Airport Security and the Fourth Amendment - Research Paper

Question 1

Searches of airport security fall very well into the Fourth Amendment regulatory review exemption. Administrative searches are justified on the grounds that they serve a social purpose other than the standard enforcement of criminal law. The Fourth Amendment cannot be understood to prevent the government from conducting a number of other necessary functions, such as enforcing school discipline, stopping drunk driving, tracking illegal aliens or even guaranteeing air traffic control. The first question to be discussed when deciding whether a search scheme fits within the operational search exemption measures the confidentiality rights lost against the intent of community or the need for the search scheme.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Stop and frisk - Officers can apprehend a defendant as long as there is a reasonable suspicion of a criminal act and the policeman can express evidence that relate to that assumption. There, the evidence needed for "reasonable suspicion" is something above mere suspicion, but is less than the level required for the likely cause. If there is reason to believe the offender may be armed and dangerous, the individual may also be frisked by the police (William and Mary, 1973).

Consent and waiver- According to William & Mary (1973), ultimately, it is necessary to consider the situations in which, by consenting to a warrant, a person will be considered to have violated his fourth amendment rights. If an exemption is identified, the validity of a request involves no warrant or probable cause. The Supreme Court held that a legal denial of fundamental constitutional rights must be a right or a privilege.' Airline tariff clauses reserving the airline's right to inspect formed the ground for consent claims in airline inspection proceedings.' Though, it was not known whether the presence of such conditions in a shipping agreement would result in a shipping contract resulting in a consent claim. For example, in People v. McGrew, the defendant was given a receipt for the goods he attempted to ship contained a gray-type paragraph on the reverse side stating that the shipment was subject to regulating tariffs. There was no direct reference to the inspection provision accepted by the CAB that was inserted into the tariffs and therefore into the contract for delivery. By arguing that the existence of this clause did not affect the invalidity of a police search, the court stated that agreeing to a search by the airline did not consent to a police search contrary to airline purposes.

Question 2

Not unexpectedly, the hunt for pre-boarding passengers entails legal issues that are very distinct from those identified in applications for airline freight. For example, there can be little disagreement in passenger searches that requires government or state intervention rather than private action. An update to the Federal Aviation Regulations allows airport managers to provide at least one law enforcement officer with a police arrest power under the jurisdiction of the Federal, State or other political subdivision[ to be available during the] final passenger screening process before boarding (William & Mary, 1973).

Therefore, it is probable that in the immediate future pre-boarding checks will be carried out by people with the state's police powers; therefore, the strictures of the fourth amendment are strictly relevant. In fact, as stated in the debate on freight checks, it may not be appropriate to include federal or state authorities explicitly in "personal" searches that warrant the enforcement of the fourth amendment requirements. Passenger searches are conducted in accordance with prescribed procedures embodied in statutory mandates, 44 which may result in non-compliance by either the airline or the airport, rather than balancing the need to search (or seize) against the search invasion (William & Mary, 1973).

Question 3

I agree with the reasoning from Terry v Ohio case because the reasoning was reasonable and considered the circumstances that can arise make it necessary to conduct a search. The reasons areas explained below;

In context to, Terry v. Ohio (1968) case, the Supreme Court ruled that a request that was originally lawful may become unconstitutional as its reach expanded unless all the steps taken could be reconciled separately with the fourth amendment. It is claimed that a court hearing a case involving a police search after an airline inspection will test all searches against the provisions of the Constitution. Where the airline inspection is found to have been subject to the criteria of the fourth amendment, either on the principle of an entity or on the basis of principles of state action, and where that examination is found to have been constituted.

However, if the initial search met constitutional requirements or was valid as a mere private search, it is necessary to independently examine the validity of a subsequent search by law enforcement personnel. In such cases, the issue should be whether the scope of police search is wider than the investigation of the airline. If the actual search did not go beyond the airline review, it would be appropriate to use the Wolf Low argument that in the legal context the police activity was not a hunt. Nevertheless, in compliance with the Supreme Court's claim in Terry, if the police search range went beyond the scope of the legal airline investigation, the resulting operation must be separately reconciled with the fourth amendment requirements.

References

William. & Mary L. Rev. 953 (1973). Airport Freight and Passenger Searches: Application of Fourth Amendment Standards. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol14/iss4/8

Terry v Ohio 392 U.S. 1 (1968). Justia Opinion Summary and Annotations. US Supreme Court, No. (67). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/392/1/