Pilots have no Rights

www.flyingmag.com...

DHS is training agents that no warrant is needed for searching private planes:

Flying has obtained information from a law enforcement source about the federal program that detains pilots upon their arrival at their destination airports and searches their airplanes. Training for the program was conducted via an “aviation drug interdiction” class sponsored by HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area), a government organization that is a conglomerate of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to fight, as the name implies, drug traffic.
Read more at www.flyingmag.com...

More at above link.

Well lets see.. cars cannot be searched because they are an extension of your home - legally from what i hear. This it seems does not apply to aircraft.

I have mixed feelings about this. Your article states this is for high drug traffic areas. In that light does it make since not to search the planes? You also have to consider trafficking laws - cant cross state lines with illegal contraband. How else are they gonna know unless you search the plane as soon as it lands?

The pilot does not have the right to carry illegal stuff across state lines or the American border. If he's all legal - he doesn't have anything to worry about IMO.

On the flip side I'd be annoyed if my private plane had to slow me down because it was getting searched each time it lands.

This part bothers me a bit

As part of the program, our source told us, suspicious airplanes are targeted by law enforcement and tracked through the Aviation Marine Operations Center (AMOC), which can follow both VFR and IFR aircraft. The aircraft are also secretly followed by a DHS aircraft, usually a Cessna Citation, until it arrives at its destination.

According to a number of first-hand reports published by The Atlantic and in AOPA’s eBrief, after they land at their destination the pilots of those airplanes are approached often at gunpoint and usually by local law enforcement, who detain them until the Citation lands and federal agents arrive on scene. They are then ramp checked and they have their airplanes searched.

If the searches were commonplace and unobtrusive and done quickly with no guns in my face or a big scene i might allow it and learn to live with it.

S&F.

Pardon the pun, but we'll see how well that DHS instruction flies once it is challenged in court.

Like most of the half-assed, tin-god, would-be dictators that Obama seems so enamored of, the witch Napolitano seems to operate under the premise that it is better to be sorry later than get permission first.

The trainers for DHS can tell their ewoks anything they want. They can TELL them the moon is made of cheese and JN's ass tastes like cotton candy: but that don't make it so.

reply to post by MuzzleBreak


Who owns the airspace that pilots use? The border they cross? Just saying....

Is it your contention that pilots should be able to transport people and "cargo" across the border without inspection?

reply to post by Indigo5

Crossing an international border would be a good reason to be searched--if it were limited to that.

Just remember how most agencies under the Obama administration have been, and are ignoring the constitution, and bill of rights all over the map..

This is just more of the same, been seeing it since day one, and a lot of it happening under the bush administrations also.. They will get what is coming to them eventually..

Originally posted by alienreality
Just remember how most agencies under the Obama administration have been, and are ignoring the constitution, and bill of rights all over the map..

Proof please.

I'd like to see six different court cases which ruled that the Obama administration has been ignoring the Constitution and Bill of Rights all over the map.

Originally posted by Sankari

Originally posted by alienreality
Just remember how most agencies under the Obama administration have been, and are ignoring the constitution, and bill of rights all over the map..

Proof please.

I'd like to see six different court cases which ruled that the Obama administration has been ignoring the Constitution and Bill of Rights all over the map.

I would second this, but in addition, please show me where Obama has infringed more on your rights than Bush did.

Originally posted by MuzzleBreak
reply to post by Indigo5

 

Crossing an international border would be a good reason to be searched--if it were limited to that.

That would make sense and pilots should expect that.

I'd see this how I see what is happening in airports now. If a citizen is traveling from one location inside the US to another location inside the US they should simply board the plane after walking through a metal detector and even an explosives detection device as long as it does not interfere with them freely boarding the plane.

The same should apply here IMO. Anytime they assume guilt and it's not a person or plane entering from outside the US, they are wrong to do it. They should always have Cause and a Warrant.

I'd be curious as to how the law was interpreted. If the law states "vehicle" as being an extension of the home, then wouldn't that apply to aircraft as well....???