TSA is Violating our Right to Freedom of Association
Apr 5, 2011, 6:24 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 855
TSA is Violating our Right to Freedom of Association
http://wewontfly.com/tsa-is-violatin...of-association
Great post. Sometimes I lose sight of the reasoned responses to the TSA's irradiate/assault crimes which we all posed late last year.
These days I get bogged down in the details. It's good to be reminded that we are right.
Great post. Sometimes I lose sight of the reasoned responses to the TSA's irradiate/assault crimes which we all posed late last year.
These days I get bogged down in the details. It's good to be reminded that we are right.
Apr 5, 2011, 6:46 am
#3
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Nashville, TN
Programs: WN Nothing and spending the half million points from too many flights, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 8,043
Thanks for the link. From the blog post is this paragraph that says what I have tried to say and does it much better:
Free association is a (first amendment) right. It is expressed through contract. When you buy a plane ticket, it is a contract. You trade money for transportation. The TSA, with zero authority, gets in between you and the other party to the contract (the airline) and decides when you may associate and under what conditions. This is illegitimate and a violation of my right to freedom of association.
Apr 5, 2011, 10:33 am
#4
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 2,425
^^^
Interesting exchange. Thanks for posting it. Another angle on what is getting trampled on by TSA visual strip search and sex organ groping. But I suspect it is not as strong as the 4th, 5th, and 10th amendment arguments... Heck, those are strong enough. It's weird that we are even debating this issue.
If those amendments are successfully rejected in such a clear fashion, then we have become unmistakably subjects of a totalitarian state. That sounds inflammatory, but just make a checklist of what such a state would do, how it conceives of its own power wrt limits over people, then compare it to what is being done in the US.
Interesting exchange. Thanks for posting it. Another angle on what is getting trampled on by TSA visual strip search and sex organ groping. But I suspect it is not as strong as the 4th, 5th, and 10th amendment arguments... Heck, those are strong enough. It's weird that we are even debating this issue.
If those amendments are successfully rejected in such a clear fashion, then we have become unmistakably subjects of a totalitarian state. That sounds inflammatory, but just make a checklist of what such a state would do, how it conceives of its own power wrt limits over people, then compare it to what is being done in the US.
Apr 5, 2011, 10:38 am
#5
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Exile
Programs: co-founder We Won't Fly
Posts: 9
It's my opinion that citing the constitution is tantamount to preaching to the choir. It's not useful for PR purposes. Also, decisions like Katz and Terry have eaten into the 4A from a legal point of view.
Thus, making moral, practical and other arguments is a high priority so as a group we can continue to have interesting things to say that will build buzz and make us seem even more correct in our views on this issue.
Thus, making moral, practical and other arguments is a high priority so as a group we can continue to have interesting things to say that will build buzz and make us seem even more correct in our views on this issue.
Apr 5, 2011, 10:41 am
#6
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: EWR
Programs: CO
Posts: 102
I particularly like this comment from Joel. It clarifies what exactly is meant by "Constitutional Rights". I was taught in school that the Constitution "gives us rights". The difference is quite important.
For one, this betrays a woeful ignorance of the purpose of the Constitution. The Constitution is meant to limit Federal and State powers. Thus, any issue not explicitly covered by the Constitution is implicitly an individual right unless said issue was granted to the Federal Government (such as having a military or dealing with interstate commerce). Any power not given to the Federal Government would then be assumed by the individuals or local states. So from a philosophical view of the Constitution, the first thing we must realize is that if a right is absent from the Constitution, unless that right is explicitly given to the US Federal Government, then the right is assumed to be an individual right.
Apr 5, 2011, 10:57 am
#7
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 2,425
It's my opinion that citing the constitution is tantamount to preaching to the choir. It's not useful for PR purposes. Also, decisions like Katz and Terry have eaten into the 4A from a legal point of view.
Thus, making moral, practical and other arguments is a high priority so as a group we can continue to have interesting things to say that will build buzz and make us seem even more correct in our views on this issue.
Thus, making moral, practical and other arguments is a high priority so as a group we can continue to have interesting things to say that will build buzz and make us seem even more correct in our views on this issue.
Apr 5, 2011, 10:59 am
#8
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 2,425
It's my opinion that citing the constitution is tantamount to preaching to the choir. It's not useful for PR purposes. Also, decisions like Katz and Terry have eaten into the 4A from a legal point of view.
Thus, making moral, practical and other arguments is a high priority so as a group we can continue to have interesting things to say that will build buzz and make us seem even more correct in our views on this issue.
Thus, making moral, practical and other arguments is a high priority so as a group we can continue to have interesting things to say that will build buzz and make us seem even more correct in our views on this issue.
No one should graduate from 8th grade or high school or college without proving that they understand this concept. It is because of ignorance that we are at the point we are at. And the powers that be are DELIGHTED with this ignorance.
Apr 5, 2011, 11:06 am
#9
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Colorado
Programs: TSA
Posts: 2,745
That is a stretch. Freedom to associate does not mean that. There is a three pronged test: TIME. PLACE, MANNER and basically what the doctrine says is if you show up to a rally, you cannot be held liable for just being there, the government cannot prosecute you for that association and cannot supress those meetings based solely on the intent of the meeting.
Apr 5, 2011, 11:09 am
#10
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Nashville, TN
Programs: WN Nothing and spending the half million points from too many flights, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 8,043
That is a stretch. Freedom to associate does not mean that. There is a three pronged test: TIME. PLACE, MANNER and basically what the doctrine says is if you show up to a rally, you cannot be held liable for just being there, the government cannot prosecute you for that association and cannot supress those meetings based solely on the intent of the meeting.
Apr 5, 2011, 4:36 pm
#11
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 855
I've been thinking about this question ever since you asked. I'm thinking that we're getting back to due process rights here (5th amendment), rather than 1st amendment.
I started thinking: do we have a property right to our contracts? If we do, then it's a 5th amendment issue. Do we have a right to "assemble" with the other party to a contract? If so, then I guess it's a 1st amendment issue.
(The thing about natural rights is, well...
...they're so natural that it's sometimes hard to pin down how the Constitution protects them, or even if. )
When the TSA prevents us from getting to the gate to get on the aircraft, they are preventing us from "meeting & associating" with the party we've contracted with, and enjoying the service we've contracted for. It seems we really do have a property right to our contracts, and a right to associate with the other party in the contract.
I figure the TSA is interfering with both rights, and unconstitutionally at that.
Of course, I'm no lawyer.
PS: The bothersome part of me is that for a person raised in a "free" society, it's obvious the TSA is infringing on natural rights. To us, it's only natural that a person who isn't committing a crime should be able to travel unmolested. Further, we understand that because being at the airport preparing to fly does not make us "non-human", we are obviously still in possession of our inalienable rights. These rights are more a part of us than our fingers, our toes or our livers. Those parts can at least be cut away. Inalienable rights cannot be neatly sliced off. A citizen of a "free" society naturally understands this.
A citizen raised from childhood to expect authority figures to behave in bizarrely abusive ways does not have the same understanding of his/her natural rights. Natural rights aren't natural to a person who's been routinely victimized for a lifetime.
Are we raising a generation of people who will not grow up with an intuitive grasp of their inalienable rights? Will our tolerance for government abuse cause the next generation to lose sight of what it means to be free?
I started thinking: do we have a property right to our contracts? If we do, then it's a 5th amendment issue. Do we have a right to "assemble" with the other party to a contract? If so, then I guess it's a 1st amendment issue.
(The thing about natural rights is, well...
...they're so natural that it's sometimes hard to pin down how the Constitution protects them, or even if. )
When the TSA prevents us from getting to the gate to get on the aircraft, they are preventing us from "meeting & associating" with the party we've contracted with, and enjoying the service we've contracted for. It seems we really do have a property right to our contracts, and a right to associate with the other party in the contract.
I figure the TSA is interfering with both rights, and unconstitutionally at that.
Of course, I'm no lawyer.
PS: The bothersome part of me is that for a person raised in a "free" society, it's obvious the TSA is infringing on natural rights. To us, it's only natural that a person who isn't committing a crime should be able to travel unmolested. Further, we understand that because being at the airport preparing to fly does not make us "non-human", we are obviously still in possession of our inalienable rights. These rights are more a part of us than our fingers, our toes or our livers. Those parts can at least be cut away. Inalienable rights cannot be neatly sliced off. A citizen of a "free" society naturally understands this.
A citizen raised from childhood to expect authority figures to behave in bizarrely abusive ways does not have the same understanding of his/her natural rights. Natural rights aren't natural to a person who's been routinely victimized for a lifetime.
Are we raising a generation of people who will not grow up with an intuitive grasp of their inalienable rights? Will our tolerance for government abuse cause the next generation to lose sight of what it means to be free?
Last edited by ElizabethConley; Apr 6, 2011 at 5:57 am