Does a football team - like, for instance, SF's beloved 49ers - have the right to conduct pat-down searches of fans entering the stadium on game day? I think most people's instinctive response would be: sure, if there was a credible reason to. Well, as is usual with these sorts of things, somebody has sued and taken the matter all the way up to the California Supreme Court. You might want to sit down for this, but the ACLU(!) is behind this. The Plaintiffs are named Daniel and Kathleen Sheehan. No word on whether there is any relation to Northern California's most famous Sheehan, but Daniel and Kathleen certainly share the "other" Sheehan's whiney self-regard.
As to the case itself, their basic claim is that the right to privacy in the California Constitution (unlike the US Constitution, there actually is an explicit right to privacy in the California Constitution) extends to private businesses and should prevent the sort of patdowns that the 49ers used. California's privacy right is part of the introductory section which includes the more familiar life, liberty, etc. Among these Californians have the right of "obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy."
Surprisingly (or not), California's privacy right protects against intrusion by both government and non-government actors. The original initiative that led to the right to privacy was sold to the public as protecting personal information and personal autonomy. The pat-downs presumably are an interference with personal autonomy. Now. Were the 49ers trying to be obnoxious and/or oppressive? Hardly. The pat-downs took place in 2005, when one could say the post-9/11 security environment was still prevalent. Does anyone think the 49ers pat-downs were at all intrusive? I have been going to rock concerts since 1985, and have always received a pat-down, and for good reason I think.
People like the Sheehans don't like to hear this, but buying a ticket creates a contract between you and the venue, and the venue pretty much gets to set the rules. The venue is highly motivated to not make these rules very stringent, since overly oppressive rules will simply drive away paying customers. The judge on the lower court used this reasoning to dismiss this lawsuit, but obviously some of the supremes thought the issue "interesting" enough to consider. I hope they can resist the urge to extend the right to privacy to cover reasonable security measures. The freedom of contract, and the safety of a large crowd of people should really take precedence over some will-of-the-wisp privacy "violation."
