If you read the directives and how ridiculous and assine they were, they deserved to be ridiculed and impeached publicaly. We are the laughing stock of the world. We have a bunch of clowns running our governmental agencies. Those directives looked like some kindergarten teacher wrote them to provide order to a bunch of obstreperous 4 year olds.

When your Constitutional rights are being trampled and stripped by your government, you and every other citzien of this country has the obligation to speak out and stand up. Perhaps you have never read the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

While you are at it – read what our founding fathers had to say about our duty as citizens when confronted with an oppressive government.

If an agent or agents wishes to search or seize without permission they need a warrant, probable cause, or exigent circumstances. If they thought they had either of the latter two, they wouldn’t ask or have presented a subpoena. The fact that they served a subpoena tells me they didn’t have enough to put in a warrant application. Hence, no judge would issue them a warrant.

Further, unlike a warrant, a subpoena is not an *instant* instrument. As already stated, one usually has at least 24 hours to comply or make a motion to quash. Since the exact language of the subpoena is not given here, I can only guess. But if the subpoena actually uses language like “permission to search”, it’s defective on its face, and would likely be quashed on that technicality alone.

From my perspective, the first mistake Mr. Elliot made was having let the agent or agents into his house. He should have accepted the subpoena, refused to talk to them, and told them his attorney would be in contact. If they demanded the materials then and there, he should have told them to wait outside while he contacts his attorney. I strongly doubt they would have pushed their way in. (If they did, that would constitute, at minimum, civil trespass and possibly criminal trespass).

As best I can tell with the available information, this was a complete bluff. These guys are obviously good poker players. Too bad the average shnook is completely clueless. Chalk up another home run for big brother.

You said: “blogs have been anti-government and anti homeland security. They are just doing their best to protect passengers of airliners and every American on the ground.”

No, our government is most certainly NOT doing its best to protect us. If they were that guy would never have gotten on an airplane to the US. This is another case of our dysfunctional intelligence agencies dropping the ball. Each of them is more about protecting their turf, making themselves look good and getting the biggest budget from congress. I’m not sure it has much at all to do with TSA or DHS. I think they got screwed because the CIA, FBI and State dropped the ball.

It appears there was ample warning this guy was a threat. But because there is no real mandate for these government organizations to work together, share information and actually do the intelligence analysis and correlation of data that would have stopped this guy it didn’t happen.

This guy had the explosives in his underwear. I’m surprised some bright bulb in our government hasn’t suggested we all get strip-searched before flying. Wait for it. The full-body scanners are pretty darn close to a strip-search.

While we all take off our shoes, submit to invasive pat-downs, wear Depends on flights since we can’t pee the last hour. While we have our unopened bottles of water confiscated the REAL terrorists are thinking of new tactics to attack us. They’re thinking in terms of simple methods to attack. There is no Predator drone at airport security.

Instead of thinking about how to thwart yesterday’s threat by imposing indignities on the innocent; who in our government is trying to think like the terrorists so they can prevent the next attack?

Since I can’t have my water bottle maybe I won’t need those Depends after all.

Note: “Depend” is a registered trademark of Kimberly-Clark