Do you contract away your rights and agree to TSA inspections when you buy an airline ticket accompanied by the Contract of Carriage? The fine print in rule 20 on page 18 says you are subject to security screening under the sole discretion of the government or airline and they are not liable for any damages done to you.
In my opinion, this contract is totally invalid. Mind you, I am not a lawyer, and I am not running a court to decide this, but if I were on a jury, I’d toss it out. Why?
The government and TSA REQUIRE the measures being implemented. The airline is reacting to that. It is covering itself, i.e., its legal liability, by presenting this so-called contract to the public. It’s covering its ass.
A true contract would be entered between two freely-contracting parties. That is not the case here, since the airlines are regulated and told what to do. Even a short perusal of what the TSA requires will convince you that the airlines have no choice. See, for example, this. There are more such requirements issued by TSA. A parallel and additional interpretation is that the airlines have joined the TSA in a cartel-like embrace. (The TSA documents say this explicitly.) In that case also the consumer is not entering an agreement freely. The other side is government, and government is setting the terms. Take it or leave it. Totalitarianism enters by a false facade of legalism.
The contract of carriage is a meaningless, phony, and empty gesture because of these facts, i.e., there is no free market here and no freely-made contract. The contract is entered into by the consumer under the duress of government power. (I thank Garrett Smith for calling the contract of carriage to my attention.)
6:40 am on November 24, 2010
