Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!newshosting.com!69.16.185.11.MISMATCH!npeer01.iad.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!postnews.google.com!news4.google.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Jeffrey Goldberg Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: Appeals Court Strengthens Warrantless Searches at Border Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2011 22:12:47 -0500 Lines: 38 Message-ID: <90a15gF5koU1@mid.individual.net> References: <8bSdnZuXvZiAPQLQnZ2dnUVZ_vidnZ2d@earthlink.com> Reply-To: jeffrey+news@goldmark.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net dee9a5vJTIKLrtmvHNfDHgqbv3weCccdxrCwUf07bnvLI4vgpV Cancel-Lock: sha1:2SwVewxIbkMrWf4HDHOsRVYhLHI= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110303 Mnenhy/0.8.2 Thunderbird/3.1.9 In-Reply-To: <8bSdnZuXvZiAPQLQnZ2dnUVZ_vidnZ2d@earthlink.com> Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.sys.mac.system:568 On 11-04-08 6:54 PM, Paul Magnussen wrote: > Alan Browne wrote: >> Borders are special places where the certainty that you are under >> protective clauses (of, eg, the US Constitution) is vague at best. > Either the border is in the US or it is not. If it is, then the > Constitution applies. If it is not, then where do the searchers get > their power to search from? I believe that provisions in the Constitution that allow the federal government to regulate trade are the basis for court decisions that have supported searches of people entering the country. We may all have opinions about how the courts treated that balance, but it is almost always a mistake to treat one clause of the Constitution as trumping all others. TSA searches for domestic or outbound flights, however, can not be justified based on regulation of trade. Also there are very few cases where the Constitution would distinguish between US soil or foreign soil. It is possible to clear US customs and immigration in various Canadian airports. Presumably the US customs officials there have no more rights to search people entering the US there than in US airports. Oh, and I am talking out of my ass here. I don't have any particular expertise, so just because I express these views with some air of confidence shouldn't mean much. Cheers, -j -- Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/ I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts Reply-To address is valid