TSA employees paid to look at your naked family, grope your children

Civil Rights, Fourth Amendment, Privacy News, Privacy rights No Responses »
Nov 172010

So you’re off on your yearly family vacation. You are prepared for the growing list of inconveniences at the airport.  You wear slip on shoes, and ensure that your children do the same.  You don’t wear a belt or carry change in your pocket.  No deodorant, medicine, sunscreen, or hygiene items in your carry on bags.  OK we are ready to go.  Well not quite.

Newly implemented technology and “Advanced pat down” techniques ensure that you and your family will either be seen naked, or have your genitals manhandled before you are allowed on the aircraft.  According to new policy, if you opt out of the full body scanner treatment, you will receive an advanced pat down with a complimentary genital groping.   According to TSA chief John Pistole, “The patdown is unavoidably intrusive, embarrassing, uncomfortable…”.  Need I say more?

Of course you need not be subject to the pat down.  All you and your children have to do to avoid it is go through the body scanner.  Don’t worry though.  The TSA claims that the agent cannot see your face, and cannot interact with you.  The TSA also claims that it does not save any of the images(however, it does not state that another agency or company does not store the images).  That’s good, because the scanner does not leave much to the imagination.

I feel safer already

Now, I know we need to be vigilant in our efforts to stop people from using airplanes as weapons against our nation, but is all this humiliation and degradation really necessary?  Do they have to feel up my children or view them naked?  I guess I will need to explain to them that it is OK if the TSA thug touches them in their private areas, because they are agents of the government.  They are just making us safe.  But are they really making us safe?  What are they really protecting us from?  An underwear bomber?  A shoe bomber?  What happens when the religious zealot shoves C4 up his rectum to blow up a plane?  Will the TSA make cavity searches the next mandatory search?  Why not?  It will save me a trip to the proctologist, and I don’t have to fly after all.

The real rub here is that these machines really will not make us any safer.  They will only give people the illusion that the government is protecting us, while simultaneously indoctrinating Americans and enculturating heavy handed government authority into our every day lives.

In my opinion this is a violation of our right to privacy and to be free from unreasonable search.  The government does not have the right to violate our constitutional rights simply because we have a choice.  Of course we do have a choice.  We will not be getting on a plane unless we submit to the humiliating roughhousing or peepshow. We are still free to drive or take the bus, but of course, that is a privilege too.  At what point do we stop allowing the government to trample our rights in the name of exercising our privileges?  The right to be free from unreasonable search is not dependent on whether we choose to fly.  We have that right, no matter the choices we make.  That is, if we fight for it.

Posted by Justin at 3:42 PM Tagged with: , , , , ,

9th Circuit Guts Computer Privacy Ruling; Tramples Fourth Amendment

Computer Privacy, Courts, Fourth Amendment, Privacy News 2 Responses »
Sep 212010
4th amendment under fire

4th amendment under fire

The nullified ruling required that the government retrieve only specific information as specified in the search warrant, rather than simply imaging the hard drive and sifting through all the data contained.  If the government agent cannot do this effectively, the hard drive would be sent to an independent third party contractor that would sift through the data on the drive to locate the data pertinent to the search warrant.  The contractor would then send the relevant data and only the relevant data to the government agent.

The new ruling still maintains that information not included in the warrant must be excluded from the search and data found that is outside of the scope of the warrant cannot be used, but the ruling omits the detailed guidance as to how to collect the data.  The judges in their opinion urged “greater vigilance on the part of judicial officers in striking the right balance between the government’s interest in law enforcement and the right of individuals to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”

The ruling is clearly problematic for the fourth amendment of the constitution which reads

“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.”

The bill of rights was written to restrict the government in its actions against the American people.  It was designed to protect the citizens from the extraordinary power of the government.  Nowhere in the fourth amendment is there mention of balancing prosecutorial interests with the rights of the people.  It is clearly written to protect the citizenry from unreasonable search.  Scanning an entire hard drive, when searching for a bank transaction amounts to unreasonable search.

The Obama administration(insert link to kagan.pdf) argues that the Plain View Doctrine applies to computer seizures so any data recovered in a search would be admissible.  As Solicitor General, Elena Kagan asked the 9th circuit court of appeals to reconsider its ruling that protected data and set forth guidelines for data collection as the fourth amendment gets in the way of a speedy prosecution.

The ruling stems from a 2004 case when federal prosecutors were probing a steroid ring and obtained a warrant to seize the results of urine samples of 10 Major League Baseball players from a drug testing

Posted by Justin at 1:09 PM Tagged with:
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