Brad Ideas - 4th Amendment Shipping Tape - Comments

Screenings Do Violate 4th Amendment

Eddy — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:09:37 -0800

The TSA is taking away your right to go onto the plane without submitting to their search. Therefore, it is a violation of the 4th amendment. It's no different than if they made a search a condition of you walking down the street. The effort is futile - you can't be perfectly safe from your enemies unless you're god. As long as we keep occupying their countries, they're going to find ways to fight back. The attitude that Americans have superior intelligence to the arabs is racist idiocy. I could give you 50 ways to get around any of the security systems in place.

The Fourth Amendment of the

Hagop Hagopian — Sat, 23 May 2009 09:26:02 -0700

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution reads, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Can somebody please explain to me how anybody in their right mind thinks that forcing me to remove my shoes is a “reasonable search?” And why are Americans such dumb lemmings that they’ll pay the TSA for the privilege of being patted down at an airport? I should take a picture of my special message socks I wear when going through airport security lines. I wear shorts, cowboy boots, and white tube socks on which I’ve written, “FUCK” on the right leg and “The TSA” on the left. I’ve been subjected to 7 extra security pat-downs out of 11 times wearing them.

And before anybody comes up with the brilliant argument that there’s no 4th Amendment issue because I’ve agreed to be searched when buying my airline ticket, how would there be a 14th Amendment issue with a bus company selling fares with fine print stating, “Niggers seated in the rear?”

Oh, yeah?

Nulono — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:40:19 -0700

http://digg.com/comedy/The_7_Dumbest_Things_Ever_Done_by_Airport_Securit...

The Lighter Side of Global Terrorism

RC — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:57:11 -0800

The Lighter Side Of Global Terrorism (Extended Space-Melt Version) :

by Jello Biafra

Can I touch you here? May I search your bags?
You have randomly been selected
Got a funny name
And you look the part
Plus, I like the way
You bulge in your clothes

Yehhhh
I love me job
Rock bottom pay never felt so hot
Big man, uniform and badge
Pedophile Santas ain't got nothin' on me

I love to feel sexy things
Other people's sexy things
I love to peek at people's things
Other people's private things

When I was young and someone's guest
I'd find a way to sneak upstairs
Peek in the closet, paw through the drawers
And feel a funny tingle up from below

Oh, how I love to find
New playthings for my mind
I file these thoughts away
Until I go on break
When I can finally touch myself

See your shiny jewels
On your neck and wrists
They could be weapons
We must play safe
So fork 'em over
Of you're under arrest
Maybe you should have checked them in your suitcase

Meanwhile, down below
What have we here? Let's open this one up
Pills! Cash! Electronics to fence
Let's see you prove they were there in the first place

Who is that behind the one way mirror blind
Just little ol' me
And my non-dairy cream
Gotta wipe it up and go select someone new
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Your statement contradicts

John — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:36:46 -0800

Your statement contradicts itself. If we were truly 'free and borderless' we would not be subject to random searches without warrant or cause. When you favor a false sense of safety and security over personal freedom you allow those who give you said safety to be your masters.

Don't forget the classic:

John — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:33:46 -0800

Don't forget the classic: "Thousands Standing Around".

John, some Americans don't

Robert — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:09:08 -0800

John, some Americans don't want to 'consent' as you put it. May they work towards their goal of affirming their freedoms while still keeping air travel safe.

Consent under duress is no consent at all. I think most Americans 'consent' as an accommodation to continue on their day with minimal impact. I applaud those who take time out of their lives to show resistance to the misinformed legislative tyranny. Misinformed in that TSA does not make us safer at all, and yet they have cost the American tax payer dearly.

Please work to disband the TSA.

Warrant

John — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:01:55 -0700

There is no warrant required if you consent to the search.... You consent to the search by giving them your bag to search... if you do not consent to the search, then go by private plane instead of a public air carrier.

Simple solution

John — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:54:39 -0700

Okay... here's a simple solution for you with the old "flying in this country isn't exactly voluntary" argument.... Its called Cessna 152

Get a private airplane, and you can freely fly out of a small private airport without going through any security screenings... A Cessna 152 is the air travel equivalent of going somewhere in your own vehicle.

If you're going to travel using a public carrier (ie plane, train, bus) then you consent to a search... if you don't want to consent to a search, then use a private alternative.

4th amendment and flying

Mike Kielkopf — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 13:37:25 -0800

We also voluntarily enter malls populated by thousands, large churches populated by thousands, drive on Interstate highways and city streets and walk on public sidewalks. If you believe it's a good idea to search everyone who voluntarily buys an airline ticket, then it would naturally follow that everyone who voluntarily goes to the mall, a place of worship, drives on a street or highway or walks down a public sidewalk in a crowded Times Square, among thousands of other sites, should also be searched -- and if a person didn't wish to be searched, all they would have to do is avoid going to the mall -- and all those other places.

No one has ever blown up a college basketball arena in the U.S., far as I know, yet I was searched and my wife's purse searched TSA style all because we made the mistake of buying tickets to watch a game to be played between two state universities. State universities are branches of government. Is it reasonable to search college basketball fans, or is such conduct unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment?

Read about Mao and his Revolution and tell me the United States of America isn't experiencing similar government oppressions. Of course, it's all for our own good. The government is smarter than any of us and is our great protector. Sure it is. Ben Franklin knew that when he wrote, "Those who would trade liberty for a little security deserve neither liberty nor security." Can you imagine a barefooted Franklin standing quietly in line at the airport while the TSA searches him and his bags?

God save us all.

The real irony of all this

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:04:00 -0800

The real irony of all this is that for the $6 Billion we spent last year getting our rights violated, we really aren't any safer (nor do we need to be!). As a Vietnam veteran who got regularly mortared and rocketed in a "Secure" base camp of the First Air Cavalry, I can assure you that the element of surprise will get you every time. And the vietcong weren't even suicidal - they wanted to come back and do it again later!

Soooooo....fast forward forty years. Does anybody really think they can anticipate what a terrorist is going to do sometime in the future? Guess again. Think our geniuses in Homeland Security know? Guess again and again. The thing is, the average terrorist is smarter and more motivated than the average baggage screener. Do you think it's "unreasonable" to spend $6 Billion per annum in our tax dollars to catch a coke user or a purveyor of fraudulent checks? I do. But apparently the TSA doesn't, because that's what they advertise on their website as their big accomplishments. Obviously no one in Congress has the guts to object, because they're frightened of public opinion.

And now for the Constitutional question - is the Fourth Amendment being violated? Seems to me that those who have posted the obvious point that many trips are obligatory for job or other reasons have answered that quite well. Please consider: it's a fact that 50% of the population is just scared to death of airplanes. (And those would be the good ones, with good service, maintenance, and friendly faces even. No bombs! But every time they get on board, 50% of us sweat bullets, from takeoff to touchdown. Does that sound voluntary? Of course not. They do it because they have to. So when they go through the security line, is it any more "voluntary?" What do you think? Three guesses, and the first two don't count.

The sheep on this blog that argue for the status quo are not only wrong, they're enablers of an increasingly strident and oppressive government that wants to keep its jobs and is perfectly willing to squander the Constitution, our freedoms, our commercial progress, our taxes, and our troops in an endless war in Iraq. Security is a state of mind, not a state of being. The "guy upstairs" always knows how to use fear to manipulate all of us and keep his power. Machiavelli knew it, as did the founding fathers.

And the rest of us.......we're going to have to do something about it. Talk is cheap. But for heaven sakes write your Congress and give them hell. At least that's a start!

FISA “revisions,” Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter

Smith — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 02:45:27 -0700

I hate to sound melodramatic about it, but while everyone was at the beach or "The Simpsons Movie" on the first weekend in August, the U.S. government shredded the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the one requiring court-approved "probable cause" before Americans can be searched or spied upon. This is not the feverish imagination of left-wing bloggers and the ACLU. It's the plain truth of where we've come as a country, at the behest of a president who has betrayed his oath to defend the Constitution and with the acquiescence of Democratic congressional headers and leaders who know better. Historians will likely see this episode as a classic case of fear — both physical and political — trumping principle amid the ancient tension between personal freedom and national security.

Ahh where to start. The 4th

JJL — Tue, 01 May 2007 18:40:57 -0700

Ahh where to start.
The 4th Amend only applies to the federal governmental employees. So the 4th Amendment does not apply to you and me as long as we are not governmental employees. So the airline personnel can search the bags as long as they do not do so if acting as an agent of the state; ie A person cannot be seen as participating in the search just to serve the purpose of the governmental agents.

Law has stated as far back as 1921 that private persons are seperate and distinct from searches conducted under state authority. An example of which is if a Fedex guy finds illegal contraband in a damage package he simply notifies the local PD and shows them the evidence. No laws have been broken as the evidence is gained from a private citizen who has not broken the law to obtain the evidence.

Also the 4th Amendment only applies to intracountry travel. As soon as you want to cross the US border the 4th Amend does not apply. They do not need probable cause to conduct a search of the person, vehicle, or propery. I won't even go into the exceptions to probable cause as this subject alone is an entire semester at some uni's.

As far a having stuff taken away just check the bag and be done with it.

Got it rough

brad — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 18:52:05 -0800

On my trip to Aussieland last year, I found the air travel to be a breath of fresh air. I laughed at the notices that they had recently had to put in requirement that you needed to be there 30 minutes before the flight if you wanted to check bags!

How adorable.

Our constitution

Elmaxo — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:29:06 -0800

Over here in Australia, our constitution or any of its amendments don't even protect any of the rights of citizens, just the rights of the State & Federal governments...

Alas, our government's quick obedience with the current US administration has seen similar, though not yet as stringent, security measurements being imposed on airline travel. The supposed necessity of airline travel, whether you agree with it being necessary or not, is quite apparent if you ever want to the west coast from the east: there really are little other options. Now we have to endure the 4 hour trip from Sydney to Perth with less than 100mLs of water!

It's perfectly reasonable to assume the government will attempt to provide some security in our airspace, but this responsibility has to stop at some point. In the end, people who travel by air have to realise that there is a risk that something will go wrong, leading to their deaths, when they get on a plane, just like motorists agree to the much higher risk of death of getting in their car. Personally, I would prefer a slightly higher probability of death, well below that of terrestrial transport, than to give up a perfectly good set of nail scissors and my trusty bottle of water. I guess that's just the mathematician in me talking.

That's right, I'd risk the probability of some terrorist stabbing the stewards with nail scissors, commandeering the cockpit, then either getting shot down by jet fighters or incinerated by 1 litre of liquid explosives! It really seems like such a negligible threat in my opinion, and we can't live our lives wondering "what if?".

There's probably hundreds of things that can or are being done to increase security on airliners without inconveniencing passengers who have no intention of doing anything wrong. Innocent until proven guilty - a common idea in a number of countries.

I'm sure there will be people who don't agree with what I said, to them: feel free to pick apart what I have said piece by piece! :P

4th Amendment Shipping Tape

brad — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 17:06:18 -0800

Looking at printed wedding gift ribbon some time ago, Kathryn thought it would be amusing to put the 4th amendment on the ribbon, and tie it around our suitcases.

That turned out to be hard to make, but I did make a design for shipping tape which you can see below. The printed shipping tape has the text slant so that as the pattern repeats, the 4th amendment appears as a long continuous string, as well as a block.

You can put this shipping tape on your packages and your airplane luggage. Every time I fly, my luggage gets a card in it telling me how “for my protection” they have searched it.

Now, when they open my luggage, they will have to literally slice the 4th amendment in half in order to do this.

Too bad we can’t wrap it around our phone wires, but at least the EFF is suing AT&T to stop the NSA wiretaps.

We ordered several cases of this tape for the EFF. You can get it as a gift if you join the EFF or buy it directly from the EFF Store. There is a fat markup of course, which goes to protecting your civil rights. Buy some for your own shipping tape gun, or give the gift of privacy rights to a friend.

And yeah, I know it probably won’t stop them from searching. But if, like John Perry Barlow on his way back from Burning Man, I have to go to court over it, it will be nice to tell the judge that they cut the 4th amendment up to search my bags.

(Minor note: The printer could not always get the repetitions to line up perfectly, so sometimes there’s a vertical gap.)