Posted on 02/24/2011 11:11:56 AM PST by seanmerc
After going down in a spiral of paranoid stupidity—called out for saving body scan images, ridiculed for patting down an almost-naked woman or nailed for harrassing a kid at airport security—the TSA has reached a new low. It's surreal.
Here's what a traveler recorded on February 13, after his train trip to Savannah:
The only bad thing on our trip was [the] TSA at the Savannah train station. There were about 14 agents pulling people inside the building and coralling everyone in a roped area after you got off the train. This made no sense! Poor family in front of us! 9-year old getting patted down and wanded. They groped our people too and were very unprofessional. I am all about security, but when have you ever been harassed and felt up getting off a plane? Shouldn't they be doing that getting on? And they wonder why so many people are mad at them.
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
Wait until we have high speed rail and there is a TSA security checkpoint at every train station.
I said nothing about the scope of the search. I was responding to the hysteria that there should never be searches of deboarding passengers at all, simply because they’re . . . deboarding rather than boarding?
That’s just not well-founded.
But the hysteria continues. Bringing up there might be situations where deboarding passengers should be searched — again, without commenting on the scope of that search — has gotten me two freepers telling me to drop dead, go to Tunesia, etc.
That’s embarrassing. And not for me.
Good day.
Don’t want to get groped by TSA when you get OFF a flight? Then NEVER, EVER fly back to Atlanta from an international destination! The airport is set up in such a screwy way that people flying back from anywhere in the world go through a more rigorous screening coming home than they did when they left the USA in the first place.
Don’t drop dead, just grow up.
Fourteen TNA agents would be more than the number of passengers on an Amtrak to Savannah. I bet some hobos scattered though...
I appreciate all of your efforts. You weren’t the only one that post was addressed to, though. Far too many people are asleep while our civil liberties and Fourth Amendment protections are being stripped away from us. You said that you wear sweats on the plane to give them little reason to harass you. Why should it depend on what you’re wearing? The issue isn’t whether you’re giving them reason to harass you. The issue is that the Constitution and Bill of Rights protect us against unreasonable search. The government doesn’t own our bodies, nor do they give our rights to us. Keep fighting the good fight, and remember to vote at the next election. Until then, make your voice heard—loudly and lawfully.
Please don’t post to me again. Thank you.
No metal in my clothing at all (and thank God no medical implants).
The hardest part is keeping the muderous scowl off my face and being polite to the morons in the blue shirts.
But I also get your point...
Just use the old established Freeper Block-Poster feature, then.
you would think that once you disembark, you are no longer a customer and no longer beholden to TSA goons
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” - Amendment 4, The United States Constitution
As I've said, if there is information that makes it appropriate to seach deboarding passengers, of course they will (and should) be searched.
TSA has number of ways in which it works with local law enforcement agencies on rail security issues. If, for some reason, a passenger train does need to be searched upon arrival at a station, I could see local police asking TSA to help out since (1) they are authorized to, and (2) they have specialized equipment and so on.
Again, I'm not addressing the scope of the search (what TSA actually did to search). I'm only addressing the somewhat hysteria that no one can be searched getting OFF a public transportation conveyance as opposed to getting ON one.
I've given a couple of examples in posts upthread. Also, it's very common to be searched after getting OFF a conveyance -- as, for example, when you enter customs in another country.
But certainly if LE had reason to think there was something/someone on the train that had to be addressed, a search can and should take place. This really has nothing to do with TSA; such a search could and should happen regardless if TSA didn't even exist. It's just that TSA has the expertise (laugh if you like) at searching large numbers of passengers for contraband right now and part of their mission is to GO to places where passengers need to be searched, for whatever lawful reason.
Again, if an onboard train marshall had a geiger counter go off, say, but couldn't pinpoint the source, it might be appropriate to search deboarding passengers and bags. Just one example.
A person is never outside the jurisdiction of law enforcement's lawful search power. It's just the standards for executing a lawful search vary, depending on the situation. For a public, general search (i.e., not particularized to any one individual), it doesn't matter if one is getting on or off a bus, or entering or leaving an airport. If there's a lawful basis for search, it can occur.
I would for dang sure hope that we don't live in a world where the police get solid information that someone on board a train has a bomb, for example, but the passengers can't be searched when they deboard because . . . they're deboarding?
That would be a crisis, not the opposite.
All true.
But so far the only reason given for why this search "is unreasonable" is that it occurred to passengers who were deboarding rather than boarding.
How does that automatically make the search "unreasonable"?
IMHO, it doesn't.
I'm not addressing HOW the search was conducted, just the fact that it makes no sense to believe that it's never appropriate to search passengers deboarding a public conveyance.
I gave examples in my other posts, which I won't repeat here. Thanks.
No it is not common. It is rare -- even when traveling abroad I was almost never searched on arrival. In fact one trip I demanded that customs search my goods, because I thought I might be being set up -- where they ignore me at the customs gate and then bust me later for not declaring what I had with me.
On domestic air travel searches upon boarding were rare pre-9/11 and still are not 100%. Upon debarking searches always have rare. For ground travel searches are unheard off.
Stop pushing un-American police-state tactics in the name of paranoia.
“There were about 14 agents pulling people inside the building and coralling everyone in a roped area after you got off the train.”
Is this 2011 or 1939? Wake up sheep!
That's pure police-state mentality. The wording of the fourth amendment is completely at odds with it.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,You know, the Constitution never mentions that term you use "law enforcement", I wonder why that is?
Talk about needing to grow up. Are you really going to keep on posting to me when I asked you nicely not to?
Really?
See you.
Try and detain me then!
You post, I post. We all post. This ain’t the police state you are looking for, officer.
Spot
On
If some uniformed clock-puncher has his geiger counter show “something”, there’s still no need to search everybody on the transport. Where did the abnormal reading occur? In this coach or that coach, near this passenger or that? This process of narrowing down the search is called “reasonable”, it use something folks taking the route you do end up having less and less of: reason. The ability to think and reason.
If there is something radioactive it is like a lightbulb in a dark room. It shows itself clearly to the sensing equipment.
Besides WHY are you using geiger counters? You need alpha detectors for polonium. See http://www.deqtech.com/Ludlum/Categories/alpha-detectors.htm
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