Yet, even after months, we have been offered no proof or examples of where the TSA is going beyond what the regulations permit with respect to administrative searches of airplane passengers.

As occasioned by the TSA's search of a tenant space, the main question in this thread is "may TSA conduct suspicionless and warrantless searches and inspections of persons and places in the sterile and secure areas?"

I have been very consistent and specific (even as I have had to make some corrections/clarifications) in what I have been saying: yes, the TSA may conduct such searches and inspections, because it has been given broad authority by law, regulation and 40 years of jurisprudence, to conduct searches and inspections of anyone anywhere in the sterile and secure areas as long as the searches and inspections comport with the 4th Amendment and its exceptions that have been carved out for what are known as administrative searches.

NDSol and Ptravel have been adamant in making blanket statements that absolutely no warrantless or suspicionless searches or inspections are permitted anywhere in the sterile and secure areas except at a PSC but also at a boarding gate for those persons having the intention of boarding a plane.

I have been consistently saying that airport operators and TSA not only believe that TSA may, but that TSA regularly does make suspicionless and warrantless searches and inspections in the sterile and secure areas and, absent TSA employees making significant mistakes (such as allowing employees discretion in selecting whom to search), any search or inspection TSA makes of any person or place in the sterile and secure areas that is challenged in a court will be defended by the government as a permissible administrative search and that the courts will bend over backwards to uphold the search as being a permissible administrative search.

I have never said the TSA has unlimited authority to search or that the airport environment is a constitution-free zone nor that the 4th does not apply at airports (although 50 plus years of case history shows that fear benefits the government at the expense of individual rights).

[sorry for the run-on sentences...]

I think the others have limited their remarks to passenger searches, not airport workers.

Well, yes, yes they have. But as I have tried to point out, the law and regulations do not make any distinctions between "passengers" and any other classification or category of persons in the sterile/secure areas.

I have pointed out that TSA by policy and practice does not search "passengers" in those areas except in relatively "rare" circumstances. That TSA does not do so except in those rare circumstances does not mean that it may not do so in a more regular way.

I believe there are differences between passengers screening and others as was pointed out up thread. What TSA might do by policy and practice does not mean those policies and practices conform to the regulations. Government agencies will often stretch the rules instead of going through the change process because doing so is easy and ask for foregiveness when caught.

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That's right, the law makes no distinction between passengers and badged personnel. They both have the same Constitutional protection from unreasonable search and seizure inside the sterile area.

But those holding a SIDA badge also agree to random screenings as a condition for holding the badge. Hence, TSA has authority to conduct random screenings on SIDA badge holders inside the sterile area, because they explicitly consent to such screenings when applying for a SIDA badge. Passengers don't.

You have had months to provide an example of the TSA performing an administrative search on passengers in those "relatively 'rare' circumstances" other than at the screening checkpoint or when boarding a plane, but you have not provided any evidence of a single one. And there is a reason for this -- because the TSA is not permitted to do so.

<redacted by moderator>. I am happy to discuss this with whomever you are getting your information from. Feel free to PM me with their info. I have done that before on this site < moderator's edit: Flyer “Processed” (Arrested?) in NM After Declining to Show ID > and talking about the matter with Legal. Unsurprisingly, Legal didn't see it the way he did.

^^