Boycotting the TSA

I received this in my inbox today from Wyatt Investment Research. I can't find a copy online, so I'll just paste the text here. (The author, Kevin McElroy, previously shared his letter to Sen Patrick Leahy with me.)

Back Home From Canada

 

Fellow Resource Prospector,

I’m back in Vermont after spending four days in Toronto for a mining conference.

I know I’ve been a bit heavy-handed with the conference information, so today I thought I’d make a left turn into a more personal subject - something I feel very strongly about.

I did encounter some really exciting opportunities at the conference, and I’ll be following up on those opportunities in the following weeks. Click here if you want to read some of the past week’s articles on the mining conference.

So, I spent most of yesterday driving from Toronto, back to Vermont. It’s about an 8-hour drive, including a few quick coffee stops. It’s a somewhat scenic drive that follows the north border of New York and Canada, crossing into Canada and the following the north side of Lake Ontario.

The question is, why drive?

That’s a question my co-workers and friends have asked me, and I’ve given the answer a lot of thought.

I could have flown. My co-worker Tyler Laundon flew out on Sunday morning at 6 am and got into Toronto a little before noon. He also got home before I did, on Wednesday night, as opposed to Thursday afternoon.

But I stopped flying last year, when my pregnant wife and I found out that the United States government would ask us to either go through a backscatter scanner or submit to a pat-down.

Warrantless bag searches in waiting area

TSA has been doing random bag checks (without a warrant of course) at the gate as passengers board the plane for years. Now, there are reports that these checks are occurring in the waiting area as well. The Washington Post questions whether this means we are in - or approaching - a police state.

One point of clarification: DHS already conducts random car searches at road blocks. These "border" inspections occur tens of miles (often over 100 miles) inside our borders. TSA VIPR teams have searched bus passengers, train passengers, and cars. Here's the relevant passage from the WaPo article, in which the reporter appears oblivious to this fact:

Supporters of the TSA's more aggressive screening measures are quick to point out that no one has to fly, and that Amtrak, Greyhound and personal vehicles are still available.

But similar security searches are now being conducted on trains and in other public areas, including random screenings of Metro passengers in Washington, as well as mass-transit riders in New York and Boston.

The TSA has also indicated that it wants to move the perimeter of aviation security screening beyond the airport, to checkpoints on the road, according to Chris Calabrese, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. If these roving searches are tolerated within the terminal and are allowed to jump to the street, there's no telling what might come next. It isn't inconceivable that in the near future, the TSA could set up roadblocks to randomly screen automobiles anywhere it pleases.

And if the TSA is permitted to expand its screening, it could prompt further outcries from the traveling public and more comparisons to a police state, say Calabrese and other privacy advocates.

Hassled in Tampa

Eric Johnson sent me the following email:

Hi - I am writing this from the Tampa Airport. Today at 3:30 pm I noticed some people were being directed through the metal detectors and some through millimeter wave. I asked if I could go through the metal detector. The TSA person immediately escalated and read me the "law" about refusing millimeter scanning at the top of his lungs. He then made me stand aside while my laptop, wallet, watch and luggage went to the other side of the belt. I waited 5 minutes and asked when I was going to be searched. They had no answer. Others were going through the metal detector at this time. Finally they took me to the other side and then "informed me" how intimate this search would be. I was then subjected to a very public, and very lengthy feeling over. Clearly this was all to make an example of me to the rest of the public that this is what happens to trouble makers. I'm 48 years old, bald and was wearing a corporate shirt from a trade show here in Tampa. I've been flying all over the world. This is the worst treatment I've ever experienced. It was rude, hostile and completely unwarranted for asking a simple question. I do not trust the millimeter scanners. I'm going to have to think through my need to travel by air if there truly is no option but to subject my body to untested waves or to be publicly humiliated as an American in a public airport. I'm so angry right now I had to find a place to vent. You came up first. I intend to give you money when I get home. Thank you for listenting and trying to protect our constitutional rights.

That Senate vote

I never blogged about the silly vote in the Senate that made "improper" use of TSA scanner images a felony, but I guess I should at least note it here. It was a politically easy vote that accomplished nothing, but it made the politicians feel good about themselves and allows them to say that they "did something." It does not address the unconstitutionality of these scanners and, meanwhile, the Congress continues to fund the expansion of the program.

"This time, we've got it right"

A great write-up at HuffPo of the folly that experts will always protect us. Gayle Green says:

As an all-too-frequent flyer, female, over 65, with a two-decade history of commuting and a cumulative radiation exposure equivalent to some pilots, I'm taking the pat-down, as humiliating and harassing as it is.

Why? She explains:

Since the 1930s, when the International Commission on Radiation Protection began setting guidelines for permissible exposure, it has been lowering the permissible dose -- by a factor of 2 in 1950, then again by a factor of about 3 in 1956. (3) (Permissible dose is set lower as dangers are found to be higher.)

"There is something disturbing about the repeated assurances, 'this time folks, we have got it right,' comments Dr. Morris Greenberg, a senior public official in Britain, "when on each occasion, a previous understatement of hazard is revealed." (4) Meanwhile, each successive report of the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation committee, a committee of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, has acknowledged a greater danger to low-dose radiation. Their most recent report states there is "no evidence of a threshold below which no cellular damage occurs." (5) That is, even the lowest of doses may be dangerous, as Stewart claimed.

TSA brutality

Robin Kassner (who was a featured millionairess on Millionaire Matchmaker) was attacked by the TSA for "raising her voice" and becoming "angry [and] disruptive" while they searched her bags (without a warrant, as usual). She got a concussion, but, better yet, the video is available so you can see the absurd use of force by the goons in blue.

Austin activism goes to the legislature

Texas has proposed legislation along the lines of what New Hampshire is proposing. Rather than holding individual TSO's responsible for sexual assault, it is holding the airports liable for such breaches of human rights. JH Huebert at LRC gives the backstory, which we've been following along here as well. It would be great to see some of this legislation pass and for more states to follow suit.

Of course, as my last post shows, as long as security is in the hands of the federal government, we will not be safe from the abuses. They will just move onto trains, buses, sporting events, concerts, and more.

And you thought this was limited to airports

Before airport body scanners were on the radar of many freedom-loving Americans, Homeland Security was figuring out the next step for brutal assassination of the Fourth Amendment.

The Homeland Security Department paid contractors millions of dollars to develop and study surveillance systems that could covertly track pedestrians and check under people’s clothing with airport-style body scanners as they enter train stations, bus depots or major events, newly released documents show.

Thanks to the work of EPIC, we now know about these projects. Chertoff's Rapiscan received almost $2 million in 2005 to turn its scanner into one that would work on moving targets: people in a crowd. No consent would be given and people would be irradiated and virtually strip-searched without any knowledge or warrant. Northeastern University received a similar grant to investigate these types of devices around the same time.

The documents EPIC obtained also show that pilot programs for surveillance of all rail passengers were in place (presumably using only standard photography and videos and possibly infrared imaging) in New Jersey and elsewhere. Additionally - of course - the images were saved for analysis.

The international scene

New Zealand is seeing how far they can push their own citizens around. Scanners are banned, but yet they might start showing up in the airports there to catch drug smugglers.

PS - If anyone has information on the laws and legislation regarding scanner use around the world - particularly Europe - please let me know. Are US-bound passengers the primary target?

Medical privacy rights

As part of our basic rights to privacy, it is legally and commonly accepted that medical privacy is among the more important aspect of these rights. This usually comes up with regard to unfair discrimination. For years, anyone with a medical condition that involved a need for a wheelchair or a metal implant has been targeted by airport security (both pre- and post-TSA) because they set off metal detectors. For that reason, there have been some who have proclaimed the scanners as a positive because they could instead go through the scanner and be on their way.

However, the scanners still violate their right to privacy about their own medical condition. It just seems less personal, but there is someone who can now see under your clothes to see what sort of frailty you may suffer from. If it is something that appears as an anomaly - like a mastectomy or back brace - then you have to undergo further scrutiny in the form of a pat-down. The man interviewed in this article is a little embarrassed about his need for a back brace and prefers to keep that information to himself. Isn't that his right?

Legal analysis of TSA's constitutionality

While I disagree vehemently that the TSA is acting constitutionally, I do agree with the analysis here that “the courts are going to be quite deferential" to the TSA's policies in any case brought up on these grounds. These cases are fighting the government in the government's own courts, so the deck is stacked against freedom-lovers from the start. For one thing, in constitutional law there is a precedent for exceptions to the 4th Amendment based on "administrative" or "public safety" grounds:

“I would expect the courts are going to be quite deferential. They don’t want it on their hands if a terrorist gets through and causes mass deaths,” said Renee Lerner, a George Washington University Law School professor. “This basically falls under a public-safety exemption to a warrant requirement." ... “The Constitution says you won’t be searched without probable cause. Of course there is an exception for that with administrative searches,” [legislative counsel for the ACLU, Chris Calabrese, said.] “There does reach a point we have to ask ourselves how far down the technological path do we want to go in chasing the next technique?”

 For reference, here is the complete, unabridged text for the Fourth Amendment:

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.

TSA pat-downs = sex crime in New Hampshire

That is, if some smart legislators have their way. As I wrote over at LRC:

I'm not holding my breath that this legislation will pass, but I love that it is truth-telling. A bill in New Hampshire will make TSA agents personally accountable for their actions while performing the perverse acts demanded by Pistole. Looking at or touching private areas of a person without probable cause would put the agent on the (awful) sex offender list for life. The bill also specifies that merely possessing a plane ticket, among other things, does not constitute probable cause.

H/T Mark Fee

Some other TSA shenanigans

If you can't trust the TSA, who can you trust? Besides the violations of rights and stealing money, here are some of their other claims to fame compiled by The Week (Click through to get details):

• Leaking security details online
• Pranking passengers with white powder
• Cheating on bomb detection tests
• Lying about secretly collecting passenger data

An opt-out testamonial

Robert Heiney's fed up with his rights being taken away, so he protests by opting-out, then shares his story:

They were herding passengers through the naked scanner like cattle at Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. No one escaped the indignity of having their whole body including all private parts exposed for government scrutiny.
I suppose this is the United States of the future. You will be required to essentially disrobe on demand in front of any federal officer regardless of whether there is reasonable suspicion of a crime committed or not. Due process is a thing of the past.

I noticed on a FBI Crime website that it’s not enough anymore to investigate crimes committed. Law enforcement will increasingly focus on preventing crime. Now who would argue against that? Perhaps America’s Founding Fathers. Because of the way it will be done. For example: once illegal wiretaps on your phone will become legal – like magic. Surveillance from any one of thousands of cameras surrounding you everywhere when you step outside your front door. Rifling through your papers, bills, purchases, and more – all of which will be on-line for every government snoop to spend quality time reviewing.

Read the rest...

Security theater redux

Despite denying the scientific evidence provided by Drs. Kaufman and Carlson that scanners are not good at detecting well-hidden weapons (without the TSA providing their own evidence), the TSA's own self-tests have proven the case. An undercover tester got cleared through security - including the body scan - with a handgun. Repeatedly.