Judge hears arguments on lawsuit over $82,000 confiscated by TSA at Pittsburgh International Airport
Six years ago, a woman made headlines when the Transportation Security Administration seized thousands of dollars in cash from her while she traveled through the Pittsburgh International Airport. She said it was her father's life savings, but the feds thought it was money from a crime.
Rebecca Brown is now part of a class action lawsuit. A federal judge heard arguments in that suit on Thursday in Pittsburgh.
Attorneys for three people suing the government after making arguments in federal court walked out Thursday confident they made their point in front of a federal judge.
"We think there is no dispute of material facts that the TSA unlawfully and unconstitutionally stops and seizes travelers with cash at the airport, even though it admits it poses no threat to transportation security," said Dan Alban with the Institute for Justice, which represents the plaintiffs.
The class action lawsuit claims the TSA confiscated cash from travelers because they suspected it may have been gained by potentially illegal means.
"I do think that this was unconstitutional, what the TSA did to me," Brown said.
Brown is a party to the suit. She claims the TSA stopped her at Pittsburgh International Airport, and the Drug Enforcement Agency confiscated $82,000 from her as she was heading from Pittsburgh to Boston in the summer of 2019. The money was Brown's father's life savings. He had asked Brown to take it and open an account in Boston for him. It took more than half a year to get the money back after the feds determined it was clean money.
Attorneys for the government say the agents were working within their guidelines and asked the suit to be dismissed. Alban says the problem is that while there are suggestions, there are no guidelines when it comes to how much money is considered suspicious.
"In some of the TSA depositions, they said as little as $100 in 100 one-dollar bills would still count as a large amount of currency," Alban said.
Attorneys for the government declined any comment on Thursday's proceedings.
The next step: federal Magistrate Judge Kezia O.L. Taylor told the parties that although she wouldn't give a timeline, she'll take the testimony under advisement, submit a report and recommendations to U.S. District Justice Marilyn Horan, who'll then issue a final order and opinion if either party's summary judgement will be granted.