4 ms·

AFAICT, you just made a case that "an administrative search" is legally allowed, not that they're allowed to confiscate his stuff or prevent him from flying wit

• DannyBee 14y ago
  They can definitely prevent him from flying with it. In most cases, the violation would have to be the seizure itself, not the "preventing him from flying with it" part. Flying with it implicates not just TSA regs, but FAA/etc. You'd basically have to find that congress has not granted them the authority to decide who can fly with what, or that congress does not have that authority. Neither seem like a good argument (unless you believe congress has no right to regulate air travel at all, in which case they all seem like good arguments :P). At least in this part, TSA is just doing what it's been explicitly allowed (and in some cases, ordered to by congress. See, for example public law 107-71, the act that created the TSA, where you can see they actually require the TSA to do certain things to passengers) So let's talk about the confiscation: In general, during administrative functions like this, agencies are granted wide latitude, and can in fact, take stuff away for many hours with no issue. Again, remember these searches and seizures only have to be reasonable, they don't have to have probable cause. Before the recent border search case, it was even weeks or months that they could hold stuff. As for permanent confiscation, probably not, but they could say "junk this or don't fly"