Friday, November 19, 2010

Everything You Wanted to Know about the TSA Backlash

Next Wednesday will be the biggest travel day of the year. I'm not going anywhere. It's also National Opt-Out Day in protest of the new TSA procedures. I'm not sure how many will, but if a lot do, it will only make things even slower. Anyway, here's a collection of TSA articles I've seen in the last week or so.

This year's "Don't tase me bro" will probably be "You touch my junk and I'm going to have you arrested." It came from John Tyner who refused the backscatter screening and didn't want to be groped. It become well known because he recorded the encounter and blogged it, TSA encounter at SAN.

The TSA's response from its blog, Opting-out of Advanced Imaging Technology and the Pat-down Doesn’t Fly "AIT is optional for everybody. However, if you decide to opt-out of AIT screening, you must undergo alternative screening, which will include a pat-down. As I’ve said before, there is nothing punitive about it- it just makes good security sense. Obviously a passenger can’t completely opt out of all screening if they opt out of AIT. That would not make good security sense. AIT is deployed to help us find non-metallic threats, so if you’re selected for AIT and choose to opt-out, we still need to check you for non-metallic threats. That’s why a pat-down is required. If you refuse both, you can’t fly. It is important that all screening procedures are completed.  This ensures that terrorists do not have an opportunity to probe TSA’s procedures by electing not to fly just as TSA’s screening procedures are on the verge of detecting that the passenger is a terrorist. Also, it’s important to remember that TSA screens nearly 2 million passengers daily and that very few passengers are required to receive a pat-down."

Erin claims her pat down was sexual assault and her lawyer agrees. "I stood there, an American citizen, a mom traveling with a baby with special needs formula, sexually assaulted by a government official. I began shaking and felt completely violated, abused and assaulted by the TSA agent. I shook for several hours, and woke up the next day shaking. Here is why I was sexually assaulted. She never told me the new body search policy. She never told me that she was going to touch my private parts. She never told me when or where she was going to touch me. She did not inform me that a private screening was available. She did not inform me of my rights that were a part of these new enhanced patdown procedures. "

These stories don't make the TSA look good either, Cancer surviving flight attendant forced to remove prosthetic breast during pat-down and TSA confiscates heavily-armed soldiers' nail-clippers.

One Hundred Naked Citizens: One Hundred Leaked Body Scans "At the heart of the controversy over "body scanners" is a promise: The images of our naked bodies will never be public. U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal courthouse saved 35,000 images on their scanner. These are those images." The TSA points out, this is the US Marshal Service not the TSA.

James Fallows has written a lot about this and covers a lot of points in Airport Security Reports: 'Where Are the Airlines?'. His Dear Sen. Klobuchar: Let's Rethink the TSA is also good. He keeps trying to stop himself but he finds more good stuff like this, Pigs Fly. Also, I Agree with Charles Krauthammer.

The TSA has some Myths & Facts about Pat-downs and AITs.

Bruce Scheiner also has a collection on the TSA Backscatter X-ray Backlash

Dave Barry wrote about his blurred groin and the ACLU followed up.

You can get a luggage tag with the fourth amendment on it.

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