It occurred to me when driving home that there are two assertions made in this editorial that aren't true.

As a practical matter, travelers only go to secondary when there is some level of suspicion.

That is a lie. Customs selects people at random and they have quotas for secondary screening that they must meet. I know this because I was personally selected for secondary screening at LAX and the officer who did so indicated to another officer at the time that they had met their quota.

Yet legislation locking in a particular standard for searches would have a dangerous, chilling effect as officers' often split-second assessments are second-guessed.

That is also a lie. Reasonable Suspicion is a standard that is so thin that really any rationalization that an officer had for flagging someone would likely be upheld. The reason it ought to be required is so that they cannot perform searches at random and they cannot operate quotas.

Chertoff's lies