San Diego Airport Says Recording TSA Gropings Is An Arrestible Offense?
from the not-cool dept
We already covered the guy who was arrested after stripping down for the TSA, highlighting how one of the charges was his failure to complete the security procedure (after stripping down, he pointed out there was no need for a pat down...). However, there was a second charge that was even more troubling that actually deserves a separate post, which is that he was also charged with "illegally recording the San Diego Airport Authority." I was trying to figure out the exact rule (listed as 7.14a), and some of the folks over at Flyertalk have posted the full 7.14 rule (or you can see the full San Diego Airport Authority rules (pdf) if you'd like):(a) No person shall take still, motion or sound motion pictures or voice recordings on the facilities and airports under the jurisdiction of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority (the "Authority") without written permission from the Authority's Executive Director or his or her designee.I'm having trouble seeing how this rule can possibly be legal -- especially with all the stories today of TSA agents abusing (or simply not understanding) the new rules. Recording the interactions with the TSA seems like an essential step in making sure that personal liberties are respected. Making that illegal raises all sorts of questions. And while this is specific to San Diego Airport, it makes me wonder if there are similar restrictions elsewhere.
(b) Filming of X-ray equipment located on the facilities and airports under the jurisdiction of the Authority is strictly prohibited. Any person(s) caught filming such X-ray equipment may have their film confiscated.
Just a few months ago, we pointed out how law enforcement and the courts were abusing wiretap laws to find people guilty of wiretapping for recording law enforcement in public places. Thankfully, some courts have pushed back on such cases, and it seems like this is a situation where declaring an outright ban on videotaping within the airport is a restriction that doesn't make any sense at all.
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Filed Under: airports, recording, san diego, security, tsa
Companies: tsa
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Eh?
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Re: Eh?
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Re: Eh?
Well, you know The Situation from the Jersey Shore trademarked his name... so I was trying to get around that.
Or, I made a typo that we missed in editing. Oops. Fixed. Thanks. :)
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Sure it makes sense.
New International Version (©1984)
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
Short form: You have no right to know how badly we're screwing up.
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How can this be "illegal"?
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I can quote two things with this
2) If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.
As much as the second one should apply to the TSA agents in this situation, I still will have to go with the first.
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Re: I can quote two things with this
An unjust law is no law at all. - Augustine of Hippo
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. - Mahatma Gandhi
If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. - Thomas Jefferson
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Re: Re: I can quote two things with this
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Re: I can quote two things with this
2) Nah, you'd raise holy hell if that argument were used against you. And rightly so.
I agree that the ban against filming anywhere in an airport is absurd but your second argument against it was really terrible.
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Re: Re: I can quote two things with this
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Jeez
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How can this be "illegal"?
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Holding tactic
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These people have an unusual relationship with their X-ray equipment...
ooh yeah, baby, irradiate me again...
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No charges filed?
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Re: No charges filed?
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Re: No charges filed?
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Re: Re: No charges filed?
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Apropos post on this very topic from Boing Boing
I'm thinking that a lot of us need to have that phone number handy.
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Sound
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Odd
I would be like... "OMG OMAR! They're sticking their hands up a nuns habit!...... DAMN! they made that dude piss himself!... WOW... are they molesting a 3 year old!!!??? These guys aren't playing around!... quick, back to the camel cave to re-thing this!.....
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Yeah, that makes sense /s
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SDAA may find out they don't have a legal leg to stand on when this gets to court...
Hi, the following is not legal advice and is for entertainment purposes only.
The TSA is a federal government agency. They do not have any codes or policies regarding audio or video recording so long as such audio or video recording does not interfere with the security screening process.
San Diego International Airport is in the county of San Diego and is subject to the codes and policies of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. That is the agency that is prohibiting recording. The code in question is located at http://www.san.org/documents/corp_serv/Codes/Article%207/Code%207.14%20Filming.pdf
Under that code, no pictures, video, or audio can be taken anywhere at the facility or of the facility. If you sent your friend a picture message from your phone at the airport letting him or her know you arrived safely, you are in violation of the code under the letter of the law. Shit, using your cell phone at the airport is a violation of the code. That's not the spirit (intent) of the law, but that is the letter (literal interpretation) of the law.
However, the United States Constitution does not recognize cities or counties, it only recognizes states. In other words, any municipality or sub-state agency inherits from the state their power and abilities to create laws in their jurisdiction. However, because of this rule of inheritance, and because of the incorporation doctrine of the 14th amendment of the Constitution, your Bill of Rights applies to every level of government: Federal, State, County, Regional, Municipal, etc.
But that only applies to government agencies. Some airports are privately owned. In which case, they set the rules. They can take away your cameras, prohibit any sort of talking, and require everyone to be naked in the terminal and prohibit clothing altogether. However, San Diego International Airport is publicly owned, so all your Bill of Rights still apply. Therefore, there's a Constitutional conflict of SAN Airport banning the capturing of audio or video if any kind because it is so vaguely written and encroaches on the freedom-of-the-press clause of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution. In all likelihood, the law is unenforceable it its current form and could be nullified in a Federal court.
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Re: SDAA may find out they don't have a legal leg to stand on when this gets to court...
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Re: Re: SDAA may find out they don't have a legal leg to stand on when this gets to court...
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Suprised this took this long to come up...
I does however make sense that you don't want people filming your security process, it makes it easier to try and find a way around them, to study them. Not that they are effective, but it is what it is.
I am sure it's illegal to film many installations for security reasons, this would seem to be a reasonable case and tough to argue against even if the rule is being mis-used as it is in this case.
I would expect this one to be tough one to win in a court case.. but I feel people should continue to do this as a non-violent act of civil disobedience necessary for the preservation of what little individual rights we have left. If everyone films it will be real tough to put them all in jail.
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Re: Suprised this took this long to come up...
If one's security processes are so brittle that film study will enable an adversary to defeat them, then the problem is not the film: it's poor process design.
After all, filming is merely a substitute for the imperfect observational and recall powers of most human beings. A suitably-trained and experienced person is quite capable of making the observations first-hand and subsequently documenting them from memory. Or, perhaps, of analyzing the salient details in real time and devising a means to defeat the process.
And even all of this presumes that it's necessary for an attacker to defeat the process. It's often not; it's usually much easier to ignore the process -- or to exploit it. In the case of this particular set of procedures, which are incredibly poor and were clearly designed by crack monkeys, either would suffice.
Robust security measures continue to work even when everyone knows exactly how they work. This is a rudimentary lesson which MANY have failed to learn, including Pistole (see his lame explanation for why he took the futile step of not announcing the current sexual assault practice in advance).
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Re: Suprised this took this long to come up...
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Film?
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small typo
last paragraph.
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Re: small typo
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Legalities
While I am no fan of anyone and everyone pointing a camera at me any time they damn well feel like it, I would think that this the TSA positions would be subject to pretty mych anyone recording them any time, especially if the recording party is the one being harrassed.
I went from 150k miles a year flying to less than 30k miles because of the BS they implemented after 9-11, and with the new stripsearch or molestation policy my flying went to ZERO and now will remain at ZERO until this crap is fixed.
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Courts
This case involves wiretapping without a warrant, by the way, but just represents another government trampling of civil liberties. I voted from Obama thinking he HAD to be better than Bush in this area. WRONG! He has been FAR worse, by orders of magnitude.
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Profile already
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"No person shall" is irrelevant without a stated punishment.
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San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Board Members
Laurie Berman
Bruce R. Boland - bboland@san.org
Greg Cox - gcox@san.org
Jim Desmond - jdesmond@san.org
Ramona Finnila - rfinnila@san.org
Robert H. Gleason, board chairman - rgleason@san.org
Jim Panknin - jpanknin@san.org
Colonel Frank A. Richie
Paul Robinson
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Re: San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Board Members
They're all Deep Ones! Get out while you can!
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Who's rule is this?
Or, as has been illustrated elsewhere in this post, are they someone putting up a smoke-screen rule that would result in a constitutional violation if enforced?
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Re:
9/11/2001
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Also in Massachusetts
Rodney King's beaters would have loved these laws; they wouldn't have been prosecuted cause the videos would have been illegal evidence, recorded without a court order.
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T 'SS' A
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Under Who's Authority?
The legislation that created the Airport Authority mandates three main responsibilities:
1. Operate San Diego International Airport
2. Plan for the future air transportation needs of the region
3. Serve as the region’s Airport Land Use Commission – and ensure the adoption of land use plans that protect public health and safety surrounding all 16 of the county’s airports.
So that being said, Under Who's Authority do THEY MAKE LAWS? Under who's authority do THEY AUTHORIZE CONFISCATION OF PERSONAL PROPERTY?
Under who's authority do THEY DETERMINE WHAT IS A FELONY OFFENCE?
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