] When I pointed out to the officials that they only had
] authority to search for threats to the aircraft, one of
] them, a bug-eyed, crew-cutted troglodyte, declared that,
] if I had taken any of these substances, then I would have
] endangered Flight 310. That such an obviously ungifted
] person was capable of so imaginative a conceptual leap
] remains a marvel to me.

Barlow is contesting charges stemming from the discovery of drugs in his baggage by airport security personnel, claiming that the search was unconstitutional because it was not limited to what is minimally needed to discover explosives.

] When I pointed out to the officials that they only had
] authority to search for threats to the aircraft, one of
] them, a bug-eyed, crew-cutted troglodyte, declared that,
] if I had taken any of these substances, then I would have
] endangered Flight 310. That such an obviously ungifted
] person was capable of so imaginative a conceptual leap
] remains a marvel to me.

Barlow is contesting charges stemming from the discovery of marijuana, mushrooms, and ketamine in his baggage by airport security personnel, claiming that the search was unconstitutional because it was not limited to what would be threats to the aircraft.

] Now the more authoritarian among you might say that
] if these searches reveal other, non-terror-related,
] criminal activity, then so much the better. The 4th
] Amendment should provide no sanctuary for the guilty,
] whatever their crimes. But randomly searching people's
] homes against the possibility that someone might have
] a bio-warfare lab in his basement would reveal a lot of
] criminal activity. And it is certainly true that such
] searches would reduce the possibility of anthrax
] attacks and enhance public safety. Still, I doubt you're
] ready to go there. Yet. Given a few exotic outbreaks,
] you might be. Should that day come, would you still
] believe such searches should not be precisely limited?
] This may seem hyperbolic, and of course it is, but it's
] actually a fairly short conceptual distance away from
] what's going on in the nation's airports at present.