Elizabeth Fuller interviewed a lawyer about the Fourth Amendment aspects of the TSA searches. She writes, in part:
“Are the conditions that you’re consenting to so draconian and so unreasonable that there’s a Fourth Amendment problem?” asks William Schroeder, a professor of law at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. “I don’t think that argument is going to carry the day, given that people have hidden bombs on their bodies in ways that cannot be found through less invasive searches.”
At the heart of the issue is consent, says Professor Schroeder. Have people consented to this search, simply by buying a ticket? “I certainly understand why people are not altogether pleased about it,” says Schroeder, but “you’ve consented. You don’t have to fly – that’s your choice.”
Others, however, suggest that the searches overreach. In order to pass the Supreme Court’s test for constitutionality, searches must balance a “reasonable” amount of privacy invasion against the likelihood of finding evidence of a crime.
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