Court Approves TSA Body Scans, But Calls For Public Comment

OverTheGeicoE writes "The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals has finally issued a ruling (PDF) on EPIC v. DHS, a lawsuit seeking suspension of the use of body scanners for primary screening pending an independent review that would include a public comment period. According to the summary, the court 'grant[s] the petition for review' but 'due to the obvious need for the TSA to continue its airport security operations without interruption, we remand the rule to the TSA but do not vacate it.' In short, the TSA is required to open up their policy for public comment, but they can continue to use the scanners in the meantime and most likely afterward. This doesn't sound like much of a victory for EPIC or the U.S. public."

Comments

Re:"obvious need"?

[betterunixthanunix]

You left out what may be the worst offender among the TLAs: the Drug Enforcement Administration. The scale of attacks on our rights by the DEA exceeds pretty much any other government agency. The TSA attacks the dignity of America travellers; the DEA routinely sends paramilitary units into homes, rifles drawn, and imprisons or kills the residents. The DEA routinely seizes money and property, and uses the proceeds from those seizures to fund its own operations. The DEA can even declare a substances to be illegal without any congressional approval, and then arrest people for possession of that substance (let me reiterate: the DEA can arrest you for violating laws that the DEA can create without any democratic process).

There is outrage at the TSA's actions by the media, both from left wing and right wing sources, as well as in state legislatures and in congress. Yet we stand by while the DEA is permitted to commit even worse abuses of American rights, and the media is largely silent or even supportive of what the DEA is doing.