In a 2006 case that didn't involve VIPR, subway rider Brendan MacWade and three others sued the City of New York and its police commissioner, challenging passenger bag searches at subway entrances where people were chosen at random. MacWade lost on appeal because the court ruled the searches were legal under the Fourth Amendment's "special needs doctrine."
"The courts have said that -- because airplanes are so vulnerable to hijacking and bombs -- certain privacy interests have to be sacrificed," CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin said. "I think subways are a harder call because so many people ride them and they don't fly in the sky. But because they're underground and vulnerable, the court said the searches were OK. Would it be the same at a bus station or a busy city street? The line starts to get very tough."
Administrative searches:
Administrative searches are not carried out to gather evidence as part of a criminal investigation.67 Rather, administrative searches are performed “as part of a general regulatory scheme in furtherance of an administrative purpose.”68 The Court explained that airline passenger screening is part of a general regulatory scheme, in furtherance of the administrative purpose of preventing weapons or explosives from being carried on to airplanes, in order to prevent hijackings.69
To be valid, administrative searches must meet the standard of reasonableness as required by the Fourth Amendment.70 To be reasonable, a passenger “screening search must be as limited in its intrusiveness as is consistent with satisfaction of the administrative need that justifies it.”71 “ From ARE EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN AIRPORT PASSENGER SCREENING REASONABLE UNDER THE FOURTH AMENDMENT? Sara Kornblatt∗
People seem to love hysteria rather than looking into the facts.
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