So I was driving around the other day and all of a sudden it hit me:  How are airport TSA searches constitutional under the 4A?  

Search without warrant?

Can't palm it off on private business; TSA is .gov.  

Does it fall under one of those "compelling government interest" exemptions?

Patriot act

You have a choice... fly or don't fly.  By flying you are consenting to a search. You can always turn around and walk before you enter the controlled airport entry!

You really think TSA is just going to say "OK!" if you're next in line and then say you don't want to fly because you don't want to be searched?  You're going to get escorted into the room with no windows and a lock on the door for some 'splainin'.

My problem isn't so much with the search itself, or even a search by private parties, but this is a GOVERNMENT search without a warrant.

This.  Every airline hides this in their fine print. By purchasing the ticket you are consenting to search.

BTW... The "controlled entry" is loosely defined as entering the airport property and absolutely defined as entry into any terminal door ( before security) or other gate.

You might reread my post

* which you decide to expose yourself to IF you WANT to fly!

Because they have more guns than you do.

Why do you not support the Freedom to travel?

There are modes other than flying available.

Good luck with that...

4A does not prohibit all searches, just unreasonable ones.  Court have held that what is reasonable depends on the circumstances.  A search of your car at a border is a different thing from the bedroom of your residence.  And, you can turn back, or take a bus.

It's an administrative search, which is an exception to the warrant requirement of the 4th.

Searches at ports of entry/border crossings are not considered unreasonable. TSA doesn't search you if you fly a charter within your state borders. Its just on national and international carriers.

Same way traveling onto certain military/.gov installations constitutes consent to search.

Don't worry, some on here are ok with those checkpoints as well

They are a violation if you ask me.  However it takes smarter people with no need for money to figure out how to beat it, like red light cameras.  Sometimes you go with the sheep to the slaughter house and then try to sell your wool.like others have said, other ways to travel.  But sometime under the right circumstances you don't have a choice and that's the person who will have to fight.  Figure out what the do not fly list is first.

They are constitutional because of US v. Aukai, and before that, because of US v. Davis. Constitutionality is not based upon consent any longer. I've inserted an excerpt from the Aukai decision here:

The constitutionality of an airport screening search, however, does not depend on consent, see Biswell, 406 U.S. at 315, 92 S.Ct. 1593, and requiring that a potential passenger be allowed to revoke consent to an ongoing airport security search makes little sense in a post-9/11 world.6 Such a rule would afford terrorists *961 7 multiple opportunities to attempt to penetrate airport security by “electing not to fly” on the cusp of detection until a vulnerable portal is found. This rule would also allow terrorists a low-cost method of detecting systematic vulnerabilities in airport security, knowledge that could be extremely valuable in planning future attacks. Likewise, given that consent is not required, it makes little sense to predicate the reasonableness of an administrative airport screening search on an irrevocable implied consent theory. Rather, where an airport screening search is otherwise reasonable and conducted pursuant to statutory authority, 49 U.S.C. § 44901, all that is required is the passenger's election to attempt entry into the secured area8 of an airport. See Biswell, 406 U.S. at 315, 92 S.Ct. 1593; 49 C.F.R. § 1540.107. Under current TSA regulations and procedures, that election occurs when a prospective passenger walks through the magnetometer or places items on the conveyor belt of the x-ray machine.9 *962 The record establishes that Aukai elected to attempt entry into the posted secured area of Honolulu International Airport when he walked through the magnetometer, thereby subjecting himself to the airport screening process.
To the extent our cases have predicated the reasonableness of an airport screening search upon either ongoing consent or irrevocable implied consent, they are overruled.
IV.
7 Although the constitutionality of airport screening searches is not dependent on consent, the scope of such searches is not limitless. A particular airport security screening search is constitutionally reasonable provided that it “is no more extensive nor intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives [ ][and] that it is confined in good faith to that purpose.” Davis, 482 F.2d at 913. We conclude that the airport screening search of Aukai satisfied these requirements.

It's really simple.


You consent when you submit to it.

TSA isn't going around the countryside patting people down.

If you want to make a rule that in order to come into your house, everyone must be patted down, you could.

It's the same thing.

No one forces you to enter the sterile side of the airport.

If you want to voluntarily participate in commercial air travel, you must consent to search. You can withdraw consent right up until the point it begins.

There's nothing counterconstitutional to it. Even in the few non-TSA airports.

And, you can always fly private, TSA doesn't search those passengers normally.