PlaneRed: A new (cheap) solution to TSA harassment and unfriendly skies

From the Examiner.com:

From invasive pat-downs of nonagenarians to radiation-spewing scanners, the examples of TSA ineptitude are abundant enough to fill a book. Add in absurdities such as the recent decision of Delta Airlines to partner with Saudia Arabia Air, which requires that the American carrier enforce Sharia law against Jewish passengers, and it begins to seem that air travel just isn’t worth the trouble anymore.

Or so was the case until an enterprising man by the name of Wade Eyerly came up with a plan to build a better mousetrap. His fledgling company, PlaneRed, is the first all-you-can-fly air carrier (actually air service is more like it). Subscribers pay $150 a month for unlimited access to bookings on popular routes.

When the service officially goes airborne, PlaneRed, will serve Atlantic City, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC, but plans are already afoot to extend their routes to destinations as far as California and Texas.

If you’ve bought an airline ticket to almost anywhere in recent memory, you instantly recognize that PlaneRed’s monthly retainer is less than it costs to fly your baggage (Delta and Continental, for example, now charge an extra $175 and $200 respectively for “oversized” bags).

Perhaps best of all, PlaneRed sticks it to the TSA (a pox on them!) by stocking its fleet with planes that seat 9 passengers. TSA only screens planes that carry 10 passengers or more.

The TSA's tentacles spread

From guardian.co.uk:

It's eight months now since the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) abandoned its last pretence of respect for America's constitutional principles, by mandating no traveller may fly in American airspace unless TSA agents first see and/or feel said traveller's genitalia. That's not hyperbole, just a straightforward description of American law playing out in airports every day. And given America's vast size, lack of mass transit and Americans' generally short vacations from work, flying is often the only feasible way US citizens can travel from points A to B. Yet our government has decreed every such flyer submit to search procedures previously associated with playground-haunting paedophiles and prison rapists.

Eight months of apologists insisting mandatory frottage is acceptable in a free country, and it's unpatriotic and downright mean for people like me to criticise poor working-stiff TSA agents, who, after all, are merely following orders. (Though the agency apparently considers some of those orders 'fringe benefits'; as I type this, the department of homeland security is hiring part-time TSA staff at Logan International Airport in Boston. The online advert calls for 'transportation security officers' over the subheading 'A CAREER WHERE X-RAY VISION AND FEDERAL BENEFITS COME STANDARD.')

Cancer in TSA Employees Rises as the TSA Ignores the Problem

From Technorati Politics:

As if the Fourth Amendment and groping/naked body scans weren't big enough problems for the new TSA regulatory searches, new information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows a rise in cancer among TSA employees operating the body scanner machines and the TSA's attempt to cover up the scary reality of how unsafe these machines are. Some leading scientists are saying there has not been enough testing and data gathered to prove that the machines are safe. Mark Rotenberg from Electronic Privacy Information Center says the Department of Homeland Security has not been forthcoming about the true risks of radiation and has overstated the support of new the new program by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In fact, information obtained by the FOIA shows that the head of the head of the Department of Homeland Security publicly mischaracterized saying that it had it confirmed the safety of the body scanners. The NIST actually warned TSA employees to avoid standing next to the scanners in order to keep exposure to harmful radiation “as low as reasonably achievable.”

Fourth Amendment erosion: Court cases whittle away Fourth Amendment protections

From the OrlandoSentinel.com:

If the home indeed is a castle, Americans may want to start investing in moats.

That's because a pair of recent and reckless assaults on the Fourth Amendment kicked in the quaint notion that a closed door is enough to prevent police from forcing an entry into your home without consent.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its near-unanimous decision in King v. Kentucky, granted police more latitude to break down your door when pursuing drug peddlers.

The ruling centered on a 2005 case involving Lexington police and their pursuit of a man who'd sold crack cocaine to a police informant. Officers lost sight of him when he entered an apartment building.

Voters approve smart meters

From WCAX.COM:

Burlington voters said yes to controversial smart electric meters.

Voters approved installing the wireless meters for all customers by a wide margin. Burlington Electric says the high tech meters will help upgrade the power grid, and give customers real time information about the power they are using.

A federal grant will help pay for the $13.5 project.

Some residents had pushed against the plan saying the wireless technology is an invasion of privacy and a waste of money.

Installation of the new meters could start this Fall.

Free to Search and Seize

From the NYTimes.com:

THIS spring was a rough season for the Fourth Amendment. The Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court to allow GPS tracking of vehicles without judicial permission. The Supreme Court ruled that the police could break into a house without a search warrant if, after knocking and announcing themselves, they heard what sounded like evidence being destroyed. Then it refused to see a Fourth Amendment violation where a citizen was jailed for 16 days on the false pretext that he was being held as a material witness to a crime.

In addition, Congress renewed Patriot Act provisions on enhanced surveillance powers until 2015, and the F.B.I. expanded agents’ authority to comb databases, follow people and rummage through their trash even if they are not suspected of a crime.

None of these are landmark decisions. But together they further erode the privilege of privacy that was championed by Congress and the courts in the mid-to-late-20th century, when the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement was applied to the states, unconstitutionally seized evidence was ruled inadmissible in state trials, and privacy laws were enacted following revelations in the 1970s of domestic spying on antiwar and civil rights groups.

Oklahoma Supreme Court says state employees' birth dates are not public record

From the Tulsa World:

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with the Oklahoma Public Employees Association in a dispute with media outlets over the release of state employee birth dates.

The Tulsa World and The Oklahoman had sought birth-date information for state employees, which the Oklahoma Public Employees Association opposed.

In its opinion, the state's high court said agencies must balance an individual's right to privacy against the public interest in releasing the information.

Remember what the Fourth Amendment protects? No? Just as well.

From Axisoflogic.com:

“We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a dear friend, the Fourth Amendment. Born on the freedom-loving soil of early America, the Fourth Amendment will be remembered as the bulwark of the liberty we once called privacy. For ye, we mourn.”

As you can see, we’re working on a eulogy for the Fourth Amendment, the part of the Constitution guarding against “unreasonable searches and seizures” — in effect, a privacy provision.

When did the Fourth Amendment die, you ask?

Recently, but it’s been sick for a while.

If you thought feds wanted to track you before, check out now

From WorldNetDaily:

The federal government is arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that police investigators and other authorities should be allowed to track American citizens in the U.S. to develop the 'probable cause' needed for search warrants and other investigative tools.

But a team of civil-rights experts says such permission would pose a grave danger to freedom-loving citizens who may become the targets of the political influences that hold power at any given moment.

The Supreme Court announced yesterday it will weigh in on the controversy of police attaching GPS tracking devices to citizens' vehicles to obtain information that may lead to the 'probable cause' necessary for search warrants and arrests.

Federal appeals court rules search that found nude photos of teen was illegal

From the Daily Reporter:

A federal appeals court has ruled that a policeman acted illegally when he obtained a Lexington man's cellphone containing nude photographs of a teenager.

According to an account in court records, on October 21, 2007, the guardian of the unnamed 14-year-old girl told police that Frankie Joe Little had taken photographs of the teenager in his mobile home while the girl was lying naked on his bed.

Lexington Police Lt. Michael Harper, who knew Little, found the man at Little's mother's home and asked him to come to the police station. When Little went to get a shirt, Harper followed him inside where he took possession of Little's cellphone. It was later found to contain the photographs.

Supreme Court to Decide Constitutionality of Warrantless GPS Monitoring

Wired.com's Threat Level blog:

At the Obama administration’s urging, the Supreme Court agreed Monday to review whether the government, without a court warrant, may affix GPS devices on suspects’ vehicles to track their every move.

The Justice Department told the justices that “a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another,” (.pdf) and demanded the justices undo a lower court decision that reversed the conviction and life sentence of a cocaine dealer whose vehicle was tracked via GPS for a month without a court warrant.

The petition, which will not be decided until the new term begins in October, is arguably one of the biggest Fourth Amendment case in a decade — one weighing the collision of privacy, technology and the Constitution.

Help! The police have broken in

I can't pass up this outrageous invasion of privacy from our friends in the United Kingdom. From the Express.co.uk:

POLICE have sparked outrage after it emerged that they have been breaking into homes and businesses in a bid to highlight the dangers of burglary.

Officers have been climbing through open windows and leaving calling cards to alert residents to the threat of leaving their property insecure.

One lone woman was shocked when a uniformed officer walked into her front room while she was watching TV. Civil liberties campaigners last night demanded an end to the scheme, calling it an invasion of privacy.

Daniel Hamilton, of the Big Brother Watch campaign group, said: “This case is symptomatic of the rapid growth of the nanny state. For police officers to be entering people’s homes without invitation is at best hugely ­invasive and, at worse, legally dubious. Trespassing on private property, regardless of any good intention you may have, is a crime."