Originally Posted by
L-1011
My comments on the Privacy Act gave the following answer:
Quote:
Thank you for writing. Information collected at the checkpoint is collected pursuant to the TSA 001 Transportation Security Enforcement Record System system of records. Under the Privacy Act, Federal agencies may exempt themselves from the requirement to provide a Privacy Act notice. TSA exempted the TSA 001 system of records from the notice requirement because the information typically relates to a criminal investigation. TSA published its Final Rule implementing the exemption in the Federal Register on June 25, 2004. Under the circumstances, though, we will re-examine whether the exemption should be waived in certain circumstances. As to your comment on the applicability of the Constitution, TSA airport screening constitutes an administrative search to effectuate the governmental goal of safeguarding national and transportation security. The 4th Amendment search and seizure provisions do not apply.
Am I the only one who thinks that there is a problem with the two bolded statements?
I have a bigger problem with the part that I bolded above. A government agency just defacto determines which Constitutional Amendments do and do not apply to their activities? This is so totally opposite to the way the American (and most other) consttutional systems are supposed to work that I can't believe they would so boldly send this out. I recognize there's a lot of court generated dribble about informed consent for airport searches, but I wasn't aware of any precedent for suspending the 4th or any Constitutional amendment at the Check-point Charlies that have been erected in our airports. We're losing this country, it's foundations and its original values, as these armies of fools led by a very special group of morons move to provide us a national ID and limitations on all travel.
