Are TSA Tactics Constitutional?
The Thanksgiving turkey by now has been picked clean, but if you thought the discussion of full-body scans and pat-downs was over, you’re sadly mistaken. One group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), has only begun to fight. EPIC has filed a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the advanced imaging body scanners and pat-downs currently used by the TSA. The suit maintains that these measure violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. While the courts are likely to give greater latitude to the federal government in matters like this, where national security is at stake, in 2006 then-Judge Samuel Alito delivered an opinion on behalf of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit that established the terms “minimally intrusive” and “effective” as constitutional benchmarks for airport security measures. Alito supported the two-step procedure of screening passengers with walk-through magnetometers and, in the event they set o
