I’m now convinced that the U.S. government know the searches done by TSA are forbidden by the 4th Amendment.  Check out this story.  John Barlow was removed from a plane after TSA found a small stash of recreational drugs in the bottom of his bottle of Ibuprofen which was 3/4 full of the original contents.  They arrested him and after receiving a $25K bond let him out.  The clincher for me is that rather than actually give him his day in court they are stalling and trying to make it too expensive for him to continue the battle.  For example:

Since I was arrested, I have had to go to California four times for hearings on the suppression of evidence in this matter, every one of which was “continued”, either at the government’s request, or because the government has refused or failed to produce the evidence we subpoenaed on grounds of “national security.”

It’s a lot like when the “assault weapons ban” was challenged in court.  Janet Reno claimed that the challengers didn’t have standing in court because the Feds hadn’t charge anyone and didn’t plan to either.  Hence, the law stood simply because no one was allowed to challenge it.  In talking with people that dealt with the ATFE I was told that the policy in regards to Federal gun laws was that no one would be charged with a violation of a gun law unless there was a major felony involved as well as the simple gun law violation.  My take on that was that they didn’t want a “poster child” for the gun rights people to take to the Supreme Court.  And so it is, I suspect, with this case. 

The TSA, a government agency, is searching a million or more people each day without search warrents.  It was bad enough when the FAA required airlines to do this, but at least it wasn’t a government agency doing the searches.  Now it is a government agency.  Never mind that it’s a total failure in terms of detecting “bad stuff“. And I believe it is just as much a violation of our 4th Amendment rights as it would be if the FBI were to put up road blocks around all cities and searching everyone on those roads to improve “national security“.  From the actions of the Feds in this case, I think they know it too.  It’s time they face reality and consider other options.  Legal and effective options. Not just billion dollar options that make some people feel good and implement a police state.