The TSA is a government agency, not a private organization. Options for flying without undergoing a grope down or subjecting oneself to the nudie photo maker are limited to those wealthy enough to fly private.
> The TSA is a government agency, not a private organization.
Right, but the airlines are private and you are choosing to enter into a contract with them out of your own volition. The TSA is a regulator, but is not requiring that you fly.
> Options for flying without undergoing a grope down or subjecting oneself to the nudie photo maker are limited to those wealthy enough to fly private.
Which sucks, but doesn't sound like a constitutional violation to me.
However, my understand is these are only added to major airports to avoid encountering such a situation. As you don't need to fly to get from Chicago or NY to just about anywhere.
Which creates another issue. Your not re-screened after traveling from a minor to a major airport which renders these precautions practically useless vs an intelligent advisory.
> Current US Code addresses air travel specifically. In 49 U.S.C. § 40103, "Sovereignty and use of airspace", the Code specifies that "A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit through the navigable airspace."
This doesn't sound like guaranteed use of commercial airports/airlines, it sounds like you'd have the right to fly yourself from your own airstrip, but not necessarily from an airport.
> Which creates another issue. As your not re-screened after traveling from a minor to a major airport which renders these precautions practically useless vs an intelligent advisory.
"The right to travel is a part of the 'liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. If that "liberty" is to be regulated, it must be pursuant to the law-making functions of the Congress. . . . . Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, . . . may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values." - Justice William O. Douglas
Like everything there is a balancing act between the interests of the individual, group, and state. One can argue that commercial air travel is so important to modern travel and movement of people (are you going to take a boat to Hawaii?) that going through needlessly invasive screening without any suspicion or probable cause as a prerequisite might be an undue limit on freedom of movement.
