Originally Posted by
Boggie Dog
Can you as a TSA screener approach a person in an airport parking lot and screen them and/or their belongings?
Originally Posted by
FliesWay2Much
Good question, but I doubt we will get an answer. If this ever happens to me, I've already decided that my response to them is: "Go ahead...make my day."
Originally Posted by
Boggie Dog
I think it is a fair question.
TSA screeners are not law enforcement so I don't know if any legal standards that would allow a search are present. I certainly don't think the Constitution goes away just because a person enters airport property, especially when there is no reason to think the person is trying to access any secure area. I believe Stop and Frisk has pretty much ended on Constitutional grounds so where exactly does TSA derive any more authority outside the entrance to the sterile area than what police have?
I can understand a need for increased security inside the aircraft operating areas of an airport but outside of those areas standard law enforcement standards should apply.
I answered and then clarified the answer to these questions just a few posts earlier. But.....
A search by a
TSO is an administrative search. Therefore, such a search as you propose by a TSO could only legally happen if ALL persons in the parking lot were also being searched. A TSO has no authority to arbitrarily stop individual persons and demand/conduct a search.
However, such a search could legally be conducted by the
TSA through an employee who is a law enforcement officer (LEO such as a FAM or certain TSIs) for selected individual persons in a parking lot IF the LEO can articulate a reason.
Similarly, airport police officers cannot randomly stop an individual outside the secured areas without a reason, either.