A couple of things...
(Kyllo, reiterated in Souter's dissent in Caballes)
Souter's point being, that the legality of a search should not be contingent upon what the search reveals, rather the search should be subject to the manner in which it was conducted. That was the point of my original post on this subject. Both Souter and Ginsburg reasoned that without an articulable reasonable suspicion (ARS), a traffic stop can not be expanded to include anything else.
However, the majority of the Court held with Illinois and the expansion of powers first used in US v Jacobsen, in 1984. Remember, under the rules of Judicial Review, the Constitution says what the Court interprets it to say (Marbury v Madison).
The Federal government has a mandate to regulate interestate commerce, but not to protect interstate travel.
No. there is no "mandate." What there is, is a specific power granted to Congress for the regulation of international and interstate commerce. Nothing is written that the Congress
must utilize this authority. (we could go on about the abuse of the word "commerce" [see Filburn v. Wickard]... But that is another thread)
Shootinstudent, there is no such thing as the government having a
compelling interest in anything dealing with our rights. The term was coined by the government to circumvent just those restrictions placed upon it by the Constitution and the BoR. Once the Court allowed such an excuse, the government has gone on to use it to expand its regulatory (and subsequent police) powers, far beyond anything that was ever envisioned by the Founders.
There is another side to the
Compelling Interest issue that many may have forgotten. Most, if not all, of these excuses use the
Peoples (as in, the collective) Right to be secure, as their reasoning. Individuals have rights. Governments have authorities and powers. There is no such thing as a "collective right" except as it deals with corporations. A corporate entity is the only ficticious "person" that was recognized by common law as having rights. Yet, even a corporation has no more rights than I, as a private person. However, the government argued that the "Corporate Body of the People" was said to have superior rights than an individual person. That is the fiction that the government sold to the Courts. (And some of you wonder where the gun control crowd got this from?) And the Courts have bought it.
I have an innate right to walk down the streets of America, unmolested by government intrusion. In this, I have a reasonable expectation of privacy, by the very anonymity of my stroll. Contrary to what the Courts say, the Corporate Body Politic has no right to interfere with my stroll... Unless and until I commit an offense of the law, I may not be interfered with.
An airlines company is generally a corporation. They have the right to search me and my baggage, should I wish to partake of their services. All of this stops, however, when the airline becomes an agent of the government... Such as federalization of the airlines by Federal regulation via the commerce clause. Differnet rules then apply.
All searches should be reasonable and equal in nature. Search everyone or search no one, except by probable cause, supported by affidavit and the issuance of a warrant. Further, to search only the person and their carry-on baggage, without doing the equal search on their stowed baggage is unreasonable... If one could carry a destructive device, so could the other. To randomly detain individuals for a more extensive search without even having ARS is unreasonable. (my whole point of bringing up Caballes was that this is no longer true!)
Law that is predicated upon what I might do, is thought control. No more, no less.
And Frank, there should be no such thing as "administrative searches." I am a private citizen, not part of some government bureau. Another word that has drastically changed in meaning!
The reality of day to day life in America is however, as Frank has described.
