TSA Orders Searches of Valet Parked Car At Airport 453
schwit1 writes "Laurie Iacuzza walked to her waiting car at the Greater Rochester International Airport after returning from a trip and that's when she found it — a notice saying her car was inspected after she left for her flight. She said, 'I was furious. They never mentioned it to me when I booked the valet or when I picked up the car or when I dropped it off.' Iacuzza's car was inspected by valet attendants on orders from the TSA."
Re:And the story is...? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is when they damage your car they will deny it and you will get nothing.
If they don't just steal everything inside the car as well.
Outrageous (Score:3, Insightful)
Police State? (Score:0, Insightful)
If it looks like a police state and it lives like a police state, how is it different from a police state?
Re:And the story is...? (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's different from what happens to you luggage in WHAT way ??
May I remind you that you are not allowed to use locks that are not easy to open (read. useless) on your suitcase?
Re:And the story is...? (Score:5, Insightful)
They can do that already. Without giving you notice. Without the TSA telling them to do anything.
The news isn't that valets have access to your car. The news is that the TSA is having them search it.
Re:And the story is...? (Score:4, Insightful)
The story is ... that the current government is, in theory, authorized by the People, under certain conditions. One of those conditions is specified in the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution:
The current group of people calling themselves that government (is it really?) has written some stuff down called the USAPATRIOT ACT which says that this condition is no longer relevant. "So, then," the logician asks, "what authorizes that government?" Mao says it's the willingness to aggressively shoot people in the head, which decent people decline to do.
This may all be for the best, ultimately, though. Carlin's hyperbole [youtube.com] has a sound basis. Most people today don't feel that they have to fight for their liberty - they think there's a system in place to protect it. As these things become more common, they may finally realize that it's all a rouse to fleece them of their property, while denying their modern hybrid serf/helot/slave status. Unfortunately, it's going to have to get much uglier before they come to that realization. It'll happen eventually and it won't be pretty. But hopefully, society takes the next step at that point and evolves a better replacement system.
Yep! (Score:1, Insightful)
He'll shut down the TSA the same way Obama shut down Gitmo.
Re:And the story is...? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not much different. Though people do expect it to be, since they often leave last minute valuables locked in the trunk of their cars.
You can actually prevent those sorts of thefts by use of a gun, not by pointing it at the TSA, but by checking a firearm. Lots of photographers do this to protect their equipment. You can just buy an old useless firearm for pennies at a gun show, weld it up to make it non-functional and then check it as a firearm and place your valuables in the same storage device.
This is of course not going to work with international travel.
Re:And the story is...? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you are going to be a bigot why not just use the preferred bigot Sand N-word nomenclature?
Why be a bigot and then water down your hate?
Because he dislikes Muslims & not Arabs?
Re:Didn't you notice who's doing the searching? (Score:4, Insightful)
BWAHAHA! Keystone Cops outsourcing their "job" to high school students.
Come to think of it, the valets might be *more* qualified...
Re:And the story is...? (Score:5, Insightful)
> And that's different from what happens to you luggage in WHAT way ??
Your car isn't being packed into a pressurized metal cylinder that will be flying through the air with thousands of gallons of jet fuel and hundreds of people on board.
There isn't even the pretense of a public safety issue with a car parked at the airport.
Re:liability (Score:5, Insightful)
The valet is instructed to look in the trunk when they first get the car. So just set the bomb to detonate when the trunk is opened. That way you guarantee 1) you will be safely away from your bomb and 2) the car will be right where you want it to be when the bomb goes off
Re:And the story is...? (Score:5, Insightful)
weld it up to make it non-functional
Be careful what you advise... up in Canada this would actually make it _more_ illegal (oddly enough). By welding it so it is non-functional, that changes the class of firearm from Non-restricted (loosely: rifles) or Restricted (loosely: handguns) to Prohibited (it's now a replica firearm....). Be sure to consult appropriate legal advice before attempting this stunt.
Re:The joys of private property ... (Score:4, Insightful)
If this becomes a precedent, can the police ask my house cleaner to execute a search warrant for my home?
Why valet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And the story is...? (Score:5, Insightful)
But for fun, how many car bombs have been detonated or even attempted to be detonated in the US at an airport valet parking lot? I'm guessing less than 2 and likely zero.
Lets stop actual threats and not people just fishing for something to justify their jobs.
Re:And the story is...? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're going to park a car full of explosives, you can either create a small crater in a car park, or you will go for the airport - so cars that are left outside are checked.
But the airports were rapidly remodeled after 9/11, and have since been built such that a car exploding in the drop off area would only be slightly more lethal than a car exploding in a parking lot. They street is not close to where people are congregated. Some people would be killed who were walking through the doors, but the same is true of the parking lot. The psychological effect is equivalent as well. "Terrorist attack at airport (parking lot)" is going to cause about as much panic among idiots as "Terrorist attack at airport (doors)." The fact that your chances of dying from someone texting and driving on the way TO the airport is many times higher than dying from a car bomb either way won't matter to most.
TSA has meanwhile set up security to where there are gigantic lines of human bodies before security. A backpack bomb in the line before the nude-scanners is the security risk if there is one. Fortunately, the only ones dumber than TSA are the terrorists, and they don't seem to have figured this out. However, TSA has been creating the gigantic lines for over a decade. Eventually, even the terrorists are going to realize that a small bomb right before security is more likely to "succeed" than trying to gain control of the plane or detonate a car bomb.
Again, this is still far less dangerous than the drive TO the airport, I'm just annoyed that a line I'm told to wait in "for my safety" does the exact opposite and is wasting an insane amount of tax dollars that could be going towards actual useful things. Such as research, lowering the debt, or really anything else the government spends money on.
Re:And the story is...? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, I and 19 of my "friends" could walk into 5 of the busiest airports in the country on the day before Thanksgiving, each carrying a backpack and two duffel bags filled with explosives and shrapnel, get in line and at a predetermined time, blow ourselves up while waiting in the crowded lines caused by the security circus.
How many people do you think we could kill/maim in that event?
Who would prevent me from doing this? They don't check people as they walk into the building. That certainly isn't very secure.
Re:And the story is...? (Score:4, Insightful)
The same way I know you know jack shit about the real world, Mr. Military Demolitions Expert?
They used vans and SUVs because of the shit crudeness of their fertilizer+diesel bombs.
They used shitty crude fertilizer+diesel bombs because the average Joe can get fertilizer and diesel (and even then, if you don't run a local farm, good luck getting more than a few pounds of ammonium nitrate).
I could take a Smart car packed with C-4 just inside of the frame/body and do way more damage.
No doubt you could! And how, do you suppose, you would obtain that much C4 without raising every red flag in the intelligence community?
Hey, if the TSA had exactly that information and searched the car based on reasonable suspicion, consider me on their side in this one. But we all know that didn't happen, they just found yet another way to abuse the interface between government and business to give a great big "fuck you" to our 4th amendment rights.
Ya well (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to be how weapons laws go. It is rare to find a country with gun laws that are entirely sensible. I think part of the reason is that when restrictions are enacted, they are often written by people who hate guns and thus know very little about them. They then never trouble themselves to consult with their military or the like to get some information. So, you get a silly law.
The story is 'security' creep. (Score:2, Insightful)
The net change in safety of searching for 'car bombs' after a vehicle has already entered a 'protected area' is effectively zero, and in a free society it is neither possible nor desirable to protect everything that could possibly be attacked at all costs.
Or are you advocating a search of all of the vehicles prior to arrival in the area they're trying to 'protect', at a hardened entry-point that would prevent a sufficiently-motivated driver from bypassing the search by driving around/through? Maybe we should place these entry points on every highway, and in front of every building, just in case some terrorists have a car bomb!
This is just another pretext for expanding 'security creep' into ever more arbitrary realms of American society to enrich the security-industrial complex and widen the influence of the security state and its minions.
Re:Ya well (Score:4, Insightful)
If you have a deactivated souvenir rifle from your service in WWII, then it is no longer really treated as a firearm. It is a sentimental piece like a sculpture sitting on your mantle. Its hard to justify coming back to these people and making them get rid of their guns (which haven't been functional since 1945). People aren't out there producing deactivated weapons so the only way this stock would grow is if people go and deactivate current weapons (thus reducing the number out on the street).
Replica weapons that look like real guns (and could be used to rob a store or get you shot by the cops when they see you playing with it) are inexpensive and much less likely to run into people who would be angered by losing them.