
United States v McCarty gave TSA a pretty good roadmap of how to conduct themselves so as to make any potential evidence 'discovered' during screening admissible. But if TSA had to defend putting Marijuana on the prohibited item list in proceedings under the APA, it wouldn't be an open and shut case.
Whole body scanners fall outside the court prescribed limits as well (they are not the minimum amount of a search necessary to find prohibited items--nevermind they have been shown to be ineffective anyway). Yet TSA has no problems using them.
All TSA would have to say is that marijuana is an organic substance that can burn, fires are a danger to aircraft, and thus marijuana is dangerous to aircraft.
You can complaint about it all you want, but no court in recent history has put the brakes on anything the TSA has done.