July was an important month for the law, the federal Department of Homeland Security and the flying public. To understand why, you’ll need some background on the DHS’ progeny, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and a legal claim filed against them by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) regarding TSA’s implementation of whole body scanners in airports throughout the country.
In July of 2010, chief counsel for EPIC sued the TSA on behalf of air travelers and good government groups seeking to prohibit use of the whole body scanners that display three-dimensional nude images of individuals passing through them.
Epic asserted that the scanners violate the 4th Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act.
The relevant constitutional claim against the TSA was that the powerful, new advanced imaging technology captured so much personal and intimate detail of an individual’s anatomy, that it was overly intrusive and thus in violation of the 4th Amendment’s unreasonable searches prohibition.
The results of EPIC’s filing are as follows:
