TSA Conducts Car Search at SRQ
 

http://sarasota.patch.com/articles/t...#video-8830631

http://www.mysuncoast.com/news/local...Wd4scu01w.cspx

:eek:

If you don't like it, don't drive??

"First they came for....."

What could they do if you refused permission to search the car, and under what grounds?

Is the worst they could do refuse permission to enter the airport, based on a local statute?

Umm.. this was a car at the airport.

So, TSOs on this board, what CFR gives the TSA authority to search outside of the checkpoint and the airport sterile area?

What are the boundaries of "airport property"? In the case of SRQ, is there a specific point on the roadways where the authority in charge of maintaining the road changes as you get closer to the airport?

What happens if one says the magic words, "I do not consent to a warrantless search of my car"? After all, many drivers heading to the airport may not be passengers at all, but are instead picking up travelers.

See the TSA's justification on slide 25 in the link I just posted here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/check...e-arrests.html

I don't get your point. This was an entry road TO the airport. You think its acceptable for them to shake people down like this? Where is their authority for doing this?

So the checkpoint entry point can be/has now been effectively relocated to a point on the road approaching the airport? That would mean that TSA can stop anyone outside the checkpoint (ticket area, for example) and grill or frisk them.

And if this is a joint exercise with local authorities, one still wonders what the source of that authority is. Checkpoints for drunk driving have to adhere to certain guidelines. If it is a CBP-led operation, again, I don't see what role TSA has in being there.

Of course, the 'you have presented yourself for screening, anything goes' line has already been moved to airport parking lots in some cases, so the precedent is there.

Unfortunately (and I sound like a broken record), there is only one way that TSA searches of cars approaching the terminal will be found illegal: A driver refuses to consent to the search, is denied entry to the airport property or is arrested on some bogus charge, and sues DHS.

Until that dedicated and brave driver steps forward, there will be no check on the TSA's creep.

^ This.

Could they have been doing it in conjunction with (by some tenuous means) the LEOs who ordinarily claim search authority at airports as well?

If that is your rationale, then would you also say that a TSO, back a couple of years ago, had the authority to order me to stop taking pictures from the top of the garage at PHX T4 citing security concerns?

(He tried and I told him to call a cop or go pound sand. He left and I was there shooting photos for another 45 minutes or so and no cop ever arrived.)

BTW. LAX had/(has?) searches on approach to the terminal, but those are performed by LAX police IIRC. How is that justified?

So what is the legal justification for searching cars at the airport based solely on their presence at the airport?

Bad link within my previous quote. Fixed.

From our friends at the TSA:

:rolleyes:

I am beginning to hate "Administrative Searches." Every time they institute a new, probably unconstitutional procedure, the "administrative search" mantra is cited. It is becoming like Ali Baba's "Open Sesame" or a magician's "Abracadabra!" The incantation magically makes the thing we know it to be something else. We can not complain, because the new thing is now protected by the mention of the words. They are magic words. They make whole constitutional amendments disappear. They create government powers never envisioned, just as the sorcerer may now move objects telekinetically or disappear, things that we are certain can not really be done happen as if my magic.

If we protest, the sorcerer from his position of new found power glares down at us and says "I have power over you because of the incantation! Submit."

Where or what is the talisman to protect us from this?