I guess I will try to answer the question about what ‘rights’ are being violated.
Say you wish to fly from DFW to NYC. You purchase a ticket from American Airlines, a private corporation. You go out to the airport to catch your flight.
Now, in order to board your flight, you must first be searched by personnel of the Transportation Security Administration: a federal government agency.
There is no ‘probable cause’ to search you. The government has stated, however, via laws and regulations, that if you, a private citizen of the United States, wish to board a flight on an airplane you must first submit to searches.
In the early days of flight there was no searching of the body. After the hijackings of the late 1960s and early 1970s the government mandated that metal detectors be installed at all US airports, and that you pass through said metal detector in order to board your flight. Over the years more and more invasive procedures have been placed, all in the name of public safety.
As time goes by, your right to purchase a ticket from a private corporation and use their product (i.e., flying) is being slowly curtailed. Some have spoken of a person having no ‘right to fly’. I am not sure what they mean. I think they confuse it with ‘no right to drive an automobile’, which is, after all different. You are not trying to fly the airplane, but you are hiring American Airlines to fly you to your destination.
True, you may choose to not fly and so not be subjected to any search at all. However, when the government puts such restrictions on people that people choose not to fly, that is interference with the airlines right to operate a business.
Mind, the government relies on the Interstate Commerce Clause as the basis for mandating that you, and the airlines, obey all Federal laws and regulations. However, even if you desired to fly completely within your state, you must still abide by these rules.
There is also the strange fact that once you enter the security area of an airport that you literally give up most Constitutional rights. Once you are in the ‘secured’ area you are subject to even more searches, if the TSA employees wish to. Again, no ‘probable cause’ is needed. You may be stripped –searched and even prevented from leaving the secured area, if you declare that you have changed your mind and do not wish to fly (a Ninth Circuit decision, United States v. Aukai). That Court stated, in part, that airport screening searches are no longer considered a matter of implied consent; they are ‘regulatory’ searches (a huge, huge change in thinking, although the Supreme Court has not addreseed this yet).
So I look at this issue two ways: the right of a private business to carry on its business without undue government interference, and the right of a citizen to conduct business with said business. I only wish to fly to New York City: I do not wish to be probed and humiliated in order to do so. I also do not want to see the airlines driven out of business.
.
