Taking an Irate TSA agent to Task

It seems that the Transportation Security Administration can get a little overbearing and intrusive. And, at least one time, a quick-thinking airline passenger recorded the conversation with TSA agents when he was inappropriately singled out for close inspection. The results are interesting, as Jim Salter of AP reported in “Suit accuses TSA of unreasonable airport detention”:

A lawsuit filed Thursday against the Transportation Security Administration alleges a Ron Paul supporter was unreasonably detained at the St. Louis airport because he was carrying about $4,700 in cash.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of Steven Bierfeldt, director of development for the Campaign for Liberty, an organization that grew out of Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign.

The organization had hosted an event in St. Louis that included the sale of tickets, T-shirts, stickers and other materials and Bierfeldt said he was carrying the cash proceeds in a metal box when he was detained at Lambert Airport for about 30 minutes on March 29.

As reported, the lawsuit does not seek money but asks the court to declare the TSA's actions unconstitutional and to prohibit the agency from similar searches, which would probably be a very good ruling for many reasons.

"It's obviously important that the safety of flights be ensured," Bierfeldt said in a telephone interview (with AP). "But subjecting innocent travelers like me who are doing nothing wrong -- I think it diverts TSA away from its core mission of safeguarding air travel."

Now, it’s not very often that I agree with the ACLU, but there are a few important points to be made with this lawsuit. It’s called our Right of Personal Liberty -- "This consists in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, of moving one's person to whatever place one's own inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint, unless by course of law," as Sir William Blackstone identified in the Absolute Rights of Individuals section of his Blackstone’s Commentaries many years ago.

The UPI report of the incident was also interesting:

The ACLU said in a news release its lawsuit accuses the federal agency of subjecting travelers to illegal searches by TSA agents at airports throughout the United States.

"Airport searches are the most common encounters between Americans and law enforcement agents. That's why it is so important for TSA agents to do the job they were trained to do and not engage in fishing expeditions that do nothing to promote flight safety," Ben Wizner, ACLU National Security Project staff attorney, alleges.

CNN posted part of the conversation Bierfeldt had with an over-active agent:

"I asked them, 'Am I required by law to tell you what you're asking me? Am I required to tell you where I am working? Am I required to tell you how I got the cash? Nothing I've done is suspicious. I'm not breaking any laws. I just want to go to my flight. Please advise me as to my rights.' And they didn't."

The New Yorker also wrote about the incident, labeling Bierfeldt as a “Libertarian,” as if there is something wrong with that. But, they did offer a little more information, as well as a link to the complete conversation between Bierfeldt and the over-acting TSA agent:

Libertarians can be fun, and the case of Bierfeldt v. Napolitano, filed yesterday, has many appealing aspects. First, the premise: a Ron Paul operative teams up with the A.C.L.U. to challenge the practices of the Transportation Security Administration. Second, the action: Steven Bierfeldt, after passing through an X-ray checkpoint with a metal box containing $4700 from the sale of T-shirts and literature at a Ron Paul-related event, is taken to a small room by T.S.A. agents who want to know who he works for, the source of the money, where he’s “from originally,” and, generally, what he’s all about. (It is, by the way, perfectly legal to carry that amount of money on a domestic flight.)

Third, and perhaps best of all, the soundtrack: Bierfeldt, who is twenty-five, recorded his half-hour detention on his iPhone. The A.C.L.U. has posted the audio. We get to hear Bierfeldt repeatedly, politely, and sensibly asking, “Am I legally required to answer that question?”-- and never getting a real reply.

The good part is that this case is probably not going to go away until resolved. The bad part is that there are many other overbearing government agents around and very few innocent citizens are willing to make an official complaint about their wrongdoing.