If you accept that we don’t want a country where everybody is routinely searched, and you agree we live in a country where most of the population (and almost all businesspeople) regularly fly and indeed must for their jobs, then you must accept what you proclaim is silly — that indeed they should not do anything about anything they see that is not a threat to aircraft security.

This is not a new concept. While indeed, if police have a warrant they don’t have to ignore what else they see, that’s in part because they do have a warrant, and you are suspected of criminal activity. However, if the warrant says “Search the living room” then they can’t search the bedroom, and anything seen there if they do is not admissible.

Now I personally don’t want to accept a world where we’re searched every time we travel by air. But for those who do, you can either accept the idea that they must ignore other crimes, or accept that you’ve created a country where a large sector of the population regularly gets searched in spite of having no reason to suspect them of a crime, and anything found can be used against them.

Which is it to be? Some argue that searching for a bomb is reasonable. But clearly searching for other things is not, but it’s what we end up getting, and such a program of search is not reasonable .

Or perhaps some are fine with a system that provides a 4th amendment which no longer has meaning, at least for those who need to use airplanes. And then later trains. And busses. And ships. And roads. And large office buildings. And stadia. And museums. And movies (though it’s camcorders they are more scared of there, now.)