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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!
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?
Via drudge:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/politics-government/ci_21672132/supreme-court-wont-hear-cases-body-scanners-gay?source=rss
The Supreme Court won't hear a Michigan man's attempt to challenge the use of full body scanners at airports.
The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal by Jonathan Corbett, who wanted to challenge the Transportation Security Administration's use of full body scanners and/or enhanced pat downs at airport security lines. Federal courts in Florida refused to hear his lawsuit, saying it could only be filed with the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, and the Supreme Court refused to reopen the case.
The TSA started allowing the use of the advanced imaging technology in October 2010.
Om, nomnomnom...
...and, pick up that can!
sig: sauer
They declined because he filed in Florida, not DC. That's pretty simple. So the next step is to file in what is apparently the proper venue. This isn't like they're upholding the law or judging the case on merits... although I'd bet if they wanted to hear the case, they would figure out some loophole to get past the bureaucratic BS, rather than forcing the process back to nearly square one.
I do not have a signature
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...
You are correct. There is nothing more to it than that. The case number (on appeal to the 11th Circuit, at least) appears to be 11-cv-12426. Here is the 11th Circuit's opinion itself which makes things pretty clear: http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/11-12426/11-12426-2012-02-27.html
caritj.org
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.
I still have the same question as Elbart. There isn't anything that says why they declined to hear the case?
SCOTUS gets 1000s of cases every year. They can't review them all. So, they defer to the lower courts unless the lower courts can't figure it out for themselves (i.e., different circuits give conflicting rulings).
For SCOTUS to take this, most likely multiple suits need to be filed in different districts and at least 2 of them need to hear the case and rule differently.
The issue is effectively DOA in the courts. But lucky for us, November 6th is approaching fairly rapidly. Fix it there.
Since Obama clearly supports the Fed's illegal activities, and Romney no doubt does too, you're left with 1 option: vote 3rd party.
3rd party is not a wasted vote. Federal election laws revolve around a party gaining 5% of the popular vote in the previous election. We only recognize two parties because only those two parties have ever had 5% of the votes!
If you're curious, Ross Perot picked up 18% in 1992, but officially ran as an Independent, preventing his Reform party from benefiting in 1996.
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!
The plaintiff was hoping to get a jury trial in the district court. All suits regarding TSA in the DC circuit court go straight to appeals, meaning no jury trial is possible there. This is the same court that has been so deferential to DHS in the EPIC suit on the same topic. The plaintiff seemed to think a jury would be more receptive to his arguments.
Is another suit in the DC court worth the trouble? If not, then Mr. Corbett has been about as effective as Jesse Ventura was in his suit.
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.
> Is another suit in the DC court worth the trouble? I give that an emphatic, "hell yes." --Mr. Corbett :)
Voting 3rd party also greatly influences the positions of the 2 main parties who don't want to lose to each other. If you lose an election by 5%, but a 3rd party got 5% of the vote, it's very likely that taking up the 3rd party position will help the next time around.
Please read http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3156341&cid=41515905 -- not a fuckup, but an intentional decision. I am pro se, although about a dozen members of state bars, including Jesse Ventura's awesome legal team, made the same decision in their similar suits.
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.