TSA Invokes Constitution When Convenient
May 15, 2011 Political
The great State of Texas has passed a law that makes it illegal for security screeners to touch people on certain parts of their bodies. This is in response to the invasion of privacy that takes place when TSA officers conduct enhanced pat downs of air travelers. The TSA has struck back in a posting at the TSA blog that lists its response to Texas as; you can’t do that because the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution says states can’t regulate the federal government.
That is very true but only in cases where the actions of the federal government are allowed by the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the federal government is responsible for the traveling public. Let us assume though, that the federal government would be allowed to regulate our travel under the Commerce Clause (it is stretched for so many things that this is not out of the question). That still would not allow the federal government to claim supremacy when the act involves the violation of our Constitutional rights. The actions by the TSA are a violation of our Fourth Amendment right against search and seizure without probable cause and without a warrant.
No matter how supreme the federal government is, it cannot invoke supremacy on issues where it is violating the Constitution or where it has no Constitutional authority in the matter. The Tenth Amendment gives the states or the people the supremacy over any item NOT listed in the Constitution.
If the TSA wants to drag out the dusty, seldom used copy of the Constitution that the agency has then it must be willing to accept the limits placed on the federal government by that very document. The federal government has no enumerated power to search people as the TSA agents are doing. NONE, period.
It is obvious that the TSA thinks it, as part of the federal government, has supremacy in this issue but the reality is Texas has exerted its Tenth Amendment right to supremacy over an issue not Constitutionally enumerated to the federal government.
Let us also not forget that Texas did not pass a law that interferes with airline travel so even if one can claim supremacy under Commerce, the law in question does not involve that. The Texas law simply says that if a screener touches certain areas of people’s bodies without probable cause or a warrant then they have committed a crime.
Setting off an alarm in the metal detector is not probable cause to touch people in areas that would have one arrested if done on the street. Being a baby or a child is not probable cause to molest a child in hopes of finding a bomb. Refusing to go through the X-Ray machine is no more probable cause for an invasive search than is refusing to allow a police officer to search your vehicle during a traffic stop. If police officers started pulling people who refused searches out of their cars and subjected them to the pat down performed by the TSA then every civil rights group would be up in arms and the people would be rebelling against such invasion. However, the TSA does the same thing and then has the nerve to claim it can do so and has supremacy over the states that try to stop it.
I am not sure the TSA wants to open the can of worms involved in citing the Constitution to rebuke a state because that would lead to closer scrutiny involving the Constitutionality of what the TSA is doing, the role of the federal government in the process and the violation of our Fourth and Tenth Amendment rights.
For those who say it is moot because we do not have a right to travel, the federal government has codified travel as a right that will not be impeded (if one agrees that government can regulate travel under Commerce then this law has to be allowed as part of that regulation).
TSA impedes us unnecessarily in the name of security. Remember folks, no terrorist has been caught by the TSA and the TSA routinely fails screening tests where “harmful” items are sneaked through security.
Not to worry though, the TSA does ensure our genitals are in place prior to boarding a plane…
Where our genitals are is not the issue here. The issue is where the TSA is keeping its collective heads…
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: constitution, fourth amendment, lies, supremacy, tenth amendment, texas, tsa
Our Presidente
Oct 10, 2009 Political
Ole- our Resident and his little scuzzy socialistas want to grant amnesty to all the illegals here now, indeed, they wouldn’t mind if more came in- cheap work forces are hard to come by, especially if you have a sheriff who is arresting the potential work force. That is why, at the behest of several groups who are invested in the “legality” of these people, the federal government, in this case the Department of Homeland Security, has taken the Federal powers to arrest and detain illegal aliens from Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona.
A controversial Arizona sheriff known for taking a hard line against illegal immigrants has been stripped of some of his powers in what he described as a political move by the Obama administration.
Joe Arpaio, a gruff lawman who styles himself as America’s toughest sheriff, has won acclaim from US anti-immigrant forces for his relentless pursuit of mostly Hispanic illegal immigrants in Maricopa county, Arizona, a fast-growing county of 4 million people that is home to Phoenix, the nation’s fifth largest city.
Arpaio’s aggressive tactics include the jailing of illegal immigrants in tent cities surrounded by barbed wire in the middle of Arizona’s searingly hot summers, the reduction of meal costs to 20 cents per day, the use of pink jail clothing for men, and chain gangs for women inmates.
guardian.co.uk
Good for him- the purpose of jail or prison is to punish the offender, not be a vacation destination- as far as I am concerned, if you offend, you lose some of your “rights”- like the “right” to air conditioning, TV, and other privileges that people in the outside world take for granted. The fact that Sheriff Joe can put these people in tents, dress them in pink, and feed them baloney sandwiches is and should be viewed as a part of their punishment. If the prisoners don’t like it, so much the better.
Under a two-year-old agreement with the federal department of homeland security, Arpaio and his deputies had been authorised to enforce federal immigration law by arresting suspected illegal immigrants in the field and by checking the immigration status of people arrested on other offences.
But after drawing thousands of complaints and a civil rights investigation from the justice department, Arpaio was this week stripped of his federal authority to make immigration arrests. County attorney Andrew Thomas, one of Arpaio’s supporters, condemned the “setback in the fight against illegal immigration”.
For his part Arpaio has promised to continue chasing illegal immigrants using state laws. In an angry press conference, he called US homeland security officials “liars” and said he would personally drive those caught on the streets to the border if federal officers refused to take arrested illegal immigrants into custody. “I’ll take a little trip to the border and turn them over to the border,” he said.
.guardian.co.uk
Heck, if I lived there, I’d volunteer to drive them back- that’s only fair. They do not belong here. Their first illegal act, was crossing the border. Mexico has a more stringent immigration policy than we do- how crazy is that?
“The department of homeland security is making a historic mistake if it continues its relationship with Sheriff Joe Arpaio,” said Paco Fabian, spokesman for immigration reform advocacy group America’s Voice. “The federal government is lending its full force and legitimacy to a rogue cop certain to go down in history as a serial violator of civil rights and an enemy of the Latino community.”
An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants live in the US. The federal government is virtually paralysed over how to react, with conservatives like Arpaio calling for the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants and increased border enforcement. Obama, many Democrats and some Republicans call for a system that will allow most to gain legal status after paying a fine and learning English, but reform efforts in 2006 and 2007 withered under sustained rightwing opposition.
guardian.co.uk
Imagine that- a Hispanic against the Sheriff- I guess Paco still has family that haven’t made it over yet. Hopefully they never do- then Paco and his family could visit the old country and the rest of his family, hopefully for an extended period of time.
The plain fact is that if we eliminated all illegal employment in the agricultural fields, our produce cost would rise by about eight dollars a year. A lot of this has to do with a more mechanical approach to harvesting, and also because most of our frozen produce comes from other countries now. In a recent search of my freezer, not a one of ten bags of frozen veggies came from the US.
So what good do the illegals do? Not a thing, in the end. Well- they do make for good news copy, as they slaughter themselves in great numbers. Indeed, there are seven violent crime stories involving spanish surnames to every one of any other race or nationality, every day in the local Houston paper. That is just a fact, as sorry as it may be.
Unlike other immigrants, they are not assimilating into the American culture, indeed they are actively encouraged not to, with ESL being taught, and exceptions being made for those who don’t speak english. Why? That just enables these people to keep crippling along as second class citizens, a sub culture that does nothing positive for our society, instead, making problems for our society that we have to stop and try to fix.
This is a segment of society that if we cannot control and assimilate seamlessly into our society, we need to cast out- their adherence to smuggling drugs and people cause them to be, as a group, much more dangerous, as they will not even try to clean up the bad actors who give them a bad reputation in their society, and thus our society.
If they don’t want to be a part of our society, and indeed they have shown repeatedly by their nationalism, their Mexican flag waving, and refusal to learn any more than rudimentary english that they do not, then they must go home.
Even your best friend can overstay his or her welcome, and they have overstayed theirs.
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Tags: coyotes, crime, drugs, federal malfeasance, Immigration, tenth amendment
State’s Rights v Obama Administration
Apr 16, 2009 Political
The Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution says “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People.”
This may end up being the single most important amendment in our lives at this moment, as His Anointedness attempts to do an end- around with respect to “offering” the states bailout money. If the Governors decline the money, the O’bama administration says that the respective Legislatures may override the Governors veto of the money.
If, however, the states do take the money, they will find the Federal government doing extensive oversight on these states, and intruding into state business in clear violation of the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment, but then this has been a trend for some time, and it needs to cease now.
States know better what their own citizens needs are than do the mokes in Washington, and perhaps there needs to be some failure and pain in this nation regarding the overspending of money, whether by an individual or a government.
After all, pain is a wonderful teacher- the lesson usually only needs to be experienced once to make an impression. There need to be consequences for actions taken, and a state that has been fiscally responsible should not have to take this money when so many unconstitutional strings are attached.
In Texas, two state lawmakers, Rep. Brandon Creighton, and state Sen. Robert Nichols introduced legislation in their respective chambers, asking the Federal Government to respect the rights of states, as defined by the Tenth Amendment. Will the Feds do so, or will they strong- arm the states, just so they can try to exert control? This is a dangerous game they play here.If the feds try this maneuver, many of these states will refuse, and that could lead to a confrontation over whose jurisdiction is pre eminent in this country.
The founders of this country put in the tenth amendment so some states, nervous that they would lose their autonomy in dealing with their people and the various needs with regard to ethnicity and religion, would sign on to the Constitution. Even as airlines and 24/7 news helps us grow together, we still find that it is not only the “buy locally” that makes sense here, but the “govern locally” also applies to the situations that come up in the day to day business that states do. I find it incredible that the Federal Government even wants to try to micro manage all the states this way. This is a plan that is a fast track to disaster for the feds, and it is an insult to all of our people in the states. The last thing we need is a mother- being coddled is not our nature.
We are Americans, we are independent, innovators, and explorers. We are inventors, and tinkerers- we find a way to make something out of what others thought was trash. This is what we are, and to stifle this by trying to coddle us from failure, when it is failure that toughens us. It makes us more determined to get it right, and get it right now. This is nothing more than an attempt to kill the American spirit. There are some in government who are jealous of the independence of the American spirit, and they seek to quash it, quell it, tame it for their own uses.
It will not succeed. It should not even be tried.
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Tags: constitution, law, Obama, tenth amendment, texas