Jesse Ventura Sues TSA

[hlthe2b]

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration on Monday, alleging full-body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Ventura is asking a federal judge in Minnesota to issue an injunction ordering officials to stop subjecting him to "warrantless and suspicionless" scans and body searches.--snip--

According to the lawsuit, Ventura received a hip replacement in 2008, and since then, his titanium implant has set off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints. The lawsuit said that prior to last November officials had used a non-invasive hand-held wand to scan his body as a secondary security measure. --ship--

But when Ventura set off the metal detector in November, he was instead subjected to a body pat-down and was not given the option of a scan with a hand-held wand or an exemption for being a frequent traveler, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit said the pat-down "exposed him to humiliation and degradation through unwanted touching, gripping and rubbing of the intimate areas of his body."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/24/jesse-ventura-sues-tsa-ov_n_813460.html

[MrSlayer]

1. Good. Go get em Jesse.

Someone has to stand up.

[snot]

2. Go, Jesse!

[napi21]

3. Thanks Jesse. I suggest you try to get the flight attendant who

was a cancer survivor and forced by the TSA to remove her breast prosthesis to join you in the suit, and the many other vitims who have been forced to be suject o unreasonable searches.

[LibDemAlways]

4. I'm glad to see a high profile person stepping up. The media is

forced to pay attention. Winning in court is probably the only way to put an end to this shit. I would love to see a class action suit brought on behalf of all fliers forced to undergo humiliating pat-downs because of various medical devices implanted in their bodies.

[Mimosa]

5. Jesse is representing many people with this.

I hate to see our country on a headlong hurdle into fascism. In so many ways I see it coming. There are smarter ways to make sure people are secure from 'terror'.

One of my doctor buddies was telling me how she and her partner have started travelling by train -like from ATL to NOLA- for vacations. She says it's quite pleasant and gives a different perspective.

[LisaL]

6. Yea well TSA hasn't started doing this on the trains YET.

But I fail to see what is there to stop them.

[Desertrose]

7. Go Jesse....and thanks.

...we can't let this fade away in the media like so many of our other rights violations have....

[grahamhgreen]

8. Thank God - K&R.

[davidinalameda]

9. still waiting for someone to point out

where someone has a constitutional right to fly?

[avaistheone1]

10. Given we pay for every damn aspect of aviation in some way

I would say we damn well better have the right to fly.


:kick:

[davidinalameda]

30. as a taxpayer or as a consumer?

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[ProdigalJunkMail]

19. no but you CAN tell the TSA to screw off...

and the FAA cannot stop you from flying except for the licensing bit...they can delay you...but that is about all.

sP

[jberryhill]

20. If I fly without FAA permission, I will be arrested

Not only do I need the "licensing bit", but I need to keep updated medical examination reports. Just to fly.

How is that possible?

The FAA will also tell me where I can and cannot fly.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

23. You file a flight plan...

as long as you fly within properly designated areas you fly. You cannot just drive your car up to the White House either.

sP

[jberryhill]

24. I don't need to tell the government where I am going

When I step outside of my house, do I need to file a "walk plan" with the government?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

25. I love how you're trying to tie

licensing and operating a vehicle to being stripped searched by the gov't prior to traveling. I know you can see the safety issues with operating a plane but you choose to be obstinate. More power to ya...I will take my ball and go talk to someone who would like to have a real discussion rather than be absurd.

sP

[jberryhill]

26. No, I'm not making that comparison

But the discussion on the actual legal issues involved in the TSA procedures is itself relatively infantile.

General administrative searches of commercial passengers has been going on since the 1960's. Having to pass through a metal detector is a search under the Fourth Amendment.

Most of the discussion is framed around "search"/"no search" and doesn't get anywhere near the actual Fourth Amendment principle involved in the administrative search doctrine.

It's the same mentality as one finds among Tea Party "Constitutionalists" who read the Constitution without so much as a clue that there may be tons of controlling decisions on a given question.

If you would like to have an intelligent discussion about it, you might consider what Fourth Amendment distinction can be drawn between walking through a metal detector, or any other sort of search. That is a line-drawing exercise, which does not render itself to simplistic assertions about suspicionless searches, and why random sampling is required by the relevant decisional law.

[hootinholler]

28. You don't have to file a flight plan either

Unless you are flying IFR, under which you need to be tracked so that you don't end up in a physics experiment.

Fly VFR and it's no problem.

-Hoot

[LisaL]

13. You don't have a constitutional right to drive either.

Does that mean police can stop you and search you as they please?

[davidinalameda]

31. apples and oranges

but thanks for playing

the cops aren't able to stop you from walking down the street and they aren't able to come into your home while you're sitting there watching TV either

[joeunderdog]

33. I think you just made his/her point.

What makes air travel different? Because it wasn't mentioned (or invented) at the writing of the Constitution? If they can't frisk you because there was no Constitutional mention of your right to use an iPad at a mall, then what gives them the right to grope you at an airport?

[davidinalameda]

35. no I didn't

you don't have the right to fly

you don't have the right to drive

you don't have the right to take a bus, train, etc

you have the right to travel freely but no method is proscribed

by flying, you are agreeing to the rules that the airlines and airports set for travelers

if you don't like getting groped, then don't fly

[joeunderdog]

37. You have a right to not be subjected to illegal/unwarranted search.

I think the issue at hand is that there needs to be a good reason. Just saying that you must do it does not justify it. The argument for Ventura and others is that the level of risk doesn't merit the search, making it illgeal.

The government does not have a right to search you for insufficient reason. It's not about your right or privelage to do the activity itself.

The larger issue is that our government is searching us, spying on us and taking other "liberties" from us, ostensibly in the interest of safety and freedom. We used to think this was a problem in Russia.

I can't believe how many people defend the shredding of our rights here.

[jberryhill]

38. Okay, so what was the "reason" when you had to walk through a metal detector?

That's been going on since the 1960's, and use of a metal detector IS a search.

[NYC Liberal]

15. What does that have to do with anything? nt

[woo me with science]

16. Here you go:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-kearney/tsa-regulations-anger-apa_b_787458.html

In Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958) at 125-126, Justice William Douglas, writing for the majority opinion (5-4), stated:

"The right to travel is a part of the 'liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. So much is conceded by the Solicitor General. In Anglo-Saxon law, that right was emerging at least as early as the Magna Carta. Chafee, Three Human Rights in the Constitution of 1787 (1956), 171-181, 187 et seq., shows how deeply engrained in our history this freedom of movement is. Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, may be necessary for a livelihood. It may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values. See Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, 44; Williams v. Fears, 179 U.S. 270, 274; Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160. . . .
Freedom of movement also has large social values . . . reasons close to the core of personal life -- marriage, reuniting families, spending hours with old friends."



So, whatever the media believes or suggests or simply does not understand, there is a Constitutional predicate for the right of an America citizen to travel at home and abroad. Soon, perhaps sooner rather than later, an individual American may very well protest in court why he or she has been given a very complicated, but not subtle Hobson's choice regarding freedom of travel at airports. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines a Hobson's choice as:

1: an apparently free choice when there is no real alternative
2: the necessity of accepting one of two or more equally objectionable alternatives.



The traveler, in other words, may silently choose to acquiesce to the TSA's various security measures -- which now include a full-body X-ray scan and/or a full-body police-style pat down. In this event, the traveler has accepted his Hobson's choice fate without objection. However, the man or woman behind him or her in line may choose to totally oppose the chilling effect of the newest TSA policies and procedures and refuse to cooperate. Accordingly, he or she will be denied the arguably Constitutional right to participate in his or her freedom to travel.

[davidinalameda]

32. I said the right to fly

there are other modes of transportation available

[woo me with science]

36. Try getting to Hawaii on a bus. nt

[mainer]

27. Doesn't that come under the pursuit of happiness?

not to mention the right to engage in commerce and earn a living?

[davidinalameda]

29. you're kidding right?

show me where pursuit of happiness, right to engage in commerce and to earn a living are in the Constitution

I think you have your documents mixed up

[truebrit71]

34. Freedom to assemble? Or do you get a groping everytime you drive your car...?

...

[realisticphish]

14. I wish it weren't a crazy person doing it, but it's still admirable

probably wont work, given history, but its worth a tilt

[Generic Other]

17. Here! I wrote him the theme song for his revolt!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUzpykxWh20

[woo me with science]

18. Go Jesse!

This outrage must be stopped.

[ThatsMyBarack]

21. "The Body" ROX!

Ha ha haaaa!!! :woohoo:

[crazyjoe]

22. crap, i wish it was someone who's respected and not a joke!

The lawyer for DHS will probably show clips of this idiot's conspiracy show, or him saying the government planned 9-11.