Class-Action Lawsuit Against TSA and DEA Over Cash Seizures

A federal class-action lawsuit, Brown v. Transportation Security Administration, is challenging the Transportation Security Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration over their practice of seizing cash from travelers at airports. Filed by the Institute for Justice in January 2020 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the TSA and DEA airport cash seizure lawsuit argues that TSA has no legal authority to detain people over money once screeners confirm a bag holds no weapons or explosives, and that the DEA routinely took travelers’ cash without probable cause.¹² Cross-motions for summary judgment are under advisement following oral arguments held February 5, 2026, before Magistrate Judge Kezia O.L. Taylor; District Judge Marilyn J. Horan will issue the final ruling.³

How the Case Started

In August 2019, Rebecca Brown flew to Pittsburgh to visit her father, Terry Rolin, a 79-year-old retired railroad engineer who had kept his life savings in cash at home for decades. Brown planned to fly back to Boston with $82,373 and deposit it into a joint account for him. When she passed through the checkpoint at Pittsburgh International Airport on August 26, TSA agents saw the cash on the X-ray and pulled her aside.²

After questioning by TSA and a Pennsylvania State Trooper, Brown was allowed to head to her gate. Before she could board, a state trooper and a DEA agent approached her again. The DEA agent, identified in filings only as “Agent Steve,” questioned Brown, phoned her father, and then seized the entire $82,373. Neither Brown nor Rolin was arrested or charged. The government moved to keep the money through civil forfeiture.²⁴

After the Institute for Justice filed suit in January 2020 and the story drew national coverage, the DEA returned the money. The Institute for Justice then expanded the case into a class action to stop the practice from continuing against other travelers.⁴

The Other Travelers Suing

Terry Rolin died in 2022, but other plaintiffs joined and kept the case going.³⁵⁶

Matthew Berger, who owns a limousine and bus-rental business, is also a named plaintiff. TSA discovered roughly $55,000 in cash during screening at the Charlotte, North Carolina, airport. He had no prohibited items, but agents asked for his travel documents, photographed the cash and documents, and called law enforcement. The money came back only after attorneys got involved. Berger has since capped the cash he flies with at under $10,000 and moved to bank loans and wire transfers for vehicle purchases.⁷⁸

What the Lawsuit Claims

Three core claims survive on behalf of the proposed classes.⁹

TSA exceeded its statutory authority. Under 49 U.S.C. § 44901, TSA is authorized to screen passengers for weapons, explosives, and incendiaries. The plaintiffs argue that once a bag is cleared of those threats, detaining a traveler or their belongings because cash appeared on the X-ray goes beyond what Congress authorized.¹⁰
TSA violated the Fourth Amendment. Holding travelers and their cash after they have been cleared as non-threats amounts to an unreasonable seizure without any suspicion of a crime.
DEA violated the Fourth Amendment. The DEA is alleged to have maintained a policy of seizing cash from travelers carrying $5,000 or more, regardless of whether agents had probable cause.

TSA’s own internal documents cut against the way its screeners have behaved in these encounters. The agency’s Standard Operating Procedures state that screeners “are not authorized to conduct searches for purposes of discovering illegal items such as drugs, drug paraphernalia, or child pornography.” Policy documents acknowledge TSA has “no authority to search for cash, drugs or other things” and instruct that “there should be no reason to ask questions of the passenger about currency.” Management Directive 100.4 states that when screening finishes with no transportation threat found, “the passenger may not be detained.” TSA management has issued nationwide reminders on this point in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2025, and at least one employee has been formally disciplined for ignoring them.¹¹

Against those written rules, the plaintiffs allege TSA maintains “secret written policies” directing screeners to give heightened scrutiny to travelers carrying “large amounts” of cash even after confirming no prohibited items are present.³

Who the Case Would Cover

The suit asks the court to certify two classes. The TSA Class would include all air travelers since January 15, 2014, whose property or person was seized at a screening checkpoint after screening concluded, where the only justification was detection of a “large” amount of currency. The DEA Class would cover all air travelers since the same date whose cash was seized by the DEA in a secured airport area for carrying more than $5,000, without probable cause.¹²

The plaintiffs are asking for a declaratory ruling that the seizure practices are unconstitutional and unlawful, an injunction to stop them, return of interest on seized funds, and compensatory damages against the individual DEA agent who took the Rolin family’s money.²

The Court’s First Major Ruling

The government moved to dismiss in May 2020, arguing the district court lacked jurisdiction and that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim. In January 2021, Magistrate Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan recommended granting the motion in part and denying it in part. She rejected the government’s argument that only a federal appeals court could hear the case, ruling that the district court had jurisdiction because the plaintiffs were challenging an informal TSA policy rather than a formal administrative order. She also found the plaintiffs had standing, concluding that a pattern of at least 40 cash seizures created a substantial risk of future harm.¹²

Two claims did not survive. The damages claim against the individual DEA agent was dismissed on qualified immunity grounds, and the claim for lost interest on the seized $82,373 was dismissed based on sovereign immunity. Judge Horan adopted those recommendations in March 2021. The three class claims all moved forward.⁹¹²

Where the Case Stands Now

After five years of discovery, the parties filed competing motions for summary judgment in 2025. TSA moved on May 30, 2025; the plaintiffs cross-moved on July 2, 2025. Both sides filed extensive statements of undisputed facts. The DEA separately filed a partial motion to dismiss in April 2025, arguing that the claims against it are moot because its interdiction program has ended.²

Oral arguments were held February 5, 2026, at the U.S. Courthouse in Pittsburgh. Government attorney Sarah Suwanda asked the court to dismiss without prejudice, arguing that airport cash seizures are “exceedingly rare” and that TSA cannot be required to ignore evidence of potential criminal activity. Dan Alban, the Institute for Justice’s lead attorney, responded that TSA maintains secret written policies directing screeners to treat travelers carrying cash differently after they have already been cleared as non-threats to aviation security.³

Magistrate Judge Taylor has taken the case under advisement and is expected to issue a Report and Recommendation to Judge Horan, who will then issue the final ruling. No timeline has been announced.³

The DEA Program Ended, but Seizures Continue

The DEA’s role in these seizures ran through its Transportation Interdiction Program, which placed agents at airports, train stations, and bus terminals to approach travelers for “consensual” searches, often after obtaining passenger itineraries from paid airline informants and targeting those carrying more than $5,000 in cash. A 2017 Justice Department Inspector General report found the DEA seized over $4 billion in cash over a 10-year period, with $3.2 billion of those seizures never connected to any criminal charges.¹³

A November 21, 2024, Inspector General investigation found that DEA agents routinely failed to complete required documentation of consensual encounters, that mandatory training had been suspended since April 2023, and that training materials violated DOJ racial profiling guidance. On November 12, 2024, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco ordered the DEA to suspend all consensual encounters at transportation facilities. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram formally ended the program on January 8, 2025, saying it was “not an effective way to utilize our limited resources”; between 2022 and 2024, the program had seized $22 million but produced only 57 arrests.¹⁴¹³

That shutdown is central to the DEA’s mootness argument in the class action. But airport cash seizures did not stop. Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protection continue to conduct them using similar tactics at airports including Dallas/Fort Worth and Dallas Love Field. In one January 2026 incident, agents seized $800,000 from a passenger after a drug-sniffing dog alerted on their luggage, though no drugs were found and no charges were filed. In another case, agents seized about $350,000 and later settled by returning $178,000.¹⁵ Plaintiffs’ attorneys are expected to point to those ongoing DHS seizures as evidence that the broader federal practice at issue in the lawsuit continues regardless of which agency carries it out.¹⁶ The suit itself, however, is against TSA and the DEA; it does not directly reach seizures conducted by DHS components.

1
CourtListener. Brown v. Transportation Security Administration, 2:20-cv-00064
2
Institute for Justice. Brown, et al. v. TSA, et al.
3
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. TSA Cash Class Action Suit DEA Pittsburgh
4
Forbes. DEA Will Return Over $82,000 Seized From Innocent Retiree
5
Reason. After the DEA Robbed Her of $43,000 at an Airport, She Joined a Class Action
6
Institute for Justice. First Amended Class Complaint
7
Institute for Justice. Plaintiffs’ Statement of Undisputed Material Facts
8
Fodors. Passenger Fights Back After Feds Seize $82,000 at Airport
9
Institute for Justice. Major Class Action Lawsuit Against TSA and DEA Achieves First Round Victory
10
Cornell Law Institute. 49 U.S. Code § 44901 – Screening Passengers and Property
11
Institute for Justice. Defendants’ Statement of Undisputed Material Facts
12
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Brown v. Transportation Security Administration
13
Reason. DEA Ends Airport Gate Searches After Years of Documented Abuses of Civil Asset Forfeiture
14
Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. Notification of Concerns Identified in the DEA’s Transportation Interdiction Activities
15
Reason. DHS Continues Airport Cash Seizures a Year After the Justice Department Ended Them
16
People. Lawsuit Aims to End TSA and DEA’s Alleged Unlawful Cash Seizure Practices at Airports