TSA FAIL.

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I have learned that one way of not putting up with sh*t is to use an alternative way. Flying is not the only way of getting from here to there, at least not within the continental United States. Overseas travel may force travelers to put up with crap the airlines are imposing. Even so, one can always go by boat. It takes longer, but it is possible.

ruveyn

TSA is a great impingement on peoples rights, and even if you found an alternative means of transportation, I guarantee with time that you'll have to put up with the same BS driving, walking, running, swimming, boating, paragliding, or your favorite mode of movement. If you don't agree with the TSA, then I would boycott any services that uses it, and on top of that, and fight any further impingement on your rights. It should go even further because it's clear that the government does just whatever the hell it wants. TSA solves as many problems as going to Afghanistan solved terrorism.

And then what do you do if the alternative way is also impinged on? And the next, and the next?

Why do you think the Middle East is erupting lately? It's because every time people back down and choose alternate ways of living, they are impinged on even more. At what point do people stand up and say, "Enough is enough!" ? Once all of your rights are eroded, it's too late. Speaking up must begin the MOMENT it begins to happen. Simply choosing to back away and alter your lifestyle ignores the problem.

If we don't fly, and every airline goes out of business, terrorists will target alternate means of transportation. The "T" in TSA stands for transportation. They're not just going to disappear because we don't fly.

Have you forgotten how this country was founded? It wasn't by people backing down, hiding and seeking alternate means of living that hopefully the current government would ignore. It was by standing up and proudly declaring, "Enough of your bulls**t!"



You forgot the torches and pickaxes!

I would say they do, no passengers, no airline, no TSA. But then again the TSA will just be assigned to something else anyway...like searching school buses and the kids for contraband like yogurt containers over 4 ounces...

Eventually, the government is just plain gonna push it too far and american are going to get truly sick of their bullsh*t.
It's not a matter of 'if' but a matter of 'when'. The people are already getting kinda irritated with Washington DC, but those clowns are too obsessed with total control to 'get it'. So, go ahead, keep pushing us, but don't be surprised when a total sh*tstorm happens. Oppressive tyranny never lasts forever, and when it ends, things get dramatic.

This is just my observation based on the current political climate.

How many of those Americans will wind up in Guantanamo Bay? Hopefully the military won't take orders to detain citizens like that, but before you know it, there will be a private army of foreigners that won't have a problem taking those orders.

Who knows? If too many americans start getting shipped off to camps for things they thought they we're allowed to do like express their free speech, then americans will get upset. Also stability depends on the public remaining comfortable, if the economy collapses, then things could get really ugly.

It's in the nature of all governments to grow and grow themselves until eventually, they become so bloated and corrupt, that they crumble. This has happened over and over. Don't think for a second that it can't happen here, it has already begun. The american system is currently being held together with duct tape & bubble gum.

The scary thing is, when DC finally does burn up all it's credit tricks, and they go broke, that's when the velvet glove comes off the iron fist. They will not just close up shop and go away at that point.

Whatever happens I keep this gandhi quote in mind...

This is the issue that you're going to choose as your hill to die on? Really?

Flying is not a right, it's a privilege. The contract of carriage dictates the conditions of exercising that privilege.

Don't like the conditions? Well there is no problem that can't be solved by throwing money at it. Find another contractor--there are plenty of private jet operators that will happily transport you from general aviation terminal to general aviation terminal with no security inspection to interfere with you. (You also get to avoid large, crowded terminals, and fly into smaller airports closer to your destination--win, win, win. All for one not-so-low price.)

The simple truth is that millions of people fly every day, and millions of people fly with little to no incident. So suck it up, princess. Plan ahead, think about what you're trying to take on board, check a bag, put your liquids and gels in it and relax. Life's too short to get yourself worked about about something as inconsequential as airport security inspections.

I would argue that life's too short to subject yourself to the TSA over the minute risk of terrorism. What if the terrorists really just owned stock in body-scanner companies and the people that make tiny plastic bottles and the whole death to America thing was just a front?

Are you seriously missing the point that what she brought with her was NOT a violation? That these idiot TSA agents obviously overstepped their authority? That this kind of crap is actually happening regularly? That they violated her RIGHTS?

Flying is not a right? Are you serious? What's next? Walking down the street is not a right? Geez man! Wake up!

Fine. You want to argue from that standpoint? What earns you the privilege of boarding a plane?

Money, and following the boarding and baggage restrictions. If you've done that, you have EARNED the privilege of flying. If you've EARNED the privilege, it becomes your RIGHT.

Owning a home is privilege too. If I pay off my mortgage, it's no longer a privilege, it's my right. No one has the authority to knock on my door, and tell me I have to leave because I've got the image of a gun embossed on it.

They refused to allow her to board on FALSE pretenses! So she should just shut up and take a bus next time?

HELL NO!

The purpose of the TSA is public safety. To prevent terrorism. Explain to me how refusing to allow her to board because of a leather gun embossed on her purse kept all of us safe. Explain to me how it prevented a terror attack. THAT is their job, not to intimidate totally harmless people just because they can.

That's ridiculous.

If you are going to make a legal argument, be certain, first, that the law is on your side. So, let's see if that is so. A few base issues, first.

1) A right is an legal entitlement that is enforcable against another party. Not all rights are equally enforcable--some are enforcable only against government, others are enforcable only against individuals within certain restricted classes. When you assert that a party has a right, that assertion is incomplete if you fail to identify against whom that right is enforcable.

2) Remember that the TSA is an agency that was created by statute and has a legislative mandate. If you want to argue that the legislation is unconstitutional, by all means do so--but I think you will find that is a fruitless endeavour.

So, if we accept that the legislation is constitutional--as we are bound to do until the courts tell us otherwise--then we come to the question: What right of hers was violated? Name the right and demonstrate how that right was enforcable against the TSA.

She certainly has the right to be free from unwanted touching and from restraint of her personal liberty. But she waived those rights when she consented to be searched.

She had a contractual right to transportation, but that right was enforcable only against the airline that entered into the contract with her.

She had a right not to have her contractual rights interefered with (this is the first right I can think of that actually existed and would, absent other factors, be enforcable against the TSA). But that right is not violated if the party against whom she is alleging violation acted with colour of right. It's a basic principal of tort law that you cannot sue somebody for doing something that the person had a legal right to do.

Now the prima facie case is that the TSA officer had a legal right to perform the inspection as it was performed. The officer's conclusion may be patently incorrect, but I suspect that you will find that the administrative law standard to which the officer's conduct would be assessed is, "reasonable grounds to believe," and I am not yet persuaded that the officer's conduct fell below that standard.



Let's be clear--streets are public space. Airports and aircraft are private space. The rights of individuals are very different when dealing with private vs. public areas.



You've lumped a great deal within "boarding and baggage restrictions." All of the conditions in the contract of carriage must be met.

A contractual right is enforcable only against another party to the contract. She entered into a contract with Southwest Airlines--an agreement to which the TSA is a stranger. Now, you might have an argument if you can demonstrate that the TSA agent committed the tort of intentional interference with contractual rights--but you can only demonstrate that if you can prove that the TSA agent acted without colour of right and in bad faith.

As for the right that you allege (the contractual right to board the aircraft), the contractual right is only crystalized if the conditions of the contract are fulfilled. One of the conditions of the contract is compliance with security inspection. She did not have the right to board the aircraft until she completed security inspection and presented herself at the boarding gate prior to the passenger acceptance deadline. By failing to show up by that time (even through no fault of her own) she lost the contractual right to board that flight.



You are conflating the rights of tenure that come with fee simple ownership of real property with contractual rights. At common law, a property owner does, indeed, acquire a package of rights of general enforcability. Tresspass and nuisance are common law torts enforcable against any other person.



Of course it's ridiculous. But that does not support a legal argument.

The TSA is a collossal boondoggle. The enhancements to passenger inspections do very little to augment the safety of passengers, aircraft and crews. But there is no legal standard of "effectiveness" in assessing whether a statute is constitutional or not. For better or for worse, Congress has created a statute that has vested officers of the TSA with the authority to undertake their jobs. Stupid and pointless jobs though they may be, those jobs are nontheless authorized by law.

If you try to make a legal argument grounded in siren calls of "Rights" you are inviting the reader to question your assertion. If it turns out that the rights you allege do not exist, are not enforcable against the TSA or were not violated because of privileged action, then you make the more important argument look irrelevant when the legal argument is demonstrated to be faulty.

Instead you should be making the rational, political argument that government is throwing money at a collossal waste of time and effort--which has nothing to do with rights and the law, and everything to do with common sense. Then we could all agree.

Wow this sucks....they really gave TSA total athority based on their speculation of what is a threat?

I really need a one way ticket out of here. The power that the government has taken upon itself is beyond the common person's ability to take it back without it getting really really nasty. Ladies and gentlemen, we are already beyond the point of no return...it happened like a thief in the night. What surfaces in the media is only the tip of the iceberg that sank the titanic.

Honestly folks, this is the time to flee the USSA cause once it becomes common knowlege how screwed we are, the international gates will be closed.

meanwhile, I wait for my family to wake up, probably in vain.

Jojo

Visagrunt, I'm not a lawyer, but for crying out loud one doesn't need to be one to know sometimes when something is just plain WRONG.

This is NOT that complicated. If the law supports what they did, then it is WRONG. I'm not going to engage in lengthy debates over legalese details, when the truth is so danged obvious.

What they did was wrong. It should not have happened, and it should stop happening. It's that simple. As a citizen that is all I need to know.

If you want to split hairs over what a right is, be my guest. Any reasonable person would agree her rights were violated IMHO. Maybe not her "rights as defined by legalese doctrine," but for crying out loud, how many citizens of any country can recite their own countries laws? To expect them all to be able to is unreasonable. Hell the damned lawmakers and lawyers can't even do it half the time they've made them so complexly worded.

I don't need a law to know what a right is. We all have the right to breath. The right to speak. The right to live happily. The right to love. The right to be loved. Are all those things spelled out in laws? I doubt it, but I don't care. They are still rights we all have, no matter what the law says.

IMHO, they violated her rights. Honestly, I don't care what the law says. If the law doesn't spell that out, the law is wrong.

I don't NEED to know any more than that.

In a nutshell, Visagrunt was saying wrong...yes, illegal....no
thats how fargone things really are.

Jojo

Yeah, I got that jojo.



Essentially then, we are in agreement. All of what you said here, I felt was kind of "implied" in what I was saying. Although I would prefer to choose my own way of making arguments. I prefer not to get into the nitty-gritty details because that too often opens numerous cans of worms I'd rather not mess around with, when the issue is so simple.

Let the lawyers and legislators deal with that crap. It's their job. They may suck at it, but I've got stuff to do so there you go.

All I know how to do is stand up and yell, "Hey, that's just plain wrong" once in a while. I don't know how to fix it. I'm not sure anyone really does.

i recall someone said that.. A LONG DAMN TIME AGO. (insert country xyz for "america")