Published December 1, 2010
The Globe reports two Harvard law students are suing the TSA on Fourth Amendment grounds:
The law school students, Jeffrey H. Redfern, and Anant N. Pradhan, are asking the court to declare the security practices unconstitutional and to ban the TSA from using the scanners or pat-downs without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.
Boston Logan will be the first airport to get the new, less revealing “stick figure” scanners over the next six months. Before Thanksgiving, I wrote about your rights as an airport traveler.
We’re trying to book the plaintiffs for an interview on Thursday’s Morning Edition.
Update: I wondered, rather cynically, whether two Harvard law students might have filed the suit to get attention. According to a written statement, provided to WBUR by the university’s spokeswoman, that’s obviously not the case.
We honestly don’t have much to say that would be of general interest. So much has been said about this issue in the last month, and while we think we have some solid legal theories, they would be terribly boring to anyone but a lawyer. To the extent that our personal stories might be interesting, that is attention we would like to avoid. We only did the interview with The Record because it was a friend and everyone on campus already knew anyway. Beyond that, I don’t think Jeff and I want to enter the public fray – especially during finals period. Sorry we can’t help.
Needless to say, Redfern and Pradhan won’t be on Morning Edition.
Update: Here is the complaint on Scribd.