The Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation and Safety Administration arm violates the Constitutional rights of thousands of Americans every single day at transportation hubs throughout the country. How? Let’s look at what the Law of the Land has to say about the fourth of your ten Bill of Rights.
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.
Put quite simply, no one in government, at any level, can invade your privacy. It does not qualify the level of authority. It states unequivocally that no one under any circumstances, without a warrant, can search your person or belongings. With reference to your person, no stipulation is granted as to where that person might be. You can be in your car, in a bar, at school, in a church, or at the airport. You have a Constitutional right under the Fourth Amendment to privacy and protection from having yourself or your belongings rummaged through by bullies with badges.
In an age when everyone is talking about gun rights and the separation of church and state, it is important to consider another Bill of Rights. Your protection against government intrusion into your personal life is as vital to freedom and liberty as your right to speech, assembly, and the practice of your religion. Maintaining your privacy is as important as being armed against attack. Above all, it must be recognized that the U.S. Constitution is designed to protect you, the citizen, not to empower the government.
There are legal pundits who will argue that the Fourth Amendment contains an intuitive exception for public safety and national security. No, it does not! There are no caveats attached to the Fourth Amendment. It is written in full above and does not carry exceptions. For anyone to search you or your belongings, they must have probable cause and a warrant. When you buy an airline or train ticket and take your ticket to the boarding gate, you are not carrying probable cause for TSA agents to suspect you of being a threat to anyone’s or anything’s safety. Those agents have no right to invade your privacy by searching you or your belongings.
If airport security wants to screen you for safety reasons, they can do that when you purchase your ticket. They can run a background check on you, just as the police can run background checks on anyone during the course of law enforcement. Airports and train stations are no different. You can be vetted anywhere. If something in your background comes up that flags you as suspicious, such as a police record or an outstanding warrant, they can hold you for inspection to ensure other travelers are not threatened by your presence or the contents of your belongings. That’s sufficient probable cause to justify a search. On the other hand, if your background provides no reason to suspect you of anything threatening, the authorities have no business conducting any search. That’s the law.
The Liberals and big-government advocates will cry, “What about national security and passenger safety?” What about them? Prescreening prior to issuing travel documents will root out anyone suspicious, and those individuals can be dealt with as necessary. But there are so many travelers at any given time, it is impractical to screen everyone. No, it is not. It is a daunting challenge because transport enterprises want to cram as many passengers into planes and trains as they can and generate as many trips as possible to secure the greatest profit. Profit is not protected under the Fourth Amendment; personal right to privacy is. It is not the individual traveler's responsibility to ensure safe travel; that belongs to the travel provider. They need to hire more screeners or provide for fewer travelers, but my personal rights “shall not be violated.”
The federal government is huge. It includes the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, and a diverse assortment of law enforcement departments within the Department of Homeland Security. Why can’t those bureaucracies properly and thoroughly screen incoming visitors to the United States? Why can’t they collectively allow airport and other transit agencies to adequately vet travelers for potential safety threats before issuing them passage or granting them entry? They can, but they won’t. Because the government, overweight and oversized, is grossly incompetent, it does not fall upon you and me to suffer through the humiliation of privacy invasion. The Fourth Amendment protects everyone’s right to privacy. The federal government is obligated to obey Constitutional law, not circumvent it. To protect the rights of the people, as required by the Constitution of the United States, law enforcement must prevent threats to national safety from reaching airports and transit stations before they arrive, not when they get there.
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