Pistole is totally wrong when he says that flying is a privilege, not a right. Flying is a means of travel, and everyone has a right to travel and to travel by a means of their choice. See my earlier blog. I add here the following quote from a Supreme Court case (U.S. v. Guest 383 U.S. 745 (1966)): “In any event, freedom to travel throughout the United States has long been recognized as a basic right under the Constitution.”
Another US Supreme Court case, Shapiro v Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (1969) very strongly supports the right to travel.
“‘The constitutional right to travel from one State to another . . . has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized.’ United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745, 757 . This constitutional right, which, of course, includes the right of ‘entering and abiding in any State in the Union,’ Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 39 , is not a mere conditional liberty subject to regulation and control under conventional [394 U.S. 618, 643] due process or equal protection standards. 1 ‘[T]he right to travel freely from State to State finds constitutional protection that is quite independent of the Fourteenth Amendment.’ United States v. Guest, supra, at 760, n. 17. 2 As we made clear in Guest, it is a right broadly assertable against private interference as well as governmental action. 3 Like the right of association, NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 , it is a virtually unconditional personal right, 4 guaranteed by the Constitution to us all.”
Pistole is also wrong to say that “the government” has a role to play in public safety and specifically airline safety. The national government has no such constitutional safety role. The only time the term appears in the Constitution is where it says “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
The TSA is violating due process at every turn. They do not have warrants. They detain persons (keep them from proceeding) unless they bow to the TSA’s will and be x-rayed or molested. This detainment is assault in and of itself! (Thank you, Ralph Haulk for pointing this out.)
