Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Way To Deal With Roving TSA Teams?
An anonymous reader writes "I live in Boston, and I have noticed the TSA performs random security checks at the Copley T (subway station) and other locations. I routinely travel with a laptop, iPhone, and other gadgetry. What are my rights when asked by one of the TSA agents to 'come over here'? Can I say no and proceed with my private business? What if a police officer says that I 'must go over there and cooperate'? Can I decline or ask for a warrant? Like the majority of the population, I turn into an absolute shrinking violet when pressured by intimidating authority, but I struggle with what I see to be blatant social devolution. Has anybody out there actually responded rationally, without complying? What were your experiences?"
From the same link:
Through a cooperative partnership with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), TSA personnel assist us at some of the inspection sites. There [sic; emphasis mine] authority to assist is derived from 49 U.S.C. Â 114(d). Pub.L. 107-71
Ah, I see English education is alive and well in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The same school system that taught me American history through just before, but not including, the Civil War. (Really. Although said history teacher was later fired about a decade later for unrelated reasons. So there's that?)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
FWIW it is not uncommon to have US history cover two classes. The Civil War is often the point that separates the two classes, there is nothing strange about it being the starting point for the second class.