The TSA is exceeding its authority.

At what point does an airport search step over the line?

How about when they start going through your checks, and the police call your husband, suspicious you were clearing out the bank account?

This kind of thing was supposed to stop after the TSA revised its policies a year ago. The revision came in the wake of the unconstitutional seizure of Campaign for Liberty staffer Steven Bierfeldt for carrying cash donations (prompting a lawsuit from the ACLU). A federal judge had already determined that fake passports found on an airline passenger were inadmissible in court.

The TSA is not a law enforcement agency. TSA screeners aren’t supposed to search for anything beyond weapons and explosives. Or, as TSA policy currently reads, “Screening may not be conducted to detect evidence of crimes unrelated to transportation security.”

Kathy Parker, a business support manager for a large bank, was flying with a deposit slip and several checks made out to her and her husband. TSA screeners suspected she was skipping town in the midst of a “divorce situation.”

Two Philadelphia police officers joined at least four TSA officers who had gathered around her. After conferring with the TSA screeners, one of the Philadelphia officers told her he was there because her checks were numbered sequentially, which she says they were not.

“It’s an indication you’ve embezzled these checks,” she says the police officer told her. He also told her she appeared nervous. She hadn’t before that moment, she says.

She protested when the officer started to walk away with the checks. “That’s my money,” she remembers saying. The officer’s reply? “It’s not your money.”

Glad to see that we’re in good hands, and that no one has lost focus on the aviation security mission at TSA. Read the whole thing.