Not sure about Grant v. Lee, but I believe the number of states needed is thirty-four, to be exact. If thirty-four states propose that the court’s decision can take a flying leap, and can persuade four more states to agree, then that decision can start packing its parachute.
If we assume sane people are calling the shots, then I’d guesstimate the odds are somewhere between slim and none. I really expect an injunction to come down before the law even takes effect. However, with a grandstanding politician looking for the fuckwit vote, I guess it could happen.
If it did happen, I suspect it would lead to another very interesting lawsuit under 42 USC 1981 or 1983 (I never can remember the difference between those two statutes.–I’m thinking of a half-remembered Con law class about state action, under color of law, violating civil rights).
The difference being, of course, that shutting down all flights out of NH won’t have much an effect nationally. If all flights out of Texas were shut down that would really hurt American and United (thanks to the old Continental hub in Houston), hurt Southwest (their lack of a hub system would give them some flexibility, but they have many many flights in and around Texas) and generally screw up air travel throughout the country, especially since a lot of traffic would have to be routed through places like Denver and Chicago. If New Hampshire does it, it basically only sucks for residents of the state. I wouldn’t want to be flying anytime soon if Texas managed to make it stick for more than a day or two.
All it takes is one serious plane hijack/bombing from a plane leaving Texas.
That will make this law a huge embarrassment and I’d imagine it would be revoked.
Not a fan of TSA groping. But, I’m also not a fan of some terrorist getting on that plane with a weapon or bomb.
This is posturing, pure and simple. If passed, the feds will get an injunction staying it, and it will then eventually be stricken down by a federal court (who certainly have the authority to strike down state laws that affect federal actions; and flying is pretty clearly ‘interstate commerce’).
Which is what everyone (with any power) wants, of course: The feds get to keep doing what they want. The Texas Lege gets an even better deal: they get to claim they’re standing up for passengers and complain about federal jackboots, while not having to take any blame for any problems with the system (e.g. a successful attack), and not actually inconveniencing passengers.
All this is obvious, as **Giles **pointed out, when you look at what reps in the U.S. Congress (who could actually affect this) are doing. None of them want to be on the hook when some lunatic stabs a passenger on a plane (and of course, they don’t have any personal reason to stop it. Once the ‘trusted traveller’ happens, the congresspeople will have the best of both worlds: they get to skip the screening, while feeling superior to the poor common schlubs who have to get scanned and groped. )
I’ll be there buying the next round.
Psst! Look behind you. You’re already on the slope.TSA now storming public places 8000 time a year
Yeah, I know the tone of the story is over the top on the crank scale, but the facts are still the facts.
[QUOTE=Link]
Bus travelers were shocked when jackbooted TSA officers in black SWAT-style uniforms descended unannounced upon the Tampa Greyhound bus station in April with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and federal bureaucrats in tow.
A news report by ABC Action News in Tampa showed passengers being given the signature pat downs Americans are used to watching the Transportation Security Administration screeners perform at our airports. Canine teams sniffed their bags and the buses they rode. Immigration officials hunted for large sums of cash as part of an anti-smuggling initiative.
The TSA clearly intends for these out-of-nowhere swarms by its officers at community transit centers, bus stops and public events to become a routine and accepted part of American life.
The TSA has conducted 8,000 of these security sweeps across the country in the past year alone, TSA chief John Pistole told a Senate committee June 14. They are part of its VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) program, which targets public transit related places.
[/QUOTE]
Google ‘TSA Greyhound’ and you’ll get pages of incidents all over the country.
Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.
This makes the most sense to me.
Couldn’t the TSA just hire kids to pat down other kids? What could go wrong?
If this passes, I hope they go after doctors and those that work at juvenile correction facilities.
You’re misunderstanding my point. Whether the TSA may frisk people at airports should be decided on the merits of frisking people at airports, not on the merits of frisking people on buses.
ETA: By the way, nitpick on the right-wing aritcle you linked to: the mention of Obama’s “civilian national security force” speech has nothing to do with the TSA. The speech was about more funding for the State Department, diplomats, and the Peace Corps. Take anything from that website with a grain of salt, as they are happy to play fast and loose with some facts in order to rile people up.
The issue has nothing at all to do with whether or not the security measures are effective or intrusive; it has everything to do with states attempting to usurp Federal authority, when they believe the Feds are not doing an appropriate job. In that sense this case is very much the same as Arizona’s “immigration” law and to be decided on the same basis once contested.
The Feds have the responsibility to keep the airways safe and to balance the need for safety vs the desire for modesty (privacy has nothing to do with this since anyone is free to not fly and not be subject to such searches), just like a state believes the Feds have failed in their obligation to provide adequate immigration policy and enforcement. A state believes they are not deciding wisely. Can they over-rule the Fed decision in their state by passing a state law?
I doubt it.
I disagree. The merits of frisking people sans probable cause should be decided based on the merits of frisking people sans probable cause period. The venue should be completetely irrelevent.
Personally I’d spend as little time on that site as possible and not have to take it with anything. Unfortunately, it was the only one I could locate that had more than just a soundbite on the issue with the time I had available for research. I should have apologized in advance for that.
Someone upthread pointed out that no politician will want to be on record voting to ‘reduce security measures’ when the next attack happens. They are correct. This won’t change the (IMO) fact that another attack will happen. I’d also be willing to bet that when the attack happens that it would have been preventable under pre 9-11 security screening measures. But some undertrained flunky will not be paying attention or have another traveler taken aside for a grope session when the perpetrator walks through.
Weapons are already getting by the TSA. What stops hijackers is the proper use of intelligence and that is what is missing at TSA. It should be run like it’s done in Israel which is both non-invasive, more successful, and cheaper.
Disagree. The venue is not only relevant, but quite important.
The standard of an administrative search should be different for visiting someone in prison, getting on an airplane, getting on a train, entering a library, and walking down the street. No way should the venue be irrelevant to each of those cases.
ETA: And by that I mean to say that someone shouldn’t be subject to a search for entering a library and walking down the street, but a search is reasonable to enter a prison or get on an airplane.
I’ve heard people in the security field say that the Israeli method couldn’t scale up to handle our number of travelers. No cite at the moment, I’m on my iPad.
Patrick Smith points out in this Ask the Pilot column that El Al has fewer than forty planes (although the column is five years old, so the numbers may have changed), one hub airport and fewer than three million passengers annually. So their methods wouldn’t work for the much larger and more decentralized American carriers.
I should have specified travel venue. I assumed that it would be understood considering that were we talking about the TSA. I’ll agree that searches are quite reasonable when entering a detention facility where there is a high known population of felons who will go to great lengths to acquire just about anything.
But whether you’re boarding a plane, train, bus, or ferry, there is no justification for unreasonable levels of scrutiny and inconvenience. Walking through a metal detector and past drug and explosive sniffing dogs while your carryon goes through an x-ray machine is more than adequate screening. What is frisking, random or otherwise, adding besides a cheap thrill for the frisker? What has a TSA frisking ever uncovered that would be a serious threat aboard an airline? Or even a threat at all? My Google-fu seems to be failing because all I’m coming up with are tales of frisked 6 year olds, infants, and nuns.
ETA: A serious threat to an airline with a sealed cockpit. I’m aware that there are polymer knives that won’t set off metal detectors.
The intellectual fallacy harbored by the TSA is its avowed zero tolerance policy for any level of risk of an aircraft being bombed. That’s an impossible standard and at odds with the airline industry’s practice in every other area, e.g., a plane crashing due to bad weather. A shoe bomb or an underpants bomb might possibly bring down an airliner, but so might wind shear or a microburst at the ruway.
They can’t say they’re preventing another 9-11, because a repeat of that plot has been rendered impossible by passenger awareness, changes in onboard procedures and the simple expedient of reinforcing the cockpit door.
In view of the acceptable levels of risk carried by airlines every day, the TSA serves literally no purpose at all except to perpetuate its own power. And to provide cover for politicians too cowardly to admit the above reality.