United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued March 10, 2011 Decided July 15, 2011
No. 10-1157
ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER, ET AL.,
PETITIONERS
v.
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, ET
AL.,
RESPONDENTS
On Petition for Review of an Order of
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Marc Rotenberg argued the cause for petitioners. With
him on the briefs was John Verdi.
Beth S. Brinkmann, Deputy Assistant Attorney General,
U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for respondents.
On the briefs were Douglas N. Letter and John S. Koppel,
Attorneys.
Before: GINSBURG, HENDERSON and TATEL, Circuit
Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.
2
GINSBURG, Circuit Judge: The Electronic Privacy
Information Center (EPIC) and two individuals petition for
review of a decision by the Transportation Security
Administration to screen airline passengers by using advanced
imaging technology instead of magnetometers. They argue
this use of AIT violates various federal statutes and the Fourth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and, in
any event, should have been the subject of notice-and-
comment rulemaking before being adopted. Although we are
not persuaded by any of the statutory or constitutional
arguments against the rule, we agree the TSA has not justified
its failure to issue notice and solicit comments. We therefore
grant the petition in part.
I. Background
By statute, anyone seeking to board a commercial airline
flight must be screened by the TSA in order to ensure he is
not “carrying unlawfully a dangerous weapon, explosive, or
other destructive substance.” 49 U.S.C. §§ 44901(a),
44902(a)(1). The Congress generally has left it to the agency
to prescribe the details of the screening process, which the
TSA has documented in a set of Standard Operating
Procedures not available to the public. In addition to the
SOPs, the agency has promulgated a blanket regulation
barring any person from entering the so-called “sterile area”
of an airport, the area on the departure side of the security
apparatus, “without complying with the systems, measures, or
procedures being applied to control access to, or presence or
movement in, such area[].” 49 C.F.R. § 1540.105(a)(2). The
Congress did, however, in 2004, direct the TSA to “give a
high priority to developing, testing, improving, and
deploying” at airport screening checkpoints a new technology
“that detects nonmetallic, chemical, biological, and
radiological weapons, and explosives, in all forms.”
3
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004,
Pub. L. No. 108-458, § 4013(a), 118 Stat. 3719 (codified at 49
U.S.C. § 44925(a)).
The TSA responded to this directive by contracting with
private vendors to develop AIT for use at airports. The
agency has procured two different types of AIT scanner, one
that uses millimeter wave technology, which relies upon radio
frequency energy, and another that uses backscatter
technology, which employs low-intensity X-ray beams. Each
technology is designed to produce a crude image of an
unclothed person, who must stand in the scanner for several
seconds while it generates the image. That image enables the
operator of the machine to detect a nonmetallic object, such as
a liquid or powder — which a magnetometer cannot detect —
without touching the passengers coming through the
checkpoint.
The TSA began to deploy AIT scanners in 2007 in order
to provide additional or “secondary” screening of selected
passengers who had already passed through a magnetometer.
In 2009 the TSA initiated a field test in which it used AIT as a
means of primary screening at a limited number of airports.
Based upon the apparent success of the test, the TSA decided
early in 2010 to use the scanners everywhere for primary
screening. By the end of that year the TSA was operating 486
scanners at 78 airports; it plans to add 500 more scanners
before the end of this year.
No passenger is ever required to submit to an AIT scan.
Signs at the security checkpoint notify passengers they may
opt instead for a patdown, which the TSA claims is the only
effective alternative method of screening passengers. A
passenger who does not want to pass through an AIT scanner
may ask that the patdown be performed by an officer of the
4
same sex and in private. Many passengers nonetheless remain
unaware of this right, and some who have exercised the right
have complained that the resulting patdown was unnecessarily
aggressive.
The TSA has also taken steps to mitigate the effect a scan
using AIT might have upon passenger privacy: Each image
produced by a scanner passes through a filter to obscure facial
features and is viewable on a computer screen only by an
officer sitting in a remote and secure room. As soon as the
passenger has been cleared, moreover, the image is deleted;
the officer cannot retain the image on his computer, nor is he
permitted to bring a cell phone or camera into the secure
room. In addition to these measures to protect privacy, the
agency has commissioned two studies of the safety of the
scanners that use backscatter technology, each of which has
found the scanners emit levels of radiation well within
acceptable limits. Millimeter wave scanners are also tested to
ensure they meet accepted standards for safety.
The petitioners, for their part, have long been unsatisfied
with the TSA’s efforts to protect passengers’ privacy and
health from the risks associated with AIT. In May 2009 more
than 30 organizations, including the petitioner EPIC, sent a
letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security, in which they
objected to the use of AIT as a primary means of screening
passengers. They asked that the TSA cease using AIT in that
capacity pending “a 90-day formal public rulemaking
process.” The TSA responded with a letter addressing the
organizations’ substantive concerns but ignoring their request
for rulemaking.
Nearly a year later, in April 2010, the EPIC and a slightly
different group of organizations sent the Secretary and her
Chief Privacy Officer a second letter, denominated a “petition
5
for the issuance, amendment, or repeal of a rule” pursuant to 5
U.S.C. § 553(e). They argued the use of AIT for primary
screening violates the Privacy Act; a provision of the
Homeland Security Act requiring the Chief Privacy Officer
upon the issuance of a new rule to prepare a privacy impact
assessment; the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA);
and the Fourth Amendment. In May the TSA again
responded by letter, clarifying some factual matters,
responding to the legal challenges, and taking the position it is
not required to initiate a rulemaking each time it changes
screening procedures. In July, the EPIC, joined by two
members of its advisory board who travel frequently and have
been subjected to AIT screening by the TSA, petitioned this
court for review.
II. Analysis
The petitioners focus their opening brief upon their
substantive challenges to the TSA’s decision to use AIT for
initial screening. They raise all the legal claims foreshadowed
in their request for rulemaking, as well as a claim under the
Video Voyeurism Prevention Act. As explained below,
however, our attention is most drawn to their procedural
argument that the TSA should have engaged in notice-and-
comment rulemaking.
A. Notice and Comment
In their opening brief, the petitioners argue the TSA
“refus[ed] to process” and “effectively ignored” their 2010
letter, which was “explicitly marked as a ‘petition’” for
rulemaking under § 553. The TSA responds that the
petitioners did not petition “for the issuance, amendment, or
repeal of a rule,” as authorized by § 553(e), because “the
relief actually sought [was] ... the immediate suspension of
6
the AIT program.” A construction of § 553(e) that excludes
any petition with a goal beyond mere process is dubious at
best, and the agency offers no authority for it. The petitioners
were clearly seeking “amendment[] or repeal of a rule”; that
their aim was expressed in terms of the substance of the rule
surely does not work against them. Indeed, we would be
surprised to find many petitions for rulemaking that do not
identify the substantive outcome the petitioner wants the
agency to reach. *
Anticipating this conclusion, the TSA next argues it
responded appropriately to the petition by denying it. We will
set aside an agency’s decision to deny a petition for
rulemaking only if it is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of
discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 5
U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). Moreover, “an agency's refusal to
institute rulemaking proceedings is at the high end of the
range of levels of deference we give to agency action under
our arbitrary and capricious review.” Defenders of Wildlife v.
Gutierrez, 532 F.3d 913, 919 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Here, however, the TSA denied the
petition on the ground it “is not required to initiate APA
rulemaking procedures each time the agency develops and
implements improved passenger screening procedures.”
Because this position rests upon an interpretation of the
Administrative Procedure Act, the crux of our review turns
upon our analysis of that statute. See Am. Horse Prot. Ass’n,
Inc. v. Lyng, 812 F.2d 1, 5 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (court may
overturn decision to deny petition for rulemaking if based
*
We have no need to reach petitioners’ claim the TSA
unreasonably delayed in responding to their 2009 letter; our remand
to the agency of their 2010 petition for rulemaking gives them all
the relief they would obtain in any event.
7
upon “plain errors of law” (internal quotation marks
omitted)).
We turn, then, to §§ 553(b) and (c) of the APA, which
generally require an agency to publish notice of a proposed
rule in the Federal Register and to solicit and consider public
comments upon its proposal. See U.S. Telecom Ass’n v. FCC,
400 F.3d 29, 34 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (“This court and many
commentators have generally referred to the category of rules
to which the notice-and-comment requirements do apply as
‘legislative rules’”). As the TSA points out, however, the
statute does provide certain exceptions to this standard
procedure; in particular, as set forth in § 553(b)(3)(A), the
notice and comment requirements do not apply “to
interpretative rules, general statements of policy, or rules of
agency organization, procedure, or practice.” The TSA
argues its decision to use AIT for primary screening comes
within all three listed categories and therefore is not a
“legislative rule” subject to notice and comment.
1. Procedural Rule
We consider first the TSA’s argument it has announced a
rule of “agency organization, procedure, or practice,” which
our cases refer to as a “procedural rule.” In general, a
procedural rule “does not itself ‘alter the rights or interests of
parties, although it may alter the manner in which the parties
present themselves or their viewpoints to the agency.’”
Chamber of Commerce of U.S. v. DOL, 174 F.3d 206, 211
(D.C. Cir. 1999) (quoting Batterton v. Marshall, 648 F.2d
694, 707 (D.C. Cir. 1980)). That is, the rule does “not impose
new substantive burdens.” Aulenback, Inc. v. Fed. Highway
Admin., 103 F.3d 156, 169 (D.C. Cir. 1997). As we have
noted before, however, a rule with a “substantial impact”
upon the persons subject to it is not necessarily a substantive
8
rule under § 553(b)(3)(A). See Pub. Citizen v. Dep’t of State,
276 F.3d 634, 640–41 (2002). Further, the distinction
between substantive and procedural rules is “one of degree”
depending upon “whether the substantive effect is sufficiently
grave so that notice and comment are needed to safeguard the
policies underlying the APA.” Lamoille Valley R.R. Co. v.
ICC, 711 F.2d 295, 328 (D.C. Cir. 1983). Those policies, as
we have elsewhere observed, are to serve “the need for public
participation in agency decisionmaking,” Chamber of
Commerce, 174 F.3d at 211, and to ensure the agency has all
pertinent information before it when making a decision, Am.
Hosp. Ass’n v. Bowen, 834 F.2d 1037, 1044 (1987). In order
to further these policies, the exception for procedural rules
“must be narrowly construed.” United States v. Picciotto, 875
F.2d 345, 347 (D.C. Cir. 1989).
Of course, stated at a high enough level of generality, the
new policy imposes no new substantive obligations upon
airline passengers: The requirement that a passenger pass
through a security checkpoint is hardly novel, the prohibition
against boarding a plane with a weapon or an explosive
device even less so. But this overly abstract account of the
change in procedure at the checkpoint elides the privacy
interests at the heart of the petitioners’ concern with AIT.
Despite the precautions taken by the TSA, it is clear that by
producing an image of the unclothed passenger, an AIT
scanner intrudes upon his or her personal privacy in a way a
magnetometer does not. Therefore, regardless whether this is
a “new substantive burden,” see Aulenback, 103 F.3d at 169,
the change substantively affects the public to a degree
sufficient to implicate the policy interests animating notice-
and-comment rulemaking. Cf. Pickus v. Bd. of Parole, 507
F.2d 1107, 1113–14 (D.C. Cir. 1974) (rules governing parole
hearings not procedural because they went “beyond formality
and substantially affect[ed]” prisoners’ liberty). Indeed, few
9
if any regulatory procedures impose directly and significantly
upon so many members of the public. Not surprisingly,
therefore, much public concern and media coverage have
been focused upon issues of privacy, safety, and efficacy,
each of which no doubt would have been the subject of many
comments had the TSA seen fit to solicit comments upon a
proposal to use AIT for primary screening. To confirm these
issues were relevant to the TSA’s deliberations about AIT, we
need look no further than its assurances to that effect in its
response to the petitioners’ 2010 letter: “AIT screening has
proven effective in addressing ever-changing security threats,
and numerous independent studies have addressed health
concerns. TSA has carefully considered the important ...
privacy issues.” For these reasons, the TSA’s use of AIT for
primary screening has the hallmark of a substantive rule and,
therefore, unless the rule comes within some other exception,
it should have been the subject of notice and comment.
2. Interpretive Rule
The TSA next tries to justify having proceeded without
notice and comment on the ground that it announced only an
“interpretative” rule advising the public of its current
understanding of the statutory charge to develop and deploy
new technologies for the detection of terrorist weapons. For
their part, the petitioners argue the rule is legislative rather
than interpretive because it “effectively amends a prior
legislative rule,” Am. Mining Congress v. Mine Safety &
Health Admin., 995 F.2d 1106, 1112 (D.C. Cir. 1993), to wit,
the secondary use of AIT only to back-up primary screening
performed with magnetometers. See also Sprint Corp. v.
FCC, 315 F.3d 369, 374 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (“an amendment to
a legislative rule must itself be legislative” (internal quotation
marks omitted)).
10
The practical question inherent in the distinction between
legislative and interpretive regulations is whether the new rule
effects “a substantive regulatory change” to the statutory or
regulatory regime. U.S. Telecom Ass’n, 400 F.3d at 34–40
(FCC effected substantive change when it required wireline
telephone carriers to permit customers to transfer their
telephone numbers to wireless carriers). For the reasons
discussed in Part II.A.1, we conclude the TSA’s policy
substantially changes the experience of airline passengers and
is therefore not merely “interpretative” either of the statute
directing the TSA to detect weapons likely to be used by
terrorists or of the general regulation requiring that passengers
comply with all TSA screening procedures. Although the
statute, 49 U.S.C. § 44925, does require the TSA to develop
and test advanced screening technology, it does not
specifically require the TSA to deploy AIT scanners let alone
use them for primary screening. Concededly, there is some
merit in the TSA’s argument it has done no more than resolve
an ambiguity inherent in its statutory and regulatory authority,
but the purpose of the APA would be disserved if an agency
with a broad statutory command (here, to detect weapons)
could avoid notice-and-comment rulemaking simply by
promulgating a comparably broad regulation (here, requiring
passengers to clear a checkpoint) and then invoking its power
to interpret that statute and regulation in binding the public to
a strict and specific set of obligations.
3. General Statement of Policy
Finally, the TSA argues notice and comment is not
required because, rather than promulgating a legislative rule,
the agency, in announcing it will use AIT for primary
screening, made a “general statement[] of policy.” The
question raised by the policy exception “is whether a
statement is ... of present binding effect”; if it is, then the
11
APA calls for notice and comment. McLouth Steel Prods.
Corp. v. Thomas, 838 F.2d 1317, 1320 (D.C. Cir. 1988). Our
cases “make clear that an agency pronouncement will be
considered binding as a practical matter if it either appears on
its face to be binding, or is applied by the agency in a way
that indicates it is binding.” Gen. Elec. Co. v. EPA, 290 F.3d
377, 383 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (internal citation omitted); see also
Chamber of Commerce, 174 F.3d at 212–13. It is enough for
the agency’s statement to “purport to bind” those subject to it,
that is, to be cast in “mandatory language” so “the affected
private parties are reasonably led to believe that failure to
conform will bring adverse consequences.” Gen. Elec., 290
F.3d at 383–84 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The TSA seems to think it significant that there are no
AIT scanners at some airports and the agency retains the
discretion to stop using the scanners where they are in place.
More clearly significant is that a passenger is bound to
comply with whatever screening procedure the TSA is using
on the date he is to fly at the airport from which his flight
departs. 49 C.F.R. § 1540.105(a)(2) (no passenger may enter
the “sterile area” of an airport “without complying with the
systems, measures, or procedures being applied to control
access to” that area). To be sure, he can opt for a patdown
but, as the TSA conceded at oral argument, the agency has not
argued that option makes its screening procedures nonbinding
and we therefore do not consider the possibility. We are left,
then, with the argument that a passenger is not bound to
comply with the set of choices presented by the TSA when he
arrives at the security checkpoint, which is absurd. *
*
The TSA’s argument it has not promulgated a “rule” also fails
because the question at issue is again whether the agency’s
pronouncement is or purports to be binding. Cf. Amoco Prod. Co.
v. Watson, 410 F.3d 722, 732 (D.C. Cir. 2005).
12
In sum, the TSA has advanced no justification for having
failed to conduct a notice-and-comment rulemaking. We
therefore remand this matter to the agency for further
proceedings. Because vacating the present rule would
severely disrupt an essential security operation, however, and
the rule is, as we explain below, otherwise lawful, we shall
not vacate the rule, but we do nonetheless expect the agency
to act promptly on remand to cure the defect in its
promulgation. See Allied-Signal, Inc. v. Nuclear Regulatory
Comm’n, 988 F.2d 146, 150–51 (D.C. Cir. 1993).
The agency asks us to “make clear that on remand, TSA
is free to invoke the APA’s ‘good cause’ exception” to notice-
and-comment rulemaking, 5 U.S.C. § 553(b)(B) (exception
“when the agency for good cause finds ... that notice and
public procedure thereon are impracticable, unnecessary, or
contrary to the public interest”). We have no occasion to
express a view upon this possibility other than to note we do
not reach it.
B. Substantive Claims
We turn next to the statutory and constitutional claims
raised by the petitioners. None of their arguments, as we
explain below, warrants granting relief.
1. Statutory Claims
The petitioners argue first that capturing images of
passengers is unlawful under the Video Voyeurism
Prevention Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1801, a claim the TSA urges
should be dismissed because it was not raised before the
agency. See 49 U.S.C. § 46110(d) (“court may consider an
objection to an order ... only if the objection was made in the
13
proceeding conducted by the [agency] or if there was a
reasonable ground for not making the objection in the
proceeding”). As the petitioners argue, however, § 46110(d)
presupposes there was an agency “proceeding” where the
party could advance its argument in the first instance, the
absence of which is the very matter at issue here. The TSA
more helpfully reminds us the VVPA “does not [apply to] any
lawful law enforcement, correctional, or intelligence activity.”
18 U.S.C. § 1801(c). Because the only “unlawfulness” the
petitioners claim in order to get around that exception is the
alleged violation of the Fourth Amendment, which we reject
below, and their argument the TSA does not engage in “law
enforcement, correctional, or intelligence activity” borders
upon the silly, we conclude the exception applies here.
The petitioners next argue the TSA’s use of AIT violates
the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, a statute that applies only
insofar as the Government maintains a “system of records”
from which it can retrieve a record by using an individual’s
name or other identifying information, see id. § 552a(a)(5),
(e)(4); Maydak v. United States, 363 F.3d 512, 515 (D.C. Cir.
2004). Here the TSA points out it does not maintain data
from AIT scanners in a “system of records” linked to names
or any other identifier. Even if, as the petitioners speculate,
the TSA has the ability to combine various sources of
information and then to link names to the images produced
using AIT, their Privacy Act claim still fails because they
offer no reason to believe the TSA has in fact done that. See
Henke v. Dep’t of Commerce, 83 F.3d 1453, 1460–61 (D.C.
Cir. 1996) (“retrieval capability is not sufficient to create a
system of records”).
The petitioners also claim the Chief Privacy Officer of
the DHS failed to discharge her statutory duties generally to
“assur[e] that the use of technologies” does not “erode[]
14
privacy protections” and, more specifically, to make an
assessment of the rule’s impact upon privacy. See 6 U.S.C. §
142(a)(1), (4). The CPO has, however, prepared three privacy
impact assessments of the AIT program. Although, as the
petitioners point out, the CPO made those assessments before
the agency decided to extend the use of AIT from primary
screening at six airports and secondary screening at selected
others to primary screening at every airport, she also
explained she would update the assessments “as needed.”
Mary Ellen Callahan, Privacy Impact Assessment Update for
TSA Whole Body Imaging 10 (July 23, 2009). We infer from
the absence of any subsequent assessment a determination by
the CPO that her prior efforts remain sufficient to cover the
impact upon privacy of the expanded use of AIT, see
Lichoulas v. FERC, 606 F.3d 769, 780 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 2010)
(presumption of regularity attaches to actions by
administrative officials); the petitioners have failed to show
that determination is arbitrary or capricious, see 5 U.S.C. §
706(2)(A). As for the broad claim under § 142(a)(1) that the
CPO has not done enough to safeguard privacy, the
petitioners make no more specific objection that would enable
us to disturb the CPO’s conclusion that the privacy
protections built into the AIT program are sufficiently
“strong.” Therefore this argument fails as well.
Last, the petitioners claim the use of AIT violates the
RFRA, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq., because revealing a
person’s naked body “offends the sincerely held beliefs of
Muslims and other religious groups.” The TSA argues that
Nadhira Al-Khalili, the only person the petitioners assert has
any religiously founded objection to AIT, is not a proper party
because she is not named in the petition for review, see FED.
R. APP. P. 15(a) (petition must “name each party seeking
review”); indeed, she first appeared as a purported party in the
petitioners’ opening brief. The petitioners respond that their
15
opening brief should be treated as a complaint is treated in the
district court, that is, as the appropriate document in which to
list the complaining parties. They provide no reasoning to
support this assertion and the case they cite actually says
something quite different: “‘A petition for review ... is
analogous to a complaint[,] in which all parties must be
named.’” Elkins Carmen v. STB, 170 F.3d 1144, 1145 (D.C.
Cir. 1999) (quoting FED. R. APP. P. 15(a) advisory
committee’s note).
Next, the petitioners contend their claims and Al-
Khalili’s should be considered as one because she is legal
counsel for an organization that was a party to their 2010
letter, the TSA’s response to which is here under review. The
case they cite for support, Rampengan v. Gonzales, 206 F.
App’x 248, 252 (4th Cir. 2006), concerned a family of four
who had jointly applied for asylum and, having been treated
in an administrative proceeding as a single party under the
husband’s name, listed only his name in their petition for
review of the administrative decision. Al-Khalili, in contrast,
claims no familial or agency or other formal relationship with
any other petitioner; her employer, despite having joined the
letter to the TSA, did not petition for review. Accordingly,
neither Al-Khalili nor her employer is before us and, there
being no actual petitioner with standing to assert a religious
injury cognizable under the RFRA, see Lujan v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992) (no standing absent an
injury-in-fact fairly traceable to the challenged conduct and
likely to be redressed by a favorable decision); see also Warth
v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 499 (1975) (litigant “generally must
assert his own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest his
claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties”),
that claim must be dismissed.
16
2. Fourth Amendment Claim
Finally, the petitioners argue that using AIT for primary
screening violates the Fourth Amendment because it is more
invasive than is necessary to detect weapons or explosives. In
view of the Supreme Court’s “repeated[] refus[al] to declare
that only the least intrusive search practicable can be
reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,” City of Ontario v.
Quon, 130 S. Ct. 2619, 2632 (2010) (internal quotation marks
omitted), and considering the measures taken by the TSA to
safeguard personal privacy, we hold AIT screening does not
violate the Fourth Amendment.
As other circuits have held, and as the Supreme Court has
strongly suggested, screening passengers at an airport is an
“administrative search” because the primary goal is not to
determine whether any passenger has committed a crime but
rather to protect the public from a terrorist attack. See United
States v. Aukai, 497 F.3d 955, 958–63 (9th Cir. 2007) (en
banc) (passenger search at airport checkpoint); United States
v. Hartwell, 436 F.3d 174, 178–81 (3d Cir. 2006) (Alito, J.)
(same); United States v. Edwards, 498 F.2d 496, 499–501 (2d
Cir. 1974) (Friendly, J.) (carry-on baggage search at airport);
see also Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419 (2004) (police set up
checkpoint to obtain information about earlier crash); Mich.
Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990) (sobriety
checkpoint). An administrative search does not require
individualized suspicion. City of Indianapolis v. Edmond,
531 U.S. 32, 41, 47–48 (2000) (individualized suspicion
required when police checkpoint is “primarily [for] general
crime control,” that is, “to detect evidence of ordinary
criminal wrongdoing” unlike “searches at places like airports
... where the need for such measures to ensure public safety
can be particularly acute”). Instead, whether an
administrative search is “unreasonable” within the
17
condemnation of the Fourth Amendment “is determined by
assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes
upon an individual's privacy and, on the other, the degree to
which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate
governmental interests.” United States v. Knights, 534 U.S.
112, 118-19 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted).
That balance clearly favors the Government here. The
need to search airline passengers “to ensure public safety can
be particularly acute,” Edmond, 531 U.S. at 47–48, and,
crucially, an AIT scanner, unlike a magnetometer, is capable
of detecting, and therefore of deterring, attempts to carry
aboard airplanes explosives in liquid or powder form. On the
other side of the balance, we must acknowledge the steps the
TSA has already taken to protect passenger privacy, in
particular distorting the image created using AIT and deleting
it as soon as the passenger has been cleared. More telling,
any passenger may opt-out of AIT screening in favor of a
patdown, which allows him to decide which of the two
options for detecting a concealed, nonmetallic weapon or
explosive is least invasive.
Contrary to the EPIC’s argument, it is not determinative
that AIT is not the last step in a potentially escalating series of
search techniques. In Hartwell, from which the petitioners
tease out this argument, the Third Circuit upheld an airport
search that started with a walk-through magnetometer, thence
to scanning with a hand-held magnetometer and, when the
TSA officer encountered a bulge in the passenger’s pocket,
progressed (according to the passenger) to the officer’s
removing a package of crack cocaine from that pocket. 436
F.3d at 175–76. The court noted, however, that its opinion,
while describing the search at issue there as “minimally
intrusive,” did “not purport to set the outer limits of
intrusiveness in the airport context.” Id. at 180 & n.10.
18
Nothing in Hartwell, that is, suggests the AIT scanners must
be minimally intrusive to be consistent with the Fourth
Amendment.
III. Conclusion
To sum up, first, we grant the petition for review insofar
as it claims the TSA has not justified its failure to initiate
notice-and-comment rulemaking before announcing it would
use AIT scanners for primary screening. None of the
exceptions urged by the TSA justifies its failure to give notice
of and receive comment upon such a rule, which is legislative
and not merely interpretive, procedural, or a general statement
of policy. Second, we deny the petition with respect to the
petitioners’ statutory arguments and their claim under the
Fourth Amendment, except their claim under the RFRA,
which we dismiss for lack of standing. Finally, due to the
obvious need for the TSA to continue its airport security
operations without interruption, we remand the rule to the
TSA but do not vacate it, and instruct the agency promptly to
proceed in a manner consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.