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1st Circuit Injunction Re: TSA's New Mandatory AIT Search Rule Fully Briefed (s.ai)
saizai writes: I just filed my reply to the TSA's opposition to an emergency motion for preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order (PI/TRO) against the TSA's new policy that arbitrarily mandates some people to go through electronic strip search ("AIT"). Case website here (will be kept updated). Court order expected soon, though impossible to know for sure.
I've also released 3 FOIA docs (see 2015-12-30 update), which I submitted as exhibits:
I've also released 3 FOIA docs (see 2015-12-30 update), which I submitted as exhibits:
- MD 100.4 2012-01-25 Transportation Security Searches (11p, full) — showing TSA's expansion to "bus, train, [and] other public conveyance"
- SPOT validation study Vol 1 Ch 4 — Descriptive analyses — summary of sources for items (1p) — showing 90% of what they find is immigration and drug related, not weapons
- SPOT validation study Vol 3 App F — Supporting tables — prohibited items data (2p) — giving breakdown list of "prohibited items" they find
See previously:
This is exactly what I wish we'd see here more often. Please keep submitting details, IDGAF if this winds up on the front page constantly.
Someone who is not harmed lacks "standing" to bring a case in federal court, because the constitution requires there be an actual case or controversy--federal courts lack the power to issue advisory opinions. For a constitutionally protected interest, the plaintiff must have suffered or imminently will suffer injury—an invasion of a legally protected interest that is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent (that is, neither conjectural nor hypothetical; not abstract). The injury can be either economic, non-economic, or both.
The TSA is arguing the plaintiff can't bring the case because he hasn't been body-scanned. The plaintiff is arguing only the TSA knows whether they will body scan him and they haven't told the court, so you have to assume they will. The plaintiff also goes on about plaintiff's protected liberty interest in international travel, but that doesn't address the question of whether the harm to plaintiff is the kind of concrete, particularized, actual, and imminent harm necessary to give the plaintiff standing to sue. Unless a lot more of that was in the complaint, the judge isn't going to find it sufficient to issue the injunction.
There are some merits arguments too, but IRL judges care a LOT about standing. This does not prevent someone from filing another lawsuit in the future, and there may be some opportunity to further the argument in the main part of the lawsuit after the injunction fails to issue.