Originally Posted by Bart
If you really don't want to go through security, you don't have to. However, you agreed to undergo security as a condition for flying on a commercial airline. It's a contractual agreement. When you deliberately walk into a security checkpoint, you are consenting to security screening. No one forces you to walk to the checkpoint. This is something you do on your own with full knowledge that you are going to be screened.
Bart, we both know that in practical terms that is no longer true in modern society.
Let's assume that I were to refuse to fly.
1. There would be many jobs I could not accept -- indeed, a number of professions would become impossible for me.
2. I would not be able to see my family again (very few trains from Israel to Florida).
The ability to fly is a necessity today.
To say that a traveller has given his consent to being searched is about the same as saying that a person with a gun to his head has given his consent to the thief to take his money.
The question is, how can airlines not be exposed to an unacceptable level of risk without ignoring Constitutional values?
The answer is four-fold:
1. The TSA should use non-intrusive search methods (eg: x-rays, puffers, magnetic devices) to look for materials threatening the flight only. If these same devices are used to look for other illegal material, such as drugs, they are outside of the scope of any implied consent for flying.
2. Intrusive methods (wanding, opening bags, pat downs) should be used only when there is reasonable cause to suspect that a particular person presents a danger -- such cause could include an alarm set off by the non-intrusive methods.
3. No LEO should be involved in the search process, be allowed to watch it, or be informed of the results except where the search has turned up a dangerous weapon. If I am carrying smuggled diamonds, they represent no danger to the airplane and should not be brought to an LEO's attention. Likewise, there is absolutely no reason for the TSA to look through my wallet to see if I am carrying a suspicious amount of currency.
4. No search of a passenger's property should ever be carried out without his presence -- unless he gives actual (as opposed to implied) permission for it. This means that the TSA should give me the same option in every airport as it does in FLL: I can keep my bag locked, wait until it has been cleared, and then board my flight knowing it will not be opened or I can leave my bag and risk it being opened without my being present.
It really is not difficult to protect air safety while not trampling on the Constitution -- it only requires the government's desire to actually follow that road.