I don't think you have to be a "nut-job" to bring passion to your work, and set or clarify a legal precedent. ;)

You don't know his intentions, and neither do I. You make ASSumptions about his intentions. I make assumptions about his intentions, too -- and I applaud them.


I don't think that fact is in dispute.


Why?


IANAL, but this is my take on it:

1. No.
2. Yes.
3. Irrelevant. IMHO, the directive won't be allowed by the courts.
4. Reasonable suspicion of what?
5. There was no reason to BEGIN the "investigation", much less to continue it at any point.
6. The fact that there was no WEI.

Not to mention outright threats. About they only thing they didn't threaten him with was anal rape in a prison cell. Steve held his temper, better than I likely would have in a similar situation. They (TSO and police) were trying to get his goat, in the hopes he would get violent and give them an excuse for arrest.

Ensuring separation of church and state is part of the constitution, not everyone in this country is a christian. You can still celebrate Christmas.

Everyone, regardless of their crime, is entitled to a trial in a timely manner. Holding people in a prison with no conviction or worse yet secret prisons and secret trials happens in countries like North Korea and Iran. Our constitution was created to protect everyone, not just people who deserve protection.

Congratulations on invoking Goodwin's law

YES! I am one who has been punished by DHS for my political expression.

I don't see why. NYPD has a line item in it's budget just for that little thing. I believe the annual amount is about $40 million. NYPD for some strange reason tends to lose in civil court and thus most lawsuits are settled before trial.

Like HE wasn't doing the very same thing, simply in a different manner?

I was being facetious. I'm sure there is something tucked away in every budget to cover these things. I don't think Congress is going to readily expand the budget for an agency that causes too many headaches. That would be a political trick bag.

Would a reasonable person who is breaking no laws when confronted by Federal government employees and local law enforcement who question him in an overly aggressive manner, use threats, and abusive language not ask about his legal rights.

He was asking whether he was legally required to answer their question. When they didn't say yes who was breaking the law by interrogating him further?

Of course you can still celebrate Christmas, you just have to be paranoid over who you might offend. The ACLU has blown this issue way out of proportion and in doing so, alienated quite a few people. The State no more promotes any religion by allowing it's decorations than you promote the TSA by buying an airline ticket.

The case I was referring to involved someone who doesn't not fall under the U.S. Constitution. Constitutional restrictions on the U.S. Government only apply on U.S. soil or to U.S. Citizens anywhere in the world. This was not the case. Maybe the ACLU lawyers need to go to Afghanistan and solve the problem there. I can arrange the aircraft. :D

The Hitler thing wasn't a bailout, it was simply a figurative comparison. Anybody, at any point in time can be made to look like a hero.

Let's not go down that road. It's fairly apparent that he was baiting them into either overreacting or making some type of ridiculous statement. (which he was successful on both) If there was any legitimate type of reasonable suspicion, he did nothing to dissuade it.

If he broke no laws, then why wouldn't he answer the questions? How many travelers would have acted in the same manner? I'm going to guess relatively few, as these cases aren't popping up all over.

So that makes it a reasonable person standard?

If he is breaking no laws he is under no obligation to answer the question. Which is what he was asking and so please provide answer. Was he legally obligated to answer their questions and if so what is the law? There was no legitimate reasonable suspicion, he had $4700.00 with him and there is no law against that.

The Hitler reference was a bailout. When all else fails, when your arguments do not hold up compare something to Hitler to distract from the real discussion.

Because he doesn't have to prove that he didn't break any laws; TSA has to prove that he broke the law.

Because it's rude to ask someone where they got their money, and why they're carrying it ... especially, as has been noted frequently, the presence of any quantity of cash has nothing to do with the safety of airline travel.

Because, as James Duane has effectively demonstrated, answering questions from those acting under the color of authority rarely leads to good results. If The Powers That Be don't get you for the original crime, they can get you for something else you reveal in your answers.

We can't know the answer to that question. First of all, I suspect very few travelers have that much cash on them, relatively speaking. ($4700? Heck, I've never held that much cash in my hands at one time.) Second, of those very few travelers, I suspect very few TSOs would've identified that cash as potential contraband and escalated the incident as this TSO did. At that point, we're dealing with a small enough set of people to make any statistics meaningless.