Boarding Area

What I don't get is the 1973 court decision allowing these searches:
"In 1973 the 9th Circuit Court rules on U.S. vs Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 908, there are key pieces of wording that give the TSA its power to search essentially any way they choose to. The key wording in this ruling includes “noting that airport screenings are considered to be administrative searches because they are conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme, where the essential administrative purpose is to prevent the carrying of weapons or explosives aboard aircraft [...] [an administrative search is allowed if] no more intrusive or intensive than necessary, in light of current technology, to detect weapons or explosives, confined in good faith to that purpose, and passengers may avoid the search by electing not to fly.” " (source: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2010/11/20/how-the-tsa-legally-circumvents-the-fourth-amendment/)

So our forefathers obviously intended "reasonable searches" to include strip-searching the entire population of travelers to ensure they are not bearing arms. Riiight. According to Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Colonial_America ), in colonial America the government regularly searched houses and seized property without warrants (general searches) to enforce taxes. There was a legal battle over this, AND
--->>> John Adams viewed it as the spark in which originated the American Revolution.

Seriously, how…

Nice, looking forward to reading your thoughts. I've been thinking about this myself recently.

I'd suggest using a higher estimate for the value of rewards points. (You used a 1%.) You can explicitly get >1% cash back on many cards, so I'd argue that's really the lower bound.[1]

Most reward points can be redeemed for ~2%, with conscious consumers getting even more than that. [2]

Consumers are very aware of the value they're getting, too. If you read AMEX company filings, the redemption rate on MR points is >90%. I found that shockingly high. It's tough to get consumers to switch to bitcoin when it's worse value and more risk.

[1] https://creditcards.chase.com/freedom?jp_cmp=cc/freedom/off/na/multiple
[2] http://boardingarea.com/onemileatatime/2012/05/25/my-updated-analysis-on-what-a-milepoint-is-worth-credit-card-points/

"Pornography or porn is the portrayal of explicit sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual excitement." [1]

Doctors don't take photos (or other media) of naked children, so there is no pornography involved. Obviously if they do take photos, there is a crime. Likewise if they touch a child inappropriately, there is a (different) crime.

In the case of the body scanners, images are taken, thus it is pornography, and a crime.

And of course, MDs are actually screened and have thorough background checks where-as there have been multiple instances [2] of TSA employees not being thoroughly screened.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography

2. http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2010/02/05/tsa-hires-felon-forces-airport-to-issue-security-badge/

Most ToS state that their terms are subject to change. I do not know whether or not a company has to explicitly state that the terms provided are perpetual, but there are lots of examples of companies changing their ToS retroactively.

For example:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/09/google-on-chrome-eula-controversy-our-bad-well-change-it/

http://boardingarea.com/viewfromthewing/2012/10/10/united-makes-another-retroactive-change-to-bonus-terms-and-conditions/

And here is an interesting paper about retroactive lawmaking by the government:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_Weienonline.pdf

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/traveltechtalk/2008/06/30/why-will-aircell-gogo-succeed-where-boeing-connexion-failed/

The Boeing Connexion system was satellite-based (thus high latency), cost $500K per plane, and weighed 1000 pounds.

The Gogo equipment costs $100K per plane, and weighs 100 pounds. It's ground-based, with stations using EVDO equipment that point upwards. Presumably the EVDO base stations cost a lot less to implement and operate than running a satellite uplink, since that's tried and true cell phone tech.