Jeffrey Rosen, of the Washington Post, writes a great article regarding the needs of safety when weighed against personal freedoms. “The TSA is invasive, annoying - and Unconstitutional” does well in explaining that the courts do acknowledge that there is a public safety need for certain searches at the airport. It also go on to show that people, when given the choice, are more opposed to pat-down searches than they are with the “naked” scanners of the TSA. These searches, however, do not limit the peoples’ right to procedural due process. The article go on to compare the TSA’s screening methods, with that of the Netherlands. It points to advances in “blob” screening, as opposed to the “naked” scanners the TSA uses. The “blob” scanners do provide more false positives, but as technology improves, so will these minimally invasive scanners (The TSA is invasive, annoying - and unconstitutional. 2010). …show more content…
At its core, the government’s job is to protect its people. The United States government, and others, do have rules about how this is done. Benjamin Franklin once stated “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” While current threats mandate protective measures at airports, we must keep our rights in mind. We cannot close our minds off to new technologies, such as the Dutch “blob” scanners. If these scanners do increase false positives, then perhaps we need to be understanding of increased security screening fees to accommodate more agents. In this way, we protect our privacy while ensuring the government can do its job to protect
Justice Harlan’s reasonable expectations test in Katz vs. United States (1967) considers whether a person has an “actual (subjective) expectation of privacy” and if so, whether such expectation is one that “society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’” (Solove and Schwartz 99) If there is no expectation of privacy, there is no search and no seizure (reasonable, or not), and hence no Fourth Amendment issue. Likewise, we must first ascertain whether a search took place. A few questions from a police officer, a frisk, or the taking of blood samples do not constitute a search. (Solove and Schwartz 83; 86) Likewise, the plain view doctrine establishes that objects knowingly exhibited in a public area, in plain view for police to see, do not
Rick, I am terribly sorry about your wife’s ordeal. There was no need for her to endure this. This is purely unethical for it shows continual, poor service for all travelers. Like other professions, there are always ‘bad apples’ working for TSA unfortunately. Still, those TSA agents needed to be reprimanded and reminded about being courteous to everyone at all times. There was no excuse for the TSA agents to treat someone badly. I totally understand your unfortunate situation.
The logic used by the Court in order to justify their conclusion is fraught with weak reasoning and dangerous interpretations of the Constitution. It violates the precedent set in Miranda and seems tainted with a desire to justify consent searches at any cost. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte is a decidedly pro-order case because it qualifies another excuse police can raise to search a citizen, but it is also dangerous because it shows that the Court is not the unbiased referee between liberty and democracy that it should be.
The National Security Agency or NSA for short is a United States federal government intelligence organization that is used for global monitoring and collecting data. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush implemented the NSA’s domestic spying program to conduct a range of surveillance activities inside the United States. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding this program as it allows the NSA to tap into the public’s phone calls, cameras, internet searches, text messages, and many other mediums to seek out individuals that may be potential threats to the security of the general public. Many individuals say that the tactics used by the NSA are unconstitutional as they invade people’s privacy. This is primarily
Introduction Today, electronic surveillance remains one of the most effective tools the United States has to protect against foreign powers and groups seeking to inflict harm on the nation, but it does not go without a few negative aspects, either. Electronic surveillance of foreign intelligence has likely saved the lives of many innocent people through prevention of potential acts of aggression towards the United States. There are many pros to the actions authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) pertaining to electronic surveillance, but there are also cons. Looking at both the pros and cons of electronic surveillance is important in understanding the overall effectiveness of FISA. 1.
“What time should we leave? Two hours in advance? Three? Four?” Millions of people ask these questions each year before boarding a plane. Between driving, security, walking to the gate, and getting settled, boarding a plane exhausts travelers. But out of all of these different activities, one frustrates and restrains travelers the most: TSA security. People ask why they need all this security, complain about the inconvenience it causes, and ultimately annoys people to no end. Created after 9/11, Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, nationalized airport security, increased screening duration, and supposedly increases security on flights. However, statistics say these added security measures never come to fruition and potentially cost more lives than they save.
“Many people who were detained on suspicion of their connection to al Qaeda or other anti-American terrorists groups were innocent.” (Belanger, Newton 2). The patriot act weakens the right from protection of unreasonable searches the searches may be racist based on the person’s image. The people who were suspects of terrorism were accused of wrong doing. They had their civil rights taken away and they turned out to be innocent. It is not fair for people getting accused because they look a certain way....
...goes against every American constitutional right. If we enable government officials to take away our civil liberties we are going to become a fearful nation.
This is not what the Patriot Act was passed for; they have gone over their limits and are getting involved with things that don’t entirely concern them. This is exactly what infuriates the people because they are getting out of their boundaries to make a big fuss out of some minor crime that has nothing to pertain to terrorism. While the Patriot Act was put into place to stop terrorism, it has had a nasty after math. People suspected of terrorist activity have no civil rights. They are put in prison and held without due process regardless of whether they are innocent or not. This is just wrongful imprisonment because they don’t have a valid reason as to why they would put an innocent civilian behind bars. This act just concerns the people by any rational assessment. The power given to the government to conduct surveillance on citizens is just against the constitution because we have no privacy. The government is off-track and is labeling anyone as a suspected terrorist and will collect information about them. We are living in a society where slowly and slowly we’re going to lose most of our rights and be told what to do. We are gradually going to become somewhat close to a dictatorship and lose all of our rights. The Patriot Act also allows the above-mentioned sneak and peak warrants to be used for any federal crime,
Why is America taking such drastic moves like putting full body scanners in airports? The truth of the matter is that America is willing to do what ever it takes to protect the lives of American people and their families.
...ed to be worried. It simply is not possible to not to have some measure of national security precautions without jeopardizing the security of the populace, especially with new technology that America has now. The Patriot Act does not infringe upon the rights of citizens; it ensures that those who wish to harm this country have limited means to do so. The Patriot Act was passed as a means to allow better protection of citizens given the current state of technology today. The aftermath of the attacks on September 11th demonstrated that this was necessary. The Constitution is not designed to render the nation defenseless against people who have no value for human life, and who will use whatever means necessary to harm others to advance their goals In conclusion the Patriot Act gives the government the tools in which are necessary to keep America and its citizens safe.
The TSA 's budget is over 7 billion dollars but unfortunately it does not have much to show for the investment (Schneier, 2015). Over the years, the TSA has held a consistently high failure rate with finding weapons – up to 95% in some cases. Searching for guns and bombs can be a tedious task, and I 'm sure the number of false positives can instill complacency. There is a quantifiable reality here which suggests the current system in place is not optimal. Also coupled is the fact that we have not experienced the sort of enemy attack against commercial or private aircraft since 9/11. One could argue it is part of the increased presence of the TSA or more so perhaps because of better intelligence, inter-agency cooperation and a more vigilant society. There has been targeting of aircraft since 9/11. Richard Reid, the “Shoe Bomber” was disrupted by passengers and flight crew. The attempt to use liquid bombs were disrupted by good intelligence. More recent attacks have been the type of “lone wolves” and gunmen hitting soft targets. All terrible acts, but not exactly the same assets which were targeted on
Conventional wisdom has it that having to submit into a TSA or Full Body Patdown can save lives. This is all done due to safety precautions, without this safety precautions significant amounts of accidents can happen such as hijacking and plane crashes. After 9/11 occur, according to, Airport Security depends on TSA Body Scans and Pat Downs, “Ever since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has struggled to find a balance between beefing up security against terrorism and upholding the rights of individuals - whether it be a right to privacy, a fair trial in court, or freedom from racial profiling”(Christian Science Board). What this shows is that TSA will not have trust because a tremendous of lives are at risk and people need to put a part
The idea of “government surveillance” and “privacy” has been an interesting subject matter that has been recently introduced by Edward Snowden and is seen as a controversial topic in the U.S (Roleff). Citizens of the United States of America have certain rights to privacy that are stated by law. These rights are important as any other and should be respected by government officials. Just like any other law, it is the job of the government to protect these rights granted to the citizens. However, due to terrorists’ attacks such as the massive attack on September 11, 2001, the government is taking extra precautions and measures to ensure the safety of the people (Obama). This includes spying or hacking into
The government is risking so much and protecting the country. It is only just that the citizens also give something in return, and in this case, it is any suspicious information. Many mistake this to be giving us the Privacy of the citizen, but this is very wrong. The problem with this assumption is that the person isn’t taking into consideration that it is only metadata, so if you type in “Bomb” more than 20 times, then it will get triggered. Using the Social Contract, we can see that it is vital to give and take when it comes to government. If a jewelry store has a guard and is armed, why should out country not be able to look through our