Scary thing is I may have found something that will allow them to not only do the ID chacks but also everything else they are wanting to try except for the SPO-7.

I am kinda mad about it because this is something that Francine should have been able to find.

I will post it later (tomorrow) after I have a chance to review it.

Making a note to myself so I don't forget it. (gilmore and davis)

I would suggest that you keep it to yourself.

Perhaps Francine and krewe have not found this.

Don't aid the other side.

Excellent post (as yours typically are). However for the above extract, I believe you're not quite correct.
The "They haven't declared it" part must also have a time dimension.
In other words, I have just assembled >$10k in cash, and I will be leaving the country with it. I don't believe I have committed an offense until I have left the country, or at least reached an unreturnable point in exiting the country during my journey.
And Bart's check-point at SAT does not constitue such a point. All he and his airport LEO partners could expect to show is that I haven't filed the required paperwork, yet.
Who knows, an overreacher could start up with a "conspiracy to transport cash" angle... In the current environment they might even be successful. :(

Not exactly true. In Italy payments over 12,500 cannot happen in cash (even though believe me they DO all the time - the biggest sector they happen in is in real estate. People routinely pay cash to get work done on their house, thus avoiding not only the 20% Italian VAT, but they avoid bureaucracy, permits etc.).

However, if you have money in the bank of course you can go and withdraw your 12,500 or 50,000 or whatever you want in cash. If it's 12,500 or over it will be registered and a 'red flag' of some sort will be sent electronically to the Italian equivalent of the IRS (Agenzia delle Entrate). I believe the bank may also have to ask what is the purpose of the money (to send the info to the Agenzia delle Entrate), only if the amount is over 12,500.

As I've said elsewhere, that's why LE needs to have "probable" cause, not "possible" cause. Nearly any activity could *possibly* be criminal. In order for something to be "probably" criminal, you would need at least 2 to 3 other data points. And it's essential that cops not be permitted to hassle people in the course of trying to collect these data points. Walking down the street is *possibly* someone "casing the neighbourhood". Walking down the street videotaping homes might look even more suspicious. Some LE folks on this board might think such activity would justify them approaching that individual and trying to question them in an effort to establish PC. But permit that and then you permit all the many, many people who might be videotaping for numerous perfectly legitimate reasons to have endure being regularly hassled by the police.

That particular circular argument was settled long ago. For reasons that I hope are obvious, if you cannot compel someone to allow a search, then having that person refuse a voluntary search cannot be used as grounds to conduct an involuntary search (not that the cops didn't try to argue this circular logic in court).

Are you serious? There are caves in Afghanistan with mock TSA checkpoints, in which the entire TSA screening experience is replicated by Al-Qaeda terrorists? Is there a Al-Qaeda training programme for operatives playing the role of a TSO? What does the curriculum look like? I'm thinking, module 1, "How to Talk Like a TSO" -- "Do you want to fly today?"; "I'm sorry, but that is SSI"; "Sir, you will have to provide an ID if you want a complaint form". Module 2: "Your TSO Uniform". Module 3, "Spontaneous Inspection Rule Generation and You". This must be like the best job in Al-Qaeda. Certainly beats some of their other current vacancies, like "Suicide Bomber who ignores airport and just kills a bunch of people somewhere else with the same effect."

You were doing great until that last two sentences. The LEO can approach them to attempt to establish cause. Absent reasonable suspicion, however, the subject can leave at any time and, of course, never has to answer questions posed (other than establish ID). The LEO is justified in approaching the subject, but again, the subject is under no obligation to cooperate and may, indeed, leave absent reasonable suspicion.

Agreed, and I should have phrased it "they don't declare it by the time they leave the country." :)

TK, methinks pol here has missed the point. Care to enlighten him?

TSORon is playing anti-TSA poster in this thread like I am playing TSA apologist.

Done

Air brakes on hard for this 1..... I can say with 100% certainty I have completed many cash transactions for amounts far above the listed with zero difficulty...If you meant only for europeans and or only non-U.S currency then you could be correct. :cool:

If he honestly and incorrectly believes this is true we are not going to change his mind.-- ps: I am reading these in order. If you have seen the light down lower in the thread, disregard. :cool:

Sounds great in theory. In practice, certain individuals get unduly hassled. And it also goes way beyond simple "hassle;" there have been numerous cases of brown-skinned people being stopped because they were videotaping public buildings ending up being detained for months without charges or justification. In an incident that sounds exactly like the modus operandi you describe, the cops justified the arrest of man seen videotaping a bank building in Charlotte because "he was evasive" when questioned.

My first career was as a photographer, and as a specialist in architectural photography I spend 20 years frequently out in public photographing thousands of buildings. Thankfully, I changed careers long before the 9/11 generated hysteria, because I can tell you that setting up a large format camera on a public right of way in preparation for a photo shoot was like a big cop magnet, who all thought they had the right to know what it was you were doing and why you were doing it. No doubt they thought my blunt, honest answers ("none of your ****ing business") were "evasive" as well. As a white person, I can only imagine how much more difficult it would have been to do such a job as a dark-skinned person after 9/11.

So while in theory, your assertion that there is nothing wrong with a police officer approaching someone doing something they find "unusual" and just verifying that there is nothing illegal going on sounds reasonable enough, until you realise that if society accepts this, then it means that certain people doing certain jobs are expected to tolerate nearly constant harassment. In my experience, creative, intelligent people do not become cops. Almost without exception, all the cops I have known live very mainstream, conventional, suburban lifestyles. As such, they find just about anything photographers, artists, writers, musicians and other creative people might do to be somehow suspicious, and they think anything suspicious gives them the right to hassle them. If we were to accept that as OK, then the result would be that anyone who is even slightly creative would have to endure regularly being hassled by police officers whose views on what is not "suspicious" are very narrow indeed.

In fact, this one of key social facets that the artist Christo has explored and revealed through his works, which typically involve wrapping buildings, structures, trees, monuments, etc., in hectares of fabric for a 2 or 3 week period. A lot of people think his art is about final product -- a wrapped building, for example. It's not. It's about the years-long process he has to go through to get the building wrapped, and about revealing the invariably negative response that anyone in a position of authority has to a request for permission to wrap a building. "Why?" "Why do you want to do this?" "What is it going to be used for?" And the unasked questions "What's the real reason he wants to do this?" Even after he has gone through the long process of getting permission (often including several dozen authorities) and finally has a green light to begin installing, his workers are invariably approached and questioned by police: "what are you doing here?" "why are you doing this?" The numerous letters, documents, affidavits, statements, reports, analysis, etc. that are exchanged between Christo and various authorities in the course of securing permission for an installation are, to Christo, as much a part of the art work as the wrapped object itself is.

As Christo's works reveal, people in positions of authority don't respond to things that look like potential criminal activity, but rather to things that are outside their narrow experience. Seeing two workers hoisting a giant piece of pink fabric to cover a tree can hardly be mistaken for criminal activity of any kind, but I guarantee you it attracts police attention, because it is an activity outside the conventional existence those police officers experience in their conformist suburban world.