Appeals court: TSA must rethink airport body scans

``The Transportation Security Agency violated federal law when installing controversial full-body scanners in U.S. airports without following proper procedures, a federal appeals court ruled today. ''

This is actually a bad ruling (read down to the bottom of the article). The bad part is that the court said that the combination of the body scanners and pat-downs didn't violate the 4th Amendment, because the "need is urgent" for you to get either groped or porno-cammed. So to the court, 'unreasonable' search is defined by some vague balance of urgency set against decency. Comforting, eh? One has to wonder what the outrage point will be ... the TSA is already talking about the threat from explosive implants. Is going through a checkpoint now going to get positively proctological? Or maybe we'll have to get X-rayed too (that'll be healthy)?

Rather, what should have been upheld was what was obviously intended by the framers of the 4th Amendment: that "reasonable" (invasive) search means probable cause + warrant (you need probable cause to justify a warrant; the warrant thus "proves" you had probable cause).

So basically the court chose to ignore the Bill of Rights in favor of throwing a sop to critics on administrative procedure grounds. This is very reminiscent of the "privileges and immunities" vs "substantive due process" debate that has been raging on for 150+ years, and has become a vehicle to strip Americans (in practice) of all rights, behind the fig leaf of protection through "process".

In practice, this means you can kiss goodbye to an objection on 4th Amendment grounds if ever faced with a choice between the grope and the naked-scan. And that Michael Chertoff gets to keep his hundreds of millions made off this boondoggle.

What a sad day.