Decius wrote:

GE Ion Track’s revolutionary walk-through portal quickly screens people for contraband without physical contact. Thanks to our patented Ion Trap Mobility Spectrometer (ITMS®) technology, EntryScan3 detects a wider range of explosives and narcotics with unprecedented sensitivity.

Frankly, deploying an automated device at airports which is capable of narcotics screening is almost certainly unconstitutional.

These devices are standard procedure at Reagan National.

Decius wrote:

GE Ion Track’s revolutionary walk-through portal quickly screens people for contraband without physical contact. Thanks to our patented Ion Trap Mobility Spectrometer (ITMS®) technology, EntryScan3 detects a wider range of explosives and narcotics with unprecedented sensitivity.

U:Frankly, deploying an automated narcotics screening device at airports is almost certainly unconsitutional. The airport security screening is only legal because it is limited to protecting the safety of flights. The government has argued that if they happen to find evidence of other crimes in the course of looking for weapons and explosives, this is OK. They had a legitimate reason to perform the search. However, if they deploy devices that are specifically designed and configured to perform searches which have nothing to do with airplane safety they are clearly operating outside of that scope. These devices CAN be configured to only look for explosives. The question is, are they?

U2: A smoking gun?

Safe Passage System’s security solutions were expressly developed to provide the same level of explosives and narcotics screening increasingly deployed at airports nationwide, but on a mobile, on-demand basis.

I think the way they justify this is that by choosing to fly, you automatically wave your rights to privacy. The main reason for this is "safety," but once the right is waived this reason is moot. If you consent to a search by a cop looking for weapons of mass destruction, and he finds your weed instead, he can still bust you for it. Consent means you consent to be searched... not searched for something particular.

terratogen wrote:
I think the way they justify this is that by choosing to fly, you automatically wave your rights to privacy. The main reason for this is "safety," but once the right is waived this reason is moot. If you consent to a search by a cop looking for weapons of mass destruction, and he finds your weed instead, he can still bust you for it. Consent means you consent to be searched... not searched for something particular.

See the filings here. The operative question at hand, at the admission of the prosecution, is not whether Barlow consented, but whether the search was appropriately narrow.