June 27, 2017

TSA wants to spy on passengers' reading matter

Truthdig - The Transportation Safety Administration is considering implementing a new national policy that would require passengers to remove books from their bags at airport checkpoints, like they do laptops. And given the administration’s reputation for religious profiling, the procedure could be used to violate passengers’ First Amendment rights.

“Books raise very special privacy issues,” Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in response. “There is a long history of special legal protection for the privacy of one’s reading habits in the United States, not only through numerous Supreme Court and other court decisions, but also through state laws that criminalize the violation of public library reading privacy or require a warrant to obtain book sales, rental, or lending records.”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

NO NORMALIZATION
NO GIVING UP
NO CREEPS
NO TRUMP
NO WAY

Tom Puckett said...

Would that include books on tape/ipod?

I do needlepoint on flights (five hours each way to/from CA!) and sometimes listen to the Chronicles Of Narnia...

Cheers, Tom