Ok, so how can you challenge something that you know is going on but can't because you can't prove you're affected because the government is invoking state secrets to cover an illegal act?

Pretty much what we're seeing is that the executive branch is unaccountable and there's no way to enforce accountability. Are the checks and balances that broken in this country? If all it takes is the government to claim state secrets, why do we even have judicial review?

Actually, the legalese eludes my grasp. How about this: The executive branch violates the constitution. You can't prove it because they hold all the information about whose constitutional rights were violated.

A petty sex criminal places a camera in a dresing room and films up women's skirts. You can't ID the victims, so nobody can file a complaint, so there is no plaintiff, so there is no case. Lets make him the store owner so there's no tresspass. This does not mean there is no crime, nor that the crime is not serious.

I can not, as a non-lawyer, suggest a way around the catch 22. I can, however, offer fear that the government can do whatever it wants and we have little recourse. I'm not aware what any of the frontline candidates have said about this (likely nothing, for fear of being labeled "soft" on terror), so it's hard even to vote for a fix to the problem.

Hard to be sympathetic when you pretty much admit that it's OK for other people to be treated like this, it's only non-OK when it's you who is treated like this. I'll give you a hint. You are not special. Everyone is polite at the airport. Everyone is afraid and tries to kiss the rear end of authority. And yet we all have these stories. Roughly half the country is Republican, and being Republican or a conservative doesn't mean you are going to be treated one bit different from the rest of the cattle. Moo!

No one can read your mind and know whether you're "nervous" or not. Anybody can say anybody is "nervous." It's like being pulled over for "weaving." How do you prove it didn't happen? You can't. If it isn't OK for you to be stopped because you're "nervous," it isn't OK for me to be stopped because I'm "nervous."

A wise man had a saying about those who give up liberty for security not deserving either. Sounds a bit like karma in action to me. I'd be much more sympathetic if you were one who stood up BEFORE you were the one inconvenienced.

I don't know what has given you the notion that I feel that it is okay for other people to be mistreated when transiting our airports so long that it is not me or that I feel that am "special." I do know that a number of posters here are happy to flaunt their rights -- for better or worse -- and act provocatively when dealing with the TSA. All I was trying to point out with the quoted material is that I typically try to refrain from adopting a confrontation posture that can invite retaliation and usually treat authority figures with outward respect, whether they truly deserve it or not.

If I get stopped for appearing nervous, then so be it. My complaint is not that I was detained for secondary screening; it's that the secondary screening was not conducted in a timely, professional, and reasonable manner.

As long as being stopped at airports for "appearing nervous" is an accepted "standard", "appearing nervous" can and will result in the kind of secondary screening that was "timely, professional and reasonable" in the way you were subjected to it.

DHS-TSA is incapable of being consistent on far more basic elements than in using BDO & SPOT to identify "appearing nervous" of direct relevance to aviation security on the passenger's flight. As long as someone permits DHS-TSA to engage in dragnet at airports, including on the basis of "appearing nervous", your kind of experience will be happening again and again (even if you are fortunate enough to not have this happen again for quite some time if ever again).

I'm sure it was a designed inconsistency in our multiple levels of security. Since you managed to circumvent it and board the aircraft anyway, they failed. :p

Hopefully, you have learned your lesson. "Law and order" in the USA is just thinly veiled code language for "get the ni***rs". Unfortunately, there are many people like you in the USA who don't see the police state as a problem until they start targetting professional white people, and by then it's too late. Vote for the party of Bush, Cheney, "heckuvjob" Brownie, Tom "the hammer" DeLay, Skeltor and Rudy and you get what you deserve.

The difference is that targetting African Americans is clearly illegal, and actionable if proven. Targetting professionals who appear nervous, shop up late and want to make their planes in a hurry, or attempt to smuggle deodorant onto an airplane is not actionable.

Speaking of PC ways to address people without asterisks, I once heard someone interviewing Nelson Mandella comment on how impressive it was for "an err... African American... to be leading South Africa. " Dude.. he's not AA. He's just an... umm. African.

Did you get stopped for appearing nervous..... or for having the audicity to question the length of time it was taking? From your original post it sounds like it is the later.
And by the way it is NOT ok for them to give you a secondary just because they feel like it even if it's done in a timely, professional and reasonable manner.

... so far we have DHS-TSA targetting people on the basis of national origin. One step at a time. :td:

Finally, SAT Lawyer is one of us. Excelsior!

Mike

Wow, CBP is stupid. It doesn't matter where they were from or how they got into the US. They're US citizens and have a CONSTITUTIONAL right to be here, a right that can't be taken away without due process of law. But given this supreme court, the president's temper tantrum will be considered a due process of law.

Next thing you know, we'll need a permit to go from one room in your house to another.

..25 years .. ?? - I'm havin' flashbacks to "Logan's Run".

/just sayin'
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