Consumer Advocate Legal Update : Class Action Lawyers & Attorneys : Khorrami Pollard & Abir Law Firm : Mass Torts, Products Liability

On Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 bound for Detroit from Amsterdam. He planned to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear, but the explosives failed to detonate, and Abdulmutallab was subdued by other passengers and the crew. Numerous red flags should have prevented Abdulmutallab from boarding a commercial airplane, but he was nearly able to kill the 289 people aboard that flight. The lasting legacy of the Underwear Bomber is not a total revamp of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) procedures or the disciplining of numerous people who allowed this situation to occur—it is the widespread adoption of the full-body scanner at airports. Due to the possible health concerns and serious privacy invasion by these scanners, many people have objected to their use.

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Guest post from KPA law clerk, Greg Cragg:

In the early hours of New Year’s Day 2009, BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant, who had been involved in a fight and was resisting arrest while prostate on the ground. Immediately after the shooting, Mehserle and his partner began to confiscate cell phones, cameras, and video tapes, many of which have still not been returned to their owners. After the public release of many of these recordings and a public outcry culminating in riots, Mehserle was charged with murder in the first degree. Opening arguments began June 10, 2010.Some of the videos and pictures, including a picture taken by Grant on his cell phone, have been crucial in this case. The circumstances of this case have drawn parallels to Rodney King’s beating, which was another police brutality case caught on camera. As catalogued on several blogs, notably Carlos Miller’s “Photography is Not a Crime,” many police departments across the country routinely harass witnesses recording public police activities, although usually without any legal basis to do so. However, in California and eleven other states, the police have used anti-eavesdropping and anti-wiretapping laws to legally arrest civilians who have recorded police officers performing their official duties in public. See, e.g., Cal. Penal Code § 632. Arresting civilians filming police officers in public is detrimental both to police officers and to the public.

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