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Supreme Court Won't Hear Body-Scanner Appeal
stevegee58 writes "After a long string of legal setbacks, the case brought by Jonathan Corbett challenging TSA's use of full body scanners and enhanced pat-downs has come to an end. Today the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, so current TSA practices will stand. The TSA started allowing the use of the advanced imaging technology in October 2010."
god damn it!
Why?
The process is no different than bringing immigrants through Ellis Island.
Same thing. Trust us.
Welcome to America, land of the sheep.
Let's face it, the terrorists have won, and the government is taking advantage of this to take control over more and more of your lives.
I'm betting US tourism is down massively.
You, the people, are fucked.
About as useful as the Constitution for determining what is allowed by the government...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Just stand over there citizen. We'll get to you shortly.
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money.
and choose to ignore them. Along with the rest of the majority of Americans.
That extensive exercising of the 2nd Amendment will be required to turn back the encroachment upon our liberties.
Seems like laws and bills and crap should logically go through the Supreme Court *before* being enacted.. This passing laws which are unconstitutional and then having them in effect for years and years until they finally make it to be judged *while they are still enforcing them* seems pretty stupid from the whipped persons point of view. Yea yea yea.. it would take years to pass crap and the backlog would be crippling.. and you say that like its a bad thing...
and conclude that had the supreme court heard the issue, it would probably have just ruled in favour of the government.
and had it ruled against the government, the TSA and cur->administration() would have ignored it.
The best option at this point is to select "alternative screening" whenever you go through the airport. Refuse the private screening as this only benefits the TSA by allowing it to hide the dissent against this technology. Avoid engaging in smalltalk, even if solicited, during the pat down. I generally stand tall, and fix my vision into the crowd of passengers entering screening.
Good people go to bed earlier.
In theory the SCOTUS is not supposed to judge laws that are not yet enacted.
I remember hearing that at the time of the Obamacare ruling, where people argued that even though the law had been passed by the Senate, SCOTUS was in theory not allowed to uphold it or strike it down on the ground that it had yet to be enacted. Not sure why Obamacare was an exception, but the point is SCOTUS can't give a ruling on a law that is not yet passed by Congress.
There may have been a legitimate reason for refusing to hear the case, though with the current makeup of the court there is no reason to suspect their hearing the case would have gone well.
Instead let's take this as an impetus to get serious about tackling the TSA's abusive methods.
PR: Publicly boycott air travel as much as possible. When you do travel, avoid airports with the scanners, and opt for public pat down screenings as much as possible if you must use those airports. Do this to slow down the lines, and to let other passengers see you (and thus dampen their enthusiasm for flying). Take out ads in local papers and targeted ads online attacking the TSA and its methods. Promote and share videos and stories that illustrate these abuses.
Legislation: Call your congress critters and let them know how you feel about the TSA. Work to make the TSA a featured issue in the campaigns you can vote in. Get in touch with the lobbyists who represent businesses dependent on air travel (especially airlines), and get them to fight the TSA for economic reasons.
Good luck!
I agree. I'm old enough to be the grandma of many slashdot readers, but when I fly commercial air, I request "alternate screening" every, single, time. Just say, "I opt out," and hold your arms out proudly!
is once more heard across the land.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
and our officials are their patsies.
The courts are not going to tell the TSA to stop, the only way to stop it is to convince Congress. The Court has already decided that airport security is an administrative search that you agree to when you place your stuff on the belt or step through the portal. Only Congress can reign in the TSA and they wont do it until they perceive their chances of reelection depend on it.
I think, in the best interest of the safety and security of the Supreme Court judges, its probably best they require everyone -- including the judges -- to use the full body scanners to enter the Supreme Court building.
As a pinnacle of our republic, not taking its security seriously is an insult to the institution of the Supreme Court and the United States of America.
More at 11.
It still surprises people that the federal government grants itself more power, year after year, and only affirms that power, year after year?
SCOTUS is part of the Federal Govt, of course it will protect the federal govt.
Just like my hero patrick bateman. "JUST SAY NO!"
All else failed and are under control of industrial feudalists.
If we could do it here, where you can actually be shot on the street for it, you can do it in the US too.
Fuck the TSA, the Dept of Homeland Security, and fuck the airline industry. I haven't flown since the requirement to take off shoes began, I'm not going to fly until I don't have to, and anyone else who does hates freedom.
The funny thing about the TSA is that the rules sound like they were written by grade 1 students. They are comically horrible, I mean in some cases they even cause harm or damage and in others they just cause inconvenience. Shouldn't a system designed to protect / improve security also improve quality of life and travel? I was denied taking medication with me after being searched, I guess I could of somehow smuggled a chemical lab onto the plane and turned the pills into a powerful explosive ......... The TSA should write a book, "How not to implement security".
Just tell Thomas, Scalia and Alito that they can't get their daily "newsletter of best-of images" culled from the scanners until they hear the case.
That sucker'll be fast-tracked so fast someone's robe will burst into flames.
Yeah, right.
Do not fly commercially unless your employer requires it. Take your vacations only at places you can reach by auto, bus or train. Be sure to write the venue that you might have chosen for that holiday to let them know of the business they lost and why. Send a copy to your preferred airline too. Once The Mouse and his many confederates get enough of these messages something will change (although not necessarily in the way you might have expected).
Remember, it is largely about money and influence. Individually, most of us are without much of either.
This court comes as close to traitorous as any court in the history of the nation. I'm not surprised the people's faith in the Supreme Court has diminished dramatically. It appears this court and the Chief Justice have no interested in limiting government power at all.
The courts are specifically prohibited from acting unless there is a "case or controversy". Every branch of government needs a check on its power, and that's the check on the judiciary.
... if you don't like you and your family being photographed in the nude by the government, you're a terrorist. So feel free to GTFO, but expect the gov't to keep a few photos as a souvenir regardless.
There is money involved on a large scale, and the Supreme Court are now part of the New World Order. They proved that with the Obamacare rulling.
...tar and featherings to commence.
This in my opinion is one of the 2 main flaws that our founders left us with. The supreme court can simply refuse to hear a case that has made it all the way to their door.
Now i wouldn't want them to be bogged down by minor issues, but if a case makes it thru all the appeals and is a constitutional issue, they should be required to hear and rule on it.
Being able to pick and choose, makes them more powerful than the other 2 branches combined, when it should be a check/balance system instead.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's just another vote for Obummer and more of the same big government, except only bigger and more than ever before, at our expense.
As much as I can't stand Mittens either, at least I hope that his experience as a shrewd businessman will help get the economy moving and that he actually means it when he says he intends to reduce the size of government.... let's face it folks, that's precisely what this country really needs is for government to get shrunken and perhaps some of the jackboot government thugs who got their jollies wielding their power trips will be the first ones joining the ranks of the unemployed. That would be justice indeed.
I am going to hold my nose while I vote for Romney and maybe there's a tiny chance we won't get fooled again.
...the balance is negative.
We no longer have any checks and balances. At every turn, the government claims it has no requirement to address public concerns and does not need to follow its own processes.
As instances like these continue to mount, every government employee places themselves into further jeopardy from the top to the bottom. TSA workers (of which I was once one) who continue to cite that they have bills to pay and are only following orders will faith the most convenient wrath of nutbags out there who will do anything ranging from nude protests to verbal and even physical assaults. This will escallate unless it is addressed. Things I dare not say will happen unless the government begins to once again listen to the people they are supposed to be representing.
They are a bunch of fascists.
There is no reason to respect them.
Hi there. Offtopic, but your sig is incredible.
"Don't point out the elephants in the middle of the room. Just play along, be nice and remember to bring lots of peanuts."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
about the bottomless pit of money-waste called the TSA is... that their efforts are a complete waste. Basically, the über-expensive hardware doesn't work.
The checked-in luggage scanners have a detection rate of - at best - no more than 60%.
The carry-on luggage scanners have a detection rate of 80%, provided the terrorist doesn't hide this weapons disassembled inside other stuff. Then it drops to near 0%.
The old portal metal detectors are quite good - they have a detection rate of near 100%, but both guns and explosives don't need metal parts, which means a total failure of detection.
The new body-scanners have a detection rate of less then 25%. It will basically detect only stuff you have in a big lump in a pocket. It will miss thin layers taped to the body and stuff in body cavities.
The invasive 'grope-search' offered as an alternative to the body-scanners has a decent detection rate of up to 90%, but it will fail to detect stuff hidden in body cavities and whatever areas the agent 'forgets' to search (tests have shown that almost all agents miss some areas they were supposed to check).
And the TSA knows this.
Basically it nothing but security theater, designed to make ignorant people feel safe.
The best way to catch terrorists is long before they get to the airport - when their evil plans are still just that - plans.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
The best way to steal at the airport is to go behind them, wait until they are occupied, and then pick their stuff up from the conveyor. The TSA makes this easy.
Seems like laws and bills and crap should logically go through the Supreme Court *before* being enacted.. This passing laws which are unconstitutional and then having them in effect for years and years until they finally make it to be judged *while they are still enforcing them* seems pretty stupid from the whipped persons point of view.
"The life of the law is not logic it is experience." --- Holmes.
Limiting your decisions to "cases and controversies" has three great advantages:
The issues are framed by parties who are genuinely in conflict.
You get to see how see how "Separate but Equal " plays out in the real world.
Advisory opinions are to a court what papal infallibility is to a church. There is no graceful line of retreat. No legitimate way to reopen the debate. That is what made the Dred Scott decision so disastrous..