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TSA Orders Searches of Valet Parked Car At Airport
schwit1 writes "Laurie Iacuzza walked to her waiting car at the Greater Rochester International Airport after returning from a trip and that's when she found it — a notice saying her car was inspected after she left for her flight. She said, 'I was furious. They never mentioned it to me when I booked the valet or when I picked up the car or when I dropped it off.' Iacuzza's car was inspected by valet attendants on orders from the TSA."
The problem is when they damage your car they will deny it and you will get nothing.
If they don't just steal everything inside the car as well.
Nonsense. The problem here is using a third, private party to elide the Fourth Amendment.
Dog is my co-pilot.
According to the article, the valets themselves. Mot TSA agents, minimum wage, no-background-check valets. They're the last people to be in the car, and they decide where to park them. Anyone else see the two glaring problems here?
They'd probably like to be able to search any car that comes to the airport. Even so, I imagine they restrict searches to valet parked cars for two reasons: 1) they've the keys in hand and so it's easy; 2) more importantly, some lawyer probably told them that they could make the case in court that valet parked cars have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Living in Rochester, I actually caught this on a local news station and there was a lot more information. The concern (and perhaps the story) isn't so much the searching (as their rational is that those vehicles are often parked at the entrance and exit lanes blah blah blah) but that the searching is being done by the valets instead of TSA or law enforcement. These individuals (at the moment) are not trained and have no oversight. So when the thefts and such start occurring, you have zero recourse and absolutely no hope of resolution. The point being that we have can assume some level of trust with TSA and law enforcement as they have oversight and procedures to reduce these type of theft events but there's nothing in place with this valet program in Rochester atm. (And please don't flame me about assume a level of trust with the TSA and law enforcement, I'm just trying to provide more information and some context.)
They can do that already. Without giving you notice. Without the TSA telling them to do anything.
The news isn't that valets have access to your car. The news is that the TSA is having them search it.
This country is out of control. My great x 3 grandparents left Germany during the rise of Bismarck. They came to the US. Where's to go now?
Ironically, Germany!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
It is not much different. Though people do expect it to be, since they often leave last minute valuables locked in the trunk of their cars.
You can actually prevent those sorts of thefts by use of a gun, not by pointing it at the TSA, but by checking a firearm. Lots of photographers do this to protect their equipment. You can just buy an old useless firearm for pennies at a gun show, weld it up to make it non-functional and then check it as a firearm and place your valuables in the same storage device.
This is of course not going to work with international travel.
> And that's different from what happens to you luggage in WHAT way ??
Your car isn't being packed into a pressurized metal cylinder that will be flying through the air with thousands of gallons of jet fuel and hundreds of people on board.
There isn't even the pretense of a public safety issue with a car parked at the airport.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Living in Rochester, I actually caught this on a local news station and there was a lot more information. The concern... [is] that the searching is being done by the valets instead of TSA or law enforcement. These individuals (at the moment) are not trained and have no oversight.
Wait, I thought you said the TSA wasn't doing the searches...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The valet is instructed to look in the trunk when they first get the car. So just set the bomb to detonate when the trunk is opened. That way you guarantee 1) you will be safely away from your bomb and 2) the car will be right where you want it to be when the bomb goes off
weld it up to make it non-functional
Be careful what you advise... up in Canada this would actually make it _more_ illegal (oddly enough). By welding it so it is non-functional, that changes the class of firearm from Non-restricted (loosely: rifles) or Restricted (loosely: handguns) to Prohibited (it's now a replica firearm....). Be sure to consult appropriate legal advice before attempting this stunt.
Which is why I advised against international travel.
Also I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on slashdot, if you want legal counsel go pay your own bloodsucker. Before attempting this stunt besure to consult with your lawyer, the TSA, DHS, all local law enforcement, a Rabbi, a Priest and a duck.
Well if they're turning a valet parking invitation into a free inspection, there's also nothing stopping you from putting these 100dB contact-break alarms on basically everything including the trunk, glove compartment, etc. Let's see how mister TSA wanna-be likes his job when he gets 100 decibels in his face any time he touches anything but the steering wheel.
I live in an apartment and it has one of those pathetically insecure chicken wire cages upstairs for additional storage. A $1 wire clipper and you can steal everyone's stuff so I put 4 of those contact break alarms under a cardboard box containing my stuff. Then I drew an arrow and "do not move or touch - pressure-sensitive alarm will sound" and that's the last thing anyone will steal. It'd work just as well for car searches except put the alarm on the inside so instead of a deterrent, it's a punishment of sorts.
9-11 wasn't a car bomb. Why are we trying to stop every possible bad thing? We weren't doing this before 9-11.
But for fun, how many car bombs have been detonated or even attempted to be detonated in the US at an airport valet parking lot? I'm guessing less than 2 and likely zero.
Lets stop actual threats and not people just fishing for something to justify their jobs.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
in Canada this would actually make it _more_ illegal (oddly enough). By welding it so it is non-functional, that changes the class of firearm from Non-restricted (loosely: rifles) or Restricted (loosely: handguns) to Prohibited (it's now a replica firearm....). Be sure to consult appropriate legal advice before attempting this stunt.
Under Canadian law, deactivated firearms (i.e., those welded up to be non-functional) are a separate legal category from replica firearms. Replica firearms are prohibited devices, deactivated firearms are chunks of metal with no legal status. They have very different legal consequences, despite being indistinguishable without close physical examination (which most police officers will not be trained or interested enough to do).
This makes no sense whatsoever, but is how Canada's firearms laws actually work.
Verification sources: Canada's Firearms Act and the Canadian Firearm's Program's call centre (1-800-731-4000 from Canada and the U.S.).
If you're going to park a car full of explosives, you can either create a small crater in a car park, or you will go for the airport - so cars that are left outside are checked.
But the airports were rapidly remodeled after 9/11, and have since been built such that a car exploding in the drop off area would only be slightly more lethal than a car exploding in a parking lot. They street is not close to where people are congregated. Some people would be killed who were walking through the doors, but the same is true of the parking lot. The psychological effect is equivalent as well. "Terrorist attack at airport (parking lot)" is going to cause about as much panic among idiots as "Terrorist attack at airport (doors)." The fact that your chances of dying from someone texting and driving on the way TO the airport is many times higher than dying from a car bomb either way won't matter to most.
TSA has meanwhile set up security to where there are gigantic lines of human bodies before security. A backpack bomb in the line before the nude-scanners is the security risk if there is one. Fortunately, the only ones dumber than TSA are the terrorists, and they don't seem to have figured this out. However, TSA has been creating the gigantic lines for over a decade. Eventually, even the terrorists are going to realize that a small bomb right before security is more likely to "succeed" than trying to gain control of the plane or detonate a car bomb.
Again, this is still far less dangerous than the drive TO the airport, I'm just annoyed that a line I'm told to wait in "for my safety" does the exact opposite and is wasting an insane amount of tax dollars that could be going towards actual useful things. Such as research, lowering the debt, or really anything else the government spends money on.
I don't see why an airport should be a less secure zone than a plane.
And yet, I and 19 of my "friends" could walk into 5 of the busiest airports in the country on the day before Thanksgiving, each carrying a backpack and two duffel bags filled with explosives and shrapnel, get in line and at a predetermined time, blow ourselves up while waiting in the crowded lines caused by the security circus.
How many people do you think we could kill/maim in that event?
Who would prevent me from doing this? They don't check people as they walk into the building. That certainly isn't very secure.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If you have never heard of car bombs, you should start watching international news.
You can't hide a car bomb big enough to cause serious damage to anything outside the car. Successful attacks against structures have, without exception, used unmarked vans and dark-tinted SUVs for a reason.
A valet, entirely without conducting a formal search, can instantly tell whether or not a car poses an explosive threat to the airport. The act of helping the passenger get their bags from the trunk and then driving the car to the long-term lot automatically rules out any plausible hiding spots for enough explosives to make it into a WMD or national security issue.
Not to say, of course, that you couldn't fit enough somewhere in the body of the car to seriously damage the car itself, any occupants, and perhaps break a few windows of nearby cars - The Boston Marathon bombing proved roughly what you can do with a small well-placed bomb; but "Lot Z3" doesn't exactly equal the finish line of a marathon in terms of the number of squishy pink sacks of meat available for embedding shrapnel in.
So you are telling me I can own and sell firearm look-a-likes in Canada, as long as they used to be functional, but are no longer.
Yup. As long as it used to be capable of inflicting fatal injuries, it's fine. If it was always harmless, it's verboten.
Welcome to Canada!
of course, could be lying http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/18/it-wasnt-us-tsa-says-of-car-searches-at
Seems to be how weapons laws go. It is rare to find a country with gun laws that are entirely sensible. I think part of the reason is that when restrictions are enacted, they are often written by people who hate guns and thus know very little about them. They then never trouble themselves to consult with their military or the like to get some information. So, you get a silly law.
On my car (2008 Subaru Legacy 2.5i SE, USDM) it actually does. There's a keyhole by the trunk-release lever that can be toggled with the "master" key but not the valet key. It will lock out the lever and prevent the trunk from being opened.
There are keyholes by the rear-seatback-release buttons as well to prevent access to the trunk via folding the rear seats down.
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