Dear TSA, My Football Preferences and Vacation Plans are None of your Business: A First-Hand Experience With the TSA鈥檚 鈥淐hat-Downs鈥�
I was scheduled to return from my summer vacation at 6 a.m. Sunday morning flying out of Vermont鈥檚 Burlington International Airport in a state most often thought to be ahead of the civil liberties curve. If you鈥檝e ever had a crack-of-dawn flight, you can relate to my blurry eyed exhaustion after waking up at 3:30 a.m. to make it to the airport with enough time for what we now consider to be the standard, if annoying, airport security rigmarole. I expected to have to strip off my belt and sweatshirt, take off my shoes, show my ID, and be subjected to a naked body scan or all-too-personal pat down. What I didn鈥檛 expect was a full-on TSA interrogation about my summer vacation before I even reached the identification checkpoint.
That morning the security line was far longer than usual; my husband and I slowly snaked along the line dividers as folks began pulling out their toothpaste and laptops. As we got closer to the front of the line, I noticed a TSA agent stationed in front of the ID check, just outside of the line dividers, with no apparent assignment other than to chat with the waiting passengers.
As we inched closer, I heard the chatty agent try to strike up a conversation with the man in front of us about his New England Patriots sweatshirt. 鈥淗ey, the Pats are playing in a preseason game with the Eagles on Monday, huh? I鈥檓 an Eagles fan myself.鈥� In classic New England style, the questioned passenger shrugged disinterestedly, muttered 鈥渨hatever,鈥� and shuffled along. (I say this as New Englander myself.) My first thought was, 鈥渨hat a rude way to treat this poor agent who is just trying to do his job.鈥�
The agent then turned to me with grin that was a bit perky for even my taste given the early hour. 鈥淪o where are you folks off to?鈥� he energetically inquired.
I like to think that I鈥檓 a friendly person, so I answered him, expecting a brief innocuous exchange about the Washington DC heat and the scourge of Capitol Hill gridlock. Instead, the agent responded to my answer with a barrage of questions about where in Vermont we had stayed, how long we had traveled, and why we had traveled there. I could feel a suspicious expression involuntarily creep across my face. The New Englander inside me was screaming 鈥測ou don鈥檛 know this person from a hole in the wall and you certainly don鈥檛 want to divulge to him the details of your family vacation!鈥� And yet it seemed that the more discomfort I expressed, the more persistent the agent鈥檚 questioning became, following us down the line, grilling me unrelentingly about our vacation plans and baggage status.
When we finally passed through security, I turned to my husband and asked, 鈥淲hat on earth was that all about?鈥� My husband shrugged and suggested that perhaps the agent was just a chatty guy. To me it felt entirely inappropriate and intrusive.
It was only after I fully reentered the world of easy Internet access that I saw that while I was on vacation I had missed a news breaking about the 鈥渃ontroversial鈥� use of "behavioral officers" at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. I don鈥檛 work on airline security issues for the 老澳门开奖结果, so I hadn鈥檛 known about this program. According to the Times, 鈥渂ehavioral assessments鈥� were being used at Logan not only to scan the lines of passengers for unusual activity, but also to 鈥渟peak individually with each passenger and gauge their reactions while asking about their trip or for other information." Sound familiar? And it turns out that this airport 鈥渁ssessment鈥� procedure is not only an inappropriate invasion of privacy, as I experienced. According to U.S. federal officials, it鈥檚 also leading to increased racial profiling, in part in response to managerial pressure to meet certain threshold referral numbers. Of course, many minority communities have been suffering discriminatory secondary checks and unjustified delays at airports for years.
Apparently it鈥檚 not enough for TSA to examine every inch of our bodies and personal effects; they are now asserting the right to search our conscience through pre-boarding cross-examinations. And to what end? The Government Accountability Office concluded in a that no behavioral detection program has ever been scientifically validated. There is also considerable doubt among about the usefulness of the methodology with behavioral researchers asserting that TSA agents 鈥渨ould achieve similar hit rates if they flipped a coin."
To be clear, I have nothing but respect for friendly TSA agents who do their best to make the security experience more tolerable by making small talk with impatient passengers. I have nothing but smiles for the ID checker that cracks a joke about my license picture or the enormity of my carryon. But there is a world of difference between friendly small talk and unwelcome interrogation about my personal business. I never want to have to second-guess my travel plans and itinerary or consider how they might appear to a government agent.
I won鈥檛 be volunteering any more personal information to the next TSA agent that interrogates me while I鈥檓 in line for airport security. The next time I encounter a TSA 鈥渂ehavioral officer鈥� I intend to invoke a tried and true New England adage that served my ancestors well: Mind your own business.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
老澳门开奖结果 and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban老澳门开奖结果 and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
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VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. 鈥� Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. 鈥� Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government鈥檚 case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi鈥檚 detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man鈥檚 Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man鈥檚 Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. 鈥� This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi鈥檚 case, his claims challenging the government鈥檚 detention of him would fail. 鈥淩eviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we鈥檙e heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,鈥� said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 Center for Democracy. 鈥淭he government鈥檚 arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi鈥檚 detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.鈥� In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court鈥檚 ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. 鈥淢r. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,鈥� said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants鈥� Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. 鈥淗e cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.鈥� Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the 老澳门开奖结果, the University of Chicago Law School鈥檚 Immigrants鈥� Rights Clinic, the 老澳门开奖结果 of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.