Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Our rights are being violated


"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."

It's the fourth amendment to the constitution. It protects us against unreasonable searches. Or does it. I suppose the standard that must be examined now, is whether what is going on in America's airports is considered reasonable or not.

The Transportation security Agency (TSA) has recently decided to expand their authority to conduct searches of airline passengers all across America. And the basis for this expanded authority seems to be no more complicated than Americans exercising their individual rights to not be violated by radiation emitted by the TSA's new full body scanners.

Many bloggers and media personalities have taken exception since this policy was first announced by the TSA last week, but little if anything has been done to bring a halt to the policy.

The simple reality is that the TSA or any other government agency or their agents cannot violate our persons, absent 'probable cause" and or a warrant. There are surely provisions allowed to police officers, permitting them to conduct pat down searches for their own safety, but the criteria for those pat down searches are well establish and they are not conducted arbitrarily. And police officers are not allowed to grope or squeeze a suspect's genitals with open hands during a routine pat down search. Especially involving officers of the opposite sex.

The act of refusing to be exposed to and irradiated by some government operated machine, does not justify the physical intrusion of our persons or the demeaning groping or our bodies under the auspices of security searches. Not even as it concerns preventing terrorism.

And simple refusal to submit to one of these irradiating scans, is not sufficient in and of itself, to overcome the prerequisites of protection established by the fourth amendment against unreasonable searches.

I have flown once in the past several years. It was the policy then that shoes had to be removed and all carry on items scanned. In addition, I was required to walk through a magnetometer and occasionally people were called to be searched with an hand held magnetometer. But if I were to fly today, I apparently would be confronted with a potential violation of my rights, that I simply am not prepared to surrender to for the sake of idiotic policy.

Someone is going to have to stand up to this idiocy and become the test case that reaches to the Supreme Court before this idiocy can be stopped. In the mean time, millions of Americans will continue to ignore their own rights and allow themselves to be groped and sexually abused, in order to facilitate their need to travel and the governments desire violate their rights.


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