Airline passengers must submit to a security screening by TSA or else be denied entry into the airport’s secure area, under federal regulations. Passengers can be denied boarding for declining a security screening.

But passengers don’t surrender their Fourth Amendment rights against warrantless searches by police just because they’re at the airport, according to multiple legal analysts and court documents.

The DEA officially calls its stops and searches at airport gates “cold consent encounters.” Passengers are free to end the discussion and walk away, according to the DEA, even if they’re unaware of those rights.

A federal judge recently dismissed the lawsuit filed by André and English in part because he said they should have known their stops were consensual and not a detention. The men were free to go even if they felt trapped by police on the jet bridge. //

a passenger’s recording showed a DEA task force officer telling the man, “We’re no different than TSA.” The agent added, “People like to give us a little more hard time than they give TSA.”

That same video shows some of the leverage DEA task force officers can use to gain consent.

“You’re either going to sign a consent form saying that you’re allowing us to search [your bags],” the drug agent told the passenger. “Or I’m going to detain them, run my dog on it, and get a search warrant.”

The passenger immediately agreed to sign the consent form.