I have two kids. If I found out that someone was using my kids for child porn, I'd determine that the appropriate punishment for that individual would be testicular removal with a butter knife. Fortunately, we don't let the victims (or their parents) determine the punishment for the accused.

AFAIC, this one isn't even close. It was nothing but a fishing expedition. And this decision has announced open season on my bags. Feel like going through my wallet? Well, now there's a reason to justify it. Wanna punish a passenger? Just search their bags and go through all their photos, just in case.

It sucks that we have to let any criminal go free. But it's better than a court decision announcing a reversal of the fourth amendment.

Mike

I think the hairs being split here was that, although this particular screener may not have thought she had enough to call a LEO, the court ruled there was enough. So that a different screener, who might have definitely not exceeded the administrative search boundaries, could have produced the same result.

I see this decision as much narrower than most who post here do.

Mike, I agree 200%. There's little lower than a child pornographer, in my book. There's also little that is more important in the U.S. than the constitutional limits on federal power -- that is all that stands between us and tyranny.

I can't express it any better than that.

I might express it with more supererogatory verbosity, but that's not the same as "better." Usually.

This would seem like a pretty straightforward issue, but maybe I'm wrong. The rationale for allowing searches at the checkpoint is to prevent the hijacking or destruction of aircraft. That's why we consent to them. Anything that's not plausibly a risk to the aircraft is beyond the scope of the search. If I have a bag of severed human heads, that's not going to take down the plane. If I have a bunch of kiddie porn (as vile as it is), that's not going to take down the plane. If I have a bunch of cash, that's not going to take down the plane.

The rule for TSA should be simple: if it's not a hazard to the flight, it's not the TSA's business, and, if they do call a LEO over, it should be treated in the same way as if the LEO broke into your trunk and searched it without a warrant.

Not quite. If a cop stops you for speeding, looks in the window and see a bunch of guns on your seat then he has probable cause to search your car.

In this case, the 9th circuit decided that this was similar AND gave TSA the authority to refer things deemed possibly illegal to law enforcement.

We've not seen the end of this yet. As scary as this ruling seems, I suspect that we'll see more "clarification" down the road.

That's because the guns are in plain view. The plain view cases are not administrative search cases.

I only skimmed the opinion, but I didn't see anything that analogized to the plain view cases. Do you have a cite?

No, but the doctrine seems to be the same, which is somewhat odd. In other words, the view seems to be that if something became in plain view as part of an administrative search it was to be treated as being in plan view despite the fact that it wouldn't have been in plain view but for the administrative search. But, when you think about it, isn't that the same as the police officer who stops a car and sees a gun inside? He'd never have seen the gun but for the stop.

Not necessarily. He might also have seen guns on the seat if he walked past the car in a parking lot or pulled up next to it at a stop light.

Paranoid though I am about the extent of administrative searches being expanded again and again, I have to admit that a simple hand search of a bag has always been permitted under the administrative search doctrine, and as such I couldn't find much fault in a TSO opening a bag as part of the search regimen.

The only part of this whole issue that I have a problem with is TSOs reading documents and flipping through sheaves of private printed material as part of the search. Once they see that the mass is papers, there is no legitimate reason to read them or even rifle through them, despite the rather flimsy excuse of "sheet explosives."

That's just my opinion, of course.