First Law Dawg said He did not state he took constitutional liberties. Taking an item that a person has no right to have is not a 5th Amendment violation.

Using no force as Law Dawg contends, and requesting someone to empty their pockets does not violate the 4th Amendment. An officer is under no obligation to tell someone that can refuse a request to search.

"I don't like the looks of those youngsters" is very much reasonable suspicion, as long as you are not being prejudiced. If you see a group of kids hanging outside the liquer store where normally kids dod not gather it is enough cause to go aver and say "howdy".

On the bottle example, the poster never claimed the officer asked him what was in the bottle. He stated he refused to show the label when asked.

Because now you are an adult and not some idiot wanna be criminal and now you can sue without Mom's permission.

Then why do travelers still have problems at checkpoints?
Example, Mr.Gel-Pack from PV, had gel packs keeping babies milk cold seized? How about the guy with the homemade battery pack? It was determined it was not a threat, but still was seized.

TSA seems to say one thing but does something else entirely.

And the Dancing with Stars comments does not apply. I can take a pass on Dancing, I cannot pass on TSA if I wish to fly.

If I could I would!

I take, from a trained officer of the law who knows Constitutional boundaries, "And maybe..." to be a beat-around-the-bush admission to exactly what he describes he "might" have done.

But if the officer comes up with something in that search and is asked in court why he felt compelled to ask and the answer is "Eh, just felt like asking for no particular reason." (not that any officer doesn't have an arsenal of shady reasonable suspicion excuses to draw from, true or not) does it hold up?

I agree with you when you add in the liquor store, but any random group of kids in not inherently suspect based solely on their being kids. Also, it's not just saying "Howdy." It's all in how they say it. They know they're cops and kids are easily rattled by authority. Again, that power is not something to be taken advantage of.

True.

I just hate feeling like I'll have to take whatever is dished out to me on the scene then fight it later at my expense, be it monetary, time or whatever.

Wow, your sense of outrage over this sort of abuse of authority is so obvious in your passionately worded, detailed response.

If you have kids or have ever worked around kids, you will know most of them can not hide their "evil" intent very well. Parents are the original BDOs.

If a good cop can scare the little ankle biter into behaving I am all for it. (NOTE this does not apply to bad cops)

*****

I don't believe that the particular individual lapses* are institutional policy, but the institutional policy of using SSI to hiding the rules and SOPs make lapses like these inevitable. TSA prides itself on the poor management that allows one place or one "bad apple" to not follow the rules--it is an integral part of its Keystone-Kops unpredictability strategery. The policy grows bad apples. From the outside, it looks like TSA's sloppy management doesn't care enough to make sure its own rules are understood and followed--how can we be sure it isn't making bigger mistakes.

* Like my incident: The STL TSO supervisor pulled the gel-pack out of my baby's bag, and told me gel-packs were only allowed for medicines, not infants. At the time, I accepted that the guy knew the rules he was enforcing. After a few travel delays, 13 oz of my wife's pumped breast milk spoiled and she cried as we poured it down the drain. When I re-read the policy and saw that I had remembered what I read: Breast milk is in the same category as liquid medications. , I got mad. Bob and several TSOs apologized for the error of the "bad apple" STL TSO supervisor, but TSA really can't make us whole and replace the irreplaceable breastmilk. I'm done with crying over the spoiled milk. But in the future, why should we trust TSA with breastmilk if no one can guarantee that we can carry breastmilk safely on an airplane? (Recently, because of this incident, my wife didn't even try to save 12 days worth of breast milk from a solo extended overseas trip.)

Been that way since day 1 (when there was perhaps some excuse); will be that way until day infinity I suspect.

Some screeners do understand and follow, some do not. There seems no mechanism to correct the latter.

I am not arguing what the rules are. You have been pretty straight forward about that.

The problem is how these rules are being used or not used across the country. There are way to many cases of the rules being tossed in the trash.

Take sports as an example, having a rulebook is fine but when it is not being applied in the same manner by the different teams then you cannot have a fair game. That's why the rules are standardized for the whole league.

This is a major failing with TSA. To much latitude at each airport to implement rules as that FSD sees fit, and so forth on down the line to the guy in St Louis that harassed a guy over $4,700 or the airport Mr Gel-pack transited and lost his means to cool a babies milk.

You guys have to fix these basic problems before the public who travels enough to see what is really happening will support your efforts.

Mostly because I don't prey on kids. Kids, for the most part, don't know any better. By that I mean they know what they're doing is wrong, but only because people have told them it is. They don't think it's bad.

And yeah, I was one of those kids once. And I bent the rules as a kid and yeah, I got caught. And the cops that caught me weren't nearly as nice to me as I've been to the kids. I got ran in and put in the pokie.

So when I've rolled up to kids looking shady, late, late into the night somewhere they're not really supposed to be, I've slapped their wrists and sent them on their way. But I don't browbeat them and I don't pull that "respect my authoritay!" crap. I do try and put a little fear of consequences in them, but I can only do so much.

Adults I don't cut near as much slack, but do look the other way on what I consider piddly crap. But with adults I pretty much follow the book, because with them I'm always anticipating charges being filed, and the process has to be clean.

No. That's what I've been saying - it's only really a protection against prosecution, for the most part. As in, the arrest would be valid but the charges would likely be dismissed because the evidence was tainted.

But since I preferred no charges and didn't plan on it anyway, it was a mute point. I confiscated illegal items, tried to impress on them the seriousness of the consequences had someone else found them and/or turn them over to mama's real and very physical love (if applicable) and then sent them on their way.

A cop looked at a bottle without permission. I'm not going to rank that up their with Darfur, if that's what you mean.

It was poorly done and beyond the pale. It was not a moral outrage nor a travesty. Had he beat you down to get the bottle away from you I would respond more vehemently. As it was - there are worse things that I see fairly often that warrant more of a response from me than that. Sorry.

Here is the problem. How do I know the difference between you making a friendly conversation or a fishing expedition trying to pin something on me? How do I know that I don't fit some vague description of some suspect? And, worst of all, how do I know that you are a "good" as opposed to "bad" cop who might try to shake me down? The latter did happen in a Polish community in Chicago. Cops were shaking down legal immgrants threatening to deport them.

Of course, if I know why the officer approached me, such as, say, a traffic stop, then I will be as polite as I can without being subservient. I will of course, be mindful of what I say to avoid confessing to something. However, once I detect a fishing expedition, such as a request to open the trunk, I will immediately shut up.