TSA's hands-on approach to airline safety has consitutional implications

Maybe it's the continuing refusal of the country's legal authorities to address abuses of power committed by the Bush administration in blatant violation of U.S. constitutional legal principles that's to blame. But maybe, just maybe, all these years of neglecting the civic education of our nation's young people is responsible for the fact that so many adults have absolutely no understanding of the law. How else to explain the lack of outrage at the latest indignity from the Transportation Security Administration, the newest federal agency designated to make air travel too unpleasant for anyone but overpaying, prescreened first-class passengers. This week's announcement that airport screeners would begin routinely swabbing air passengers' hands at airport gates to test for traces of explosives further demonstrates just how far things have deteriorated. The hand-swabbing plan, a reaction to the attempting bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, is being put into effect at airports all over the country, according to Cable News Network (CNN). "The point is to make sure that the air environment is a safe environment," Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, told CNN. "We know that al Qaeda [and other] terrorists continue to think of aviation as a way to attack the United States. One way we keep it safe is by new technology [and] random use of different types of technology." CNN said security experts it consulted agreed that hand swabbing was a good way of ensuring that no explosives had been brought onto a flight, and even the American Civil Liberties Union agreed that swabbing not objectionable constitutionally, provided the TSA only tests for explosives and does not discriminate against people who might initially test positive for reasons that have nothing to do with explosives, like heart patients. But even if the program does unfold without problems, how long will it be before overzealous inspectors overdo it at any of the thousands of locations they will be overseeing? And what will that mean for the right to privacy, which is already under attack by the government? A search without a warrant is a search without a warrant -- and should continue to be against the basic law of the United States.

Ceasefire with Yemeni rebels could help government fight al-Qaida

Today's announcement of a ceasefire with Houthi rebels in the northwest could be the best news Yemen's embattled government has gotten in years. The ceasefire was expected to take effect at midnight Thursday and, if it holds, should help the government focus on the country's al-Qaida insurgency, which made headlines in December by taking credit for an unsuccessful attempt to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day. Yemen has a powerful new incentive for going after al-Qaida rebels -- last month's international conference in London made such an effort a prerequisite for billions of dollars in development aid from Western nations, according to the New York Times. Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries, is seeking outside investment to improve often poor living conditions, including desperate shortages of food and water, that have made the Arabian Peninsula country largely ungovernable and limited the government's authority to major cities. The government in Sana also battling a secessionist movement in the south. Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, said four committees would be formed to monitor compliance in the north, and rebel leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi issued a statement Thursday accepting the conditions of the ceasefire, the Times said. Among those conditions are the opening of blocked roads, withdrawing fighters from civilian areas and the return of detainees. The government also demanded that the rebels stop attacks on neighboring Saudi Arabia, which briefly attacked the rebels in November after a border guard was killed. But more than 100 Saudi soldiers have been killed in guerrilla-style attacks since then, the Times said. The Houthi rebels are considered Zaydis, a Shiite offshoot, the Times said.