New additional random screening?
 

I searched for a thread and didn't see any mention of it.
I'm currently in CLT and on the landside away from the counters they have a table set up and 3 TSA screeners randomly asking people if they can check your ID and contents of your bag. I was asked and basically ignored them and walked away - I figured you have no authority till I go through the checkpoint. Yesterday in LIT I noticed a couple of them at the gate I was at and during the boarding process randomly asking passengers to see their BP and ID's.
I take it these are new "enhancements" to the security mission?

The latter is certainly not new and has been going on for quite a while and discussed here extensively. The former seems like an attempt to "spook" potential "bad guys" to make them easier to spot by a BDO, but I haven't seen it reported here before.

Sounds like a certain airport is a wee bit overstaffed.

Mike

As per budget requirements....

Seems to me I experienced this set-up at IAD a few months ago. Haven't seen it locally but the San Antonio airport isn't exactly a major hub. Realize some, maybe many, here think the whole security and TSA stuff is a joke and I'll not debate that but as a survivor of the Pentagon attack I guess I take the security and TSA hassle with a grain of salt. It is what it is.

This is getting worrisome.

This indicates that the TSA is either overstaffed and/or underworked and is trying to generate additional workload for TSOs for whom there is no room at checkpoints.

It's been going on for some time now. Thermal imaging cameras at airport entrances, gate searches, drink testing, the entire SPOT program (which is based on entirely unfounded pseudoscientific principles), VIPR squads at non-transportation-related venues, the list goes on and on...

The answer to the overstaffing problem is not to set up additional "abundance of caution" screening presences. The answer is to cut jobs, cut employment, cut spending. The economy is overtaxed (no pun intended) as it is and this seems to me a pretty clear-cut example of budget fat that could easily and productively be trimmed out.

GWB was lauded for creating jobs when DHS/TSA was founded, but it was clearly an ill-thought-out action as they didn't consider the kind of candidates the jobs would attract. Now that we've seen both

A. The power-hungry types that apply for TSA jobs

and

B. The fact that there is apparently not enough work to go around (coupled with the complete failure to stop even a single terrorist in over 9 years of operation)

It's time for a budget cut. A big one. And lots of job cuts to go with it. If they're so in love with SPOT, then let them keep it until it's proven to be the failure it is, but they definitely need to hand out pink slips to TSOs who, for whatever reason, are deemed unfit to work at actual checkpoints.

There you go, spoiling things by bringing up facts....

They probably shut down one of the screening stations to force more folks through the strip-search machines & free up people for these checks.

I haven't seen this yet. Quite frankly I would've told them what they can do.

I don't doubt the over staffing upstairs, but I will tell them what thay can do with that over staffing. Get their assess down stairs to screen the checked luggage they are drowning in so that the airline gets the bags in time to put them on the planes. When we get bags late because TSA doesn't have the staffing in baggage customers don't blame TSA they blame the airline.

Theatre, harassment, waste of resources... shall I go on?



:)^



But the flying public does have visibility on what goes on down in the bag room. What good is Security Theatre if nobody can see it?

I do consider screening luggage for bombs something that needs to be done. Put the resources there instead of the stupid stuff the op posted about.

I would love the the TSA to do the pre-checkpoint screening here at PHX.

Citizens are legally allowed to carry sidearms with them inside the airport terminal as long as they are not going airside. Citizens can also carry the sidearms concealed.

Phoenix PD has also put the TSA on notice that they are not to be called by the TSA if someone is seen or found carrying a sidearm landside.

If they ever do try that nonsense at PHX, I am sure I could round up a few friends who have sidearms that would be more than happy to pay a visit to PHX with a gun in a backpack and submit to a search.

I would watch the hilarity ensue.

Recently, in a different airport, I heard a TSO declare to his co-workers that he would go swab some hands, since he didn't have anything else to do...

Security by apathy.

My wife and I both had our backpacks (but not our 30 pound rollaboards) 'inspected' as we reached the door of the jetway in CLT yesterday. The inspection was rediculous as they opened each zippered compartent (7) and looked inside, but did not open anything inside any compartment, like my Bose headphone carrier.
I got the impression that it was all 'make work' and to show the 'kettles' that their government was there protecting them.
Disgusting.

It's pure b/s is what it is:td:

Next time just remember to ask "so what did you miss at the checkpoint?" :rolleyes:

Why did you let them do it? What do you think they could do to you if you said "No" and continued walking on to the plane? :confused:

"Do you have a search warrant?"
"Am I being detained?"
"Am I being arrested?"
"Then I am exercising my right to travel on a common carrier. Excuse me."

They could have played the Do You Want To Fly Today card and denied boarding. Remember, the OP's situation took place airside, where random screener harassment can be blown off.

You're confused? You'll be more than confused if you try what you posted.

No. I don't need one. You are in the secure area of the airport and have therefore submitted to all security inspections pursuant to our procedures, which you cannot see becuase they are SSI. It's a security issue.

This is not an involuntary detention. You agreed to submit to security inspections by entering the secure area of the airport. This is an administrative inspection that you consented to by entering the secure area.

Not yet, but you are working on it. Are you refusing to allow us to inspect you for security issues? Are you aware there is a fine of up to $11,000 for such failure? And, if you hinder or delay our security procedures, you are subject to arrest.

And where might one find such a right? Several courts of appeal haven't found it.

I respect the attitude, but you better know the law cold when you try to apply it because you won't like the ramifications if you are wrong.

We're all waiting for the day when a court rules that a "random" search is administrative. It hasn't happened yet. When it does, we'll know that the 4th amendment is history for sure (except for us rich white people).

Within the secure area of the airport, you can bet they will rule you remain subject to administrative inspections.

The real question is the scope of the permissible inspection.

49 C.F.R. 1540.107(a) requires that no individual may enter a sterile area or board an aircraft without submitting to the screening and inspection of his or her person and accessible property. As such, without at least reasonable suspicion, I don't believe the TSA has the authority to do any checking unless you are trying to enter the sterile area or at the point you are attempting to board the plane.

If this happens, you may request clean gloves and you may request a private screening as both are your rights. If the airline says the amount of time to do this will cause you to miss the plane, then inform the airline that this would be an IDB case.

You are taking a narrow view of the regulation. Care to guess if the TSA will take such a narrow view, or will they take a much broader view allowing them to conduct administrative inspections anywhere in the secure area?

Good luck. The airline will no doubt assert that they aren't the cause of the inability/unwillingness to board and disavow liability.

True, but on what basis would they argue authority? As another poster pointed out, in some states you can legally carry a firearm in the land-side terminal building. So what would the TSA claim they are searching for? Unless you have a vest of explosives strapped to you there isn't a whole lot you aren't allowed to bring in to the land side/non-sterile areas.

A basic rule of construction concerning the interpretation of CFR’s is they are to be interpreted in the strictest sense especially when the regulation involves restrictions on individuals and their actions. The agency that promulgates the regulation also is the drafter. As such, if the agency wanted to make the rule broader, it should have drafted it as such.

So you believe that if I present myself for boarding within the timeframe required by the airline's CoC and meet all the rest of the terms and the TSA says that I have the right to have new gloves and a private screening, the airline will disavow any liability due to the exercise of my rights? If that is the case, then they are not really rights, are they? It's IDB.

Vulcan specified he was on the jetway
Have any of these 'responses' been tested in a court of law? I recognize them as likely TSA responses, but would the TSA be correct in making these assertions? My general response to the first two would be, "I consented to a search to gain access to the secure area, and your colleagues cleared me. I did not consent to subsequent searches." and my response to the third would be, "Certainly I am not refusing to allow any legal searches. Do you have probable cause or a search warrant?"

I found it on wikipedia: :DTongue in cheek, of course - I realize wiki is not a valid source. IANAL, so if you could point me to the court decisions you refer to, I would appreciate it.

If my responses are incorrect or invalid, why is there a common supposition on FT (see N965VJ's post above) that TSA can be safely ignored or disregarded after the security checkpoint? Is that assumption incorrect? Do you think TSA is on firm legal ground to do random luggage searches on the jetway?

FWIW, I have disregarded TSA agents requesting ID at the gate, but I just walked past them and no one said anything. I didn't actually speak to them. I'm just trying to figure out how I would respond if I was targeted for luggage search at the gate.

One of the times I was asked to submit to a gate search, the checkpoint was inside the jetway. Between the checkpoint and the door of the jet were two additional clerks. The visual message was intended to be that they would stop a person from passing, but I don't think that physical force would have been used.

I think all that would be required is for the TSA to inform the crew, and the crew would gladly ask you to get off of their plane. If you didn't comply, I think at that point a LEO would be summoned, and you would likely face charges for that in addition to anything the TSA wanted to levy.

In my case I had walked past the checkpoint saying "No thanks" and they responded by telling me it was not optional. I returned to the checkpoint and asked what it was all about and then asked them to hurry up and not take too long.

It appears that you missed that I was referring only to the "secure area," which is at and after the screening point.

Great general tenet of law. The TSA has made it clear they do what they want. Do you really think a general tenet of law is going to deter them?

I was referring to what you can actually expect the TSA to do. I am quite confident the TSA currently believes the voluntary inspection area extends to the entirety of the secure area at any time.

Good luck. Let me know which US airline provides you with IDB compensation under these facts. Allow you to standby for a later flight? Probably. But IDB compensation? Not a chance. The airline is not involuntarily denying you boarding. You can always make a civil claim against the TSA, of course.

Hmmm... I see AA (my primary airline) lists in their CoC:
I wonder if "I did permit a search, at the security checkpoint!" meets this condition?

Sheer genius. I wish I could think up stuff like that on the spur of the moment.

Do we have examples of those that have refused consent to a search airside before the boarding gate without reasonable suspicion, but yet the TSA forces the search? I am not aware of such. I believe TSA actually does know their limit, but has not formally articulated it (other than what the CFR's state).

You are welcome to your opinion, but mine is that it is IDB. Otherwise why are there rights that are not able to be exercised? If you are ticketed, have a confirmed reservation, check-in on time and are at your gate on time for boarding, why wouldn't this be an IDB. It's the airline that decides to leave without you.

The TSA is absolutely right if they make such assertions because they get the final word on the scene. All you can hope for is a court later telling the TSA they shouldn't have done it. Not a very good result when you have been potentially detained, searched, and prohibited from flying.

They get to make up the rules as they go along and claim they are SSI. That's what the TSA is doing now. When they tell you that you consented by entering the sterile area, you have nothing to contradict their assertion. At the very least, you will not be able to fly.

Realistically, you can fully expect that you are going to be detained for a lengthy period of time if you refuse to allow the TSA to conduct a search in the secure area of an airport. But you might get a court to rule later that the TSA was wrong. Maybe. I wouldn't count on it. TSA is going to claim random inspections in the secure area are essential to preserve safety of the aviation industry. Hence my earlier comment that it is not an issue of whether they can conduct such an "inspection," but what the permissible extent of that inspection is.

The statute you reference primarily concerns the right of airliners to use air space in the U.S. That "right" is still limited significantly by denying flight over prohibited areas (most of which are used for military flight purposes).

For a general discussion of the administrative right of the TSA to conduct passenger inspections, see: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastor...10/0410226.pdf

On the issue of travel by air not being a right, see: "The Constitution does not guarantee the right to travel by any particular form of transportation." (Gilmore v. Ashcroft (N.D. Cal. 2004) unreported) at http://scholar.google.com/scholar_ca...=1&oi=scholarr. (Petition denied at 435 F.3d 1125; cert by the Supremes also denied.)

I believe N965VJ's comment actually was intended to refer to pre-security inspection area efforts by the TSA and that the reference to "airside" was mistaken.

I think it is very clear that TSA can conduct random luggage inspection on the jetway. The regulation cited above actually says so: "49 C.F.R. 1540.107(a) requires that no individual may enter a sterile area or board an aircraft without submitting to the screening and inspection of his or her person and accessible property."

I strongly believe that the TSA also believes (and that courts will uphold) random administrative inspections anywhere in the secure area.

You might want to take a look at: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastor...10/0410226.pdf

"We have held that airport screening searches, like the one at issue here, are constitutionally reasonable administrative searches because they are 'conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme in furtherance of an administrative purpose, namely, to prevent the carrying of weapons or explosives aboard aircraft, and thereby to prevent hijackings.'"

While that case dealt with initial screening, do you really think courts will not give the TSA similar authority throughout the entire secure area (particularly because so many airport employees enter it without screening)?

Neither am I, but I have no doubt it is happening.

My point is that you want to hold the airline responsible for something the TSA is doing. I don't see that happening. It's not the airline's fault.

What if you check-in on time but the lines at initial security are so long that you miss the flight. Is that IDB to you as well?

Wonderful. And why couldn't this just as easily be extended to demand an administrative search of my car on the highway to the airport? For that matter, why not demand a search of my home once I've purchased the airline ticket?

There's only 3 things I can interpret from these additional checks:

- the screening procedures at the checkpoints are deficient
- the screening procedures at the checkpoints are sufficient, but are being executed in a deficient manner
- TSA needs additional opportunities to look like it's "doing something"

I have now twice in the past week seen flights at SFO with TSO's inspecting IDs at the gate. This is announced prior to boarding. What can this possibly accomplish?

Exactly.

The same logic can be used to hold that an administrative search of your home can be warranted as part of an administrative scheme to stop street violence. Or searches as you step onto the sidewalk for the same reason.

The Constitution has so many holes in it that our forefathers would be twisting in their graves.

Yep, I was referring to the non-sterile area.

That's my understanding as well. However they still have limits, such as the other day when a screener, while resolving what an x-ray operator saw in my bag, asked me where I was flying to. I completely ignored his question without further incident and was on my way a few moments later.

Perhaps they thought you were not an English speaker? I dunno, maybe they just didn't share their employer's fetish with IDs.

It already is. For most of the day, airport police officers man checkpoints at the entrances to LAX and "inspect" vehicles entering the aiport.

Be careful. You'll give them ideas.

I agree with all, except the screening procedures are not sufficient. Not even close.

What's "IDB"?