Wednesday, November 17, 2010

I dunno. Is Mary Baker Eddy still dead?

From the Silly Questions department comes this brief piece from the Christian Science Monitor:

Are TSA pat-downs and full-body scans unconstitutional?

It's nothing you haven't read a million times, and not really worth your clicky. I just thought the title was amusingly idiotic. What part of "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" is unclear? Because I don't know very many things that make me more 'insecure' than some uniformed stranger grabbing my package. There's something about probable cause in there too, as I recall. Oh yeah, and warrants. So is it unconstitutional? Duh. Now, if the airlines took it on themselves to do it, that wouldn't be unconstitutional. Suicidally stupid, but not unconstitutional. The constitution doesn't apply to them. But the feds are specifically forbidden by the constitution they claim to uphold to pull this sort of shite. Not that it ever stopped them before.

I know, I know: Who decides what's "unreasonable?" The Deciders do, of course!

We're so screwed.

3 comments:

Pat H. said...

The US government makes two claims, at least two that is, for the power to search your person.

One, is that you've granted implied permission by buying a ticket.

And, two, that since you're traveling by "vessel", you come under admiralty law, just as if you're coming from outside US borders.

Both are, of course, too silly for a normal human being to contemplate, but as the US government is a organized criminal gang writ large, and has lots of guns and will happily kill you with them, they will do it until we force them to stop.

Mayberry said...

Ugh... The Constitution has been dead for so long, and it is no longer really taught in schools. I know my current understanding of it was never taught to me, I learned it by studying it for myself. It's pretty clear in it's meaning, but government lawyers and "judges" have twisted it so. It's really sickening to see how our Founders' Republic has been decimated by the greedy and the ignorant...

MamaLiberty said...

I don't go to airports for the same reason I don't hang out in dark alleys...

I don't care at all for the sort of people I must deal with there.

But I'd rather be in an alley here than in any airport. I'm armed and able to defend myself here.