Harvard students challenge TSA

Harvard students challenge TSA

www.boston.com

Two Harvard Law School students have sued the Transportation Security Administration, seeking to restrict the use of full-body scanners and pat-downs at airports and joining a growing number of lawsuits filed across the country that claim the screening procedures infringe on constitutional rights to privacy.

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YES!! I love it!

A few days ago, I posted the following thread, in which a colorado attorney filed an injunction and restraining order against the head thugs from the TSA and DHS:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

And now more lawsuits are rolling in, including these Harvard Law students, as well as others.

We may reign these out of control grope-mongers in after all folks! This is how we get the ball rolling!

www.boston.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Yea Students as they said in the sixties " It's about #ing time" peace

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


I'm glad to see these lawsuits.

I think the entire idea of airport security is a joke. Terrorism is not a real threat. If terrorists wanted to kill large numbers of people, they could easily do it without getting on a plane. What prevents a terrorist from detonating a weapon before they even get to the security check point? There loads of people standing next to baggage claim. No security access to get to that point.

I have no desire to hurt anyone but I can think of a lot of ways that a potential terrorist could hurt people, without having access to a commercial airliner.

The fact that we treat this non-threat as a huge threat, is evidence that their terrorism is working just as they planned. Terrorism does not require the use of a tangible weapon, only fear itself.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


This is great news. The lawyers in this country are surrendering the constituiton to these elitist power mongers in government and the corporate world. The Federal government must be bound in scope and action by the constitution because unbound by the constitution will create an abusive monster beyond the expection of most Americans. We should have a culture that is absolutely intolerant of corporations offending the spirit of the constitution and the roots of it's ethics.

It is really insulting to scan the passenger totally, no one could accept this , maybe they should come up with some other method instead of this ...

Thank god, I was beginning to think the youth of this country was completely brain dead. This is exactly what college students should be doing and I commend these two law students for challenging the system. The fact that they're two Harvard kids makes it all the more surprising and better. This is just a small sample but it shows at least not all of the younger demographic is completely worthless.

Too bad they are going to lose the lawsuits because there is no constitutional rights being taken away. Nobody is forced to fly on aircraft. Nobody is forced to be scanned. YOU walk to the scanner, and YOU go to the airport all on your own.

Claiming the TSA is forcing you to be searched is like claiming McDonalds is forcing you to eat their food when you willing go to McDonalds.

reply to post by gift0fpr0phecy

Too bad they are going to lose the lawsuits because there is no constitutional rights being taken away. Nobody is forced to fly on aircraft. Nobody is forced to be scanned. YOU walk to the scanner, and YOU go to the airport all on your own.

Claiming the TSA is forcing you to be searched is like claiming McDonalds is forcing you to eat their food when you willing go to McDonalds.

Wrong - This is like you going to McDonald's and an arm of the US Government making you walk through a machine that analyses your body fat, or they pull you aside to check your body fat individually wthout having any just cause other than "its for your best interest" to determine if you can proceed to that buy that Big Mac. They are preventing you from participating in interstate commerce.

Given that all airliners now have ballistic doors preventing forced entry, given X-ray machines, metal detectors and explosive sniffing machines, isn't overkill to go groping people's genitals?

How about some intelligent profiling?

Had half the current measures been in place on 9/11 that day would not have happened.
Had the ominous warning signs of creepy arabs learning to fly without wanting to learn how to land a plane been heeded, had anybody with half a brain correlated the intelligence available prior 9/11, then that day wouldn't have happened.

What TSA does now is a gross over reaction on behalf of a very paranoid group in society. I think people should say enough is enough. Maybe the terrorists have won when we're all too intimidated to fly without being groped in the goolies. As a society are we men or mice?

In the big picture the whole issue of the TSA pat-downs and their death ray machine are small. However, even though in our ultimate battle to save our freedom and right to live vs the fascist/corporatist murdering government this is small, we need any victory we can get!

This could turn into something big if it is the start or starts many more cases of resistance vs these scum by free people everywhere!

So this is great news! Remember everyone, stay informed, beware of their propaganda machine, and be a part of the good side in history! Be a part of mass civil disobedience!

S&F!

Originally posted by mandella1099
Wrong - This is like you going to McDonald's and an arm of the US Government making you walk through a machine that analyses your body fat, or they pull you aside to check your body fat individually wthout having any just cause other than "its for your best interest" to determine if you can proceed to that buy that Big Mac. They are preventing you from participating in interstate commerce.

HORRIBLY WRONG.

The TSA doesn't force you to walk through a machine. You walk through the machine on your own.

HORRIBLY WRONG.

The TSA doesn't force you to walk through a machine. You walk through the machine on your own.reply to post by gift0fpr0phecy


NEGATIVE - You walk through the machine because you have to - if you don't think that is true, just go ahead and try getting out of line as you approach the scanners on your next trip to the airport - Let me know how it goes.

I honestly think it’s going to take more than just a few lawsuits to deter the Federal Government and the TSA.

The Government has a way of spinning these things to its advantage.

A humans right group is pressing for a release of all documentation under the Freedom of Information Act regarding the TSA’s communications the day before the day before Thanksgiving as at least a couple of major airports at their Back Scatter Imaging Machines roped off and shut down and were using the old metal detectors instead.

It’s believed in order to thwart any large number of people from ‘opting out’ on national ‘Opt Out Day’ the government quietly gave them nothing to opt out over, making it look like then in the mainstream media that it was largely just a bunch of ‘internet blowhards’ who then didn’t have the gumption or resolve to challenge the system.

This group would like to prove through the TSA’s own internal communications that the TSA conspired to defeat the bad publicity of ‘Opt Out Day’ in this fashion.

Of course the next day the machines were back up and running.

It’s great that people are trying through court, but it’s very much like Obama’s Birth Certificate Controversy, the whole system is designed to defeat and spin singular occurrences to its advantage.

Ultimately it’s going to take the people themselves just saying no in mass, by refusing to go through the machines at the airport, or refusing to fly altogether.

When the airlines and commerce over all starts suffering then that’s when they are going to do something about it.

In the meantime, they are going to just keep doing what they have been doing, spinning it, and trying to make the people who don’t want to go through these overly invasive and denigrating and potentially health hazardous procedures seem like some form of extremist.

The TSA has had almost a ten year head start to entrench itself, dislodging it, is not going to be an easy task.

I feel the best course is just not to fly, and if you have to have to, to challenge them at the airport, and hold your ground.

reply to post by gift0fpr0phecy


McDonald doesn't take a naked body picture while irrigating you skin with cancer causing rays, neither molest while probing you while you are eating in their establishment.

Traveling for many Americans is a necessity no a luxury as many jobs depend on it.

Originally posted by mandella1099
NEGATIVE - You walk through the machine because you have to -

NOT TRUE. You don't "have to" walk through the machine because you don't "have to" fly. YOU force yourself to "have to" use commercial aircraft by being dependent on them, which means YOU force yourself to "have to" walk through the machine. YOU are making YOUR SELF "have to", nobody else is making you but YOUR SELF.

This is a freaking simple concept that many of you people just are not capable of understanding, and it's pathetic.

Originally posted by mandella1099
if you don't think that is true, just go ahead and try getting out of line as YOU approach the scanners on your next trip to the airport - Let me know how it goes.

Look at the key word in bold and underlined above. YOU on your OWN BEHALF approached the scanners, and YOU entered the line ON YOUR OWN BEHALF.

As soon as YOU get in line on YOUR OWN BEHALF, YOU have initiated the search process and are giving them permission to scan you. Getting in line and then turning around at the last minute is highly suspicious. If you don't want to be scanned, then there is no reason for you to ever get in line.

Have you ever heard of a DUI checkpoint? Police set up check points on random roads and do random checks for people driving under the influence? If you drive up to the checkpoint, and then you turn around at the last minute, you give them probable cause to search you because it is suspicious activity. They will follow you and force you to be searched.

Some of you need to go back to law school, or a better one.

reply to post by marg6043


You obviously didn't understand what I was saying. You and many others just don't understand simple concepts.

YOU don't need to go to the airport, nor do you need to fly. Just like you don't need to eat at McDonalds. YOU make YOUR SELF need that.

Claiming the TSA is forcing you to be searched because you need to fly is like claiming your Internet Service Provider is forcing you to sign a contract because you need the internet. You forced yourself to sign the contract because you forced yourself to need the internet.

Does anyone here really think that this supreme court will rule on the side of the people?

or on the side of the Constitution?

I thought we had the Right to Travel?

reply to post by LDragonFire


Just because you have the right to travel, doesn't mean you have the right to use vehicles that are not yours, and then complain about security measures designed to protect said vehicles that are not yours.

Originally posted by gift0fpr0phecy
Too bad they are going to lose the lawsuits because there is no constitutional rights being taken away. Nobody is forced to fly on aircraft. Nobody is forced to be scanned. YOU walk to the scanner, and YOU go to the airport all on your own.

Claiming the TSA is forcing you to be searched is like claiming McDonalds is forcing you to eat their food when you willing go to McDonalds.

edit on 2-12-2010 by gift0fpr0phecy because: (no reason given)

I don't care whether its government or big business making me undergo this ordeal: I don't like it.

I am not a lawyer so I can't weigh in on the constitutionality of it. But as a human being, I can tell you this: If it isn't illegal, it SHOULD BE.

I'm sick to death of people arguing that we can't hold corporations accountable for anything. Corporations are just as big a threat to human freedom as big government and they BOTH need to be stopped from humilating people and treating them like cattle in situations like this.If the law doesn't allow for this than it should be CHANGED.