Federal Appeals Court Orders TSA To Explain Delay In Body Scan Public Hearing 186
New submitter rhsanborn writes "One year ago the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ordered the TSA to hold public comment on the use body scanners in EPIC vs. DHS. The order has been ignored prompting a WhiteHouse.gov petition asking for the Obama Administration's response. One year later, Wired reports, the court has ordered the TSA to explain why it hasn't responded to its original order (PDF). The TSA has until August 30th to respond."
Would love to see... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Civil Disobedience Idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually you DON'T need to follow any TSA orders... The TSA 'officers' may not know this, but they have no legal authority to detain you as they are not law enforcement officers. The local police are the only ones who can arrest you. Of course good luck getting that to work for you in court.
Re:Speaking of whitehouse.gov petition - wtf? (Score:5, Interesting)
but at least the petition system at whitehouse.gov will require *some* action from the administration.
REQUIRE?
Are you Daft?
There is nothing that requires any action, unless you consider totally ignoring the petition to be an "action".
If a petition meets the signature threshold, it will be reviewed by the Administration and we will issue a response.
- source [whitehouse.gov]
Even if the response is not satisfactory it is still a response. Unless you know of a petition that had the required number of signatories, and was then completely ignored? (As in - *no* response issued, not merely an unsatisfactory response.)
A response being issued - even one that says 'bugger off' - is better than nothing. Enough such responses can only serve to highlight the problems with TSA, and how they're consistently remaining unaddressed.
But like I said, it's far easier to complain about things than make even the most trivial of efforts to effect change. We can all bitch about it to each other in comments instead, that'll do some good.
Re:Ordered to explain why it ignored the order (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Civil Disobedience Idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure that slowing down airport lines for a protest is the best way to make people mad at the TSA. They're more likely to get mad at you for fucking up their travel plans. Write your damn congresscritter or protest OUTSIDE the security zone, please.
What about going through the security line stating you don't want to be groped or scanned and then turn around and leave?
You didn't break any laws but have the same effect. If enough people did it with insured/refundable tickets a point would be made at several levels. The airlines have bigger lobbying pockets than rape-scan.
What the TSA is allowed to do is sick and discusting. If people are only annoyed by being inconvienced it is really rather difficult for me to to find enough sympathy to care.
Re:Ordered to explain why it ignored the order (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that the Dens had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate until Scott Brown was elected.
But not right at first due to the extended contest ultimately won by Al Franken. He wasn't sworn in until July. That meant half the first year - and in the crucial first 100 days when a new administration can usually ride on the wave of its election and get things passed without intense opposition scrutiny and delay tactics - they didn't have the majority you claim they had.
After that, they really lost that filibuster-proof majority when Ted Kennedy got sick, not when Scott Brown was sworn in. Checking the dates, the actual period when they could pass anything was around 14 weeks.
Just exactly how much legislation do you think they *should* try to push through in such a short time?