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(Nov. 15) -- A California man got thrown out of San Diego's airport when he refused a revealing full-body scan and then an alternative pat-down, telling a Transportation Security Agent, "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested."
John Tyner, 31, said he was told he could face a civil lawsuit and a $10,000 fine for leaving the screening area before the security check was complete, according to news reports and his blog.
Tyner captured his dust-up with TSA officials in cell phone recordings now going viral, highlighting the issue of privacy and the debate over the latest screening technology.
"It seems like it struck a chord," Tyner, a software engineer from Oceanside, Calif., told the North County Times. "I think people are tired of having their rights stripped away, especially in the face of not very improved security."
Tyner's story began Saturday morning when he went to San Diego International Airport for a flight to South Dakota for a pheasant-hunting trip with his father-in-law, according to The San Diego-Union-Tribune.
At first, he balked at submitting to a full-body scan, according to his blog and news reports. He told the newspaper he was surprised to learn the airport had the machines because the airport's website said it did not.
He opted for the metal detector and basic pat-down, but refused the latter after learning it involved a "groin check."
"I looked him straight in the eye and said, "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested," he wrote on his blog.
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More agents arrived, and one told Tyner he could be fined and subject to a lawsuit if he didn't complete the screening, the North County Times said.
His cell phone video, which captured just the audio, received more 179,000 YouTube hits early today.
"The whole thing just seemed ridiculous. ... I don't intend to fly until these machines go away," he told CNN.
TSA Administrator John Pistole defended the system today, saying that all passengers want to know that their fellow fliers have been properly screened for weapons like box cutters, liquid explosives or a shoe or underwear bomb.
"Everybody wants the best possible security," Pistole said on NBC's "Today" show. "The question is, What's that blend or balance, if you will, between security, safety and privacy? While we remain sensitive to people with those concerns, the system we have set up addresses those concerns and provides the best possible security."
Re: California Man Tells TSA, Don't 'Touch My Junk'
you know what they say, if we give up all of our rights and freedoms then the CIA has already won! oops, i mean al CayiiiiIiiidA! :scared:
Had the non-believer known of all the Mercy which is in the Hands of Allah, he would not lose hope of entering Paradise, and had the believer known of all the punishment which is present with Allah, he would not consider himself safe from the Hell-Fire http://www.muftimenk.co.za/Downloads.html
Re: California Man Tells TSA, Don't 'Touch My Junk'
Seems rather stupid to require him to go through the check or fine him for not participating. He should have the option to simply leave and not get on the plane or whatever. Sure, you may demand he go through the screening in order to board the plane, but he should be allowed to walk away and leave the airport.
Re: California Man Tells TSA, Don't 'Touch My Junk'
a nice show for perverts, requires minimum training and many hours up people's behinds and adjacent territories, whether visually or physically of course.. sexual harassment is now a part of your boarding routine!
Text without context is pretext If your opponent is of choleric temperament, seek to irritate him
Re: California Man Tells TSA, Don't 'Touch My Junk'
format_quote Originally Posted by τhε ṿαlε'ṡ lïlÿ
a nice show for perverts, requires minimum training and many hours up people's behinds and adjacent territories, whether visually or physically of course.. sexual harassment is now a part of your boarding routine!
Yeahh... and how would we know if the guy doing the checks isn't a paedophile too?
Re: California Man Tells TSA, Don't 'Touch My Junk'
format_quote Originally Posted by Bedouin
Yeahh... and how would we know if the guy doing the checks isn't a paedophile too?
people usually pick jobs that they like.. those monitoring you on screen or touching you up and down must surely love doing it.. Got to love nations that foster perversion or fine you for not submitting to horny creeps advances!-- but it is all understandable of course.. either this or the terrorists will get you!
Text without context is pretext If your opponent is of choleric temperament, seek to irritate him
Re: California Man Tells TSA, Don't 'Touch My Junk'
I don't fly much and don't know any pilots, but it seems to me that they could very easily isolate the cockpit and pilots from the passengers. Build planes so that there are separate entrances to the areas of the plane so that there is physically no possible way for a hijacker to GET to the cockpit. I think in some places we may already do this? It would be a simple way to prevent any hijackings.
Then the only danger a person could pose on an airplane would be to fellow passengers, which would not be any more people than say would be in a busy shopping mall. We don't require body scanners etc in shopping malls so it would make no sense to require them on airplanes.
I think the only reason we have these intrusive airport security measures is to pretend we are doing high security and thus make people feel safer after 9/11, etc. It is irrational.
I think this is a case where muslims and liberal atheists like me can agree with each other (rare), and jointly face the conservatives hawks (those obsessed with "security" at the cost of our civil liberties). As the famous guy said (who was it I forget): He who would trade liberty for security deserves neither and will lose both.
Last edited by Pygoscelis; 11-16-2010 at 10:00 PM.
Re: California Man Tells TSA, Don't 'Touch My Junk'
format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis
I think this is a case where muslims and liberal atheists like me can agree with each other (rare), and jointly face the conservatives hawks (those obsessed with "security" at the cost of our civil liberties). As the famous guy said (who was it I forget): He who would trade liberty for security deserves neither and will lose both.
Benjamin Franklin, I believe.
As to the wider issues of airport security; I remember reading an article about these matters in the British press last week, with the British aviation authorities feeling the American-style protocols were too extreme, too impractical and of little or no benefit. I'll see if I can dig it up.
Re: California Man Tells TSA, Don't 'Touch My Junk'
1) No, the fine is not too much, and my guess is that they rarely give out the maximum fine anyway. In fact if what he says is true and the website says they do not use those machines when they actually do then he will probably get off extremely lightly. The size of the fine only helped him make more publicity in this case.
2) The scans are above and beyond what is needed and an invasion of privacy. They are a publicity stunt and need to be done away with. There are pilots and passengers revolting over these tools and hopefully they will be removed.
3) Refusing a pat down? I have no sympathy for the guy on this count. If he won't do a pat down because he's too self conscious about someone touching his junk then he can drive to South Dakota.
Re: California Man Tells TSA, Don't 'Touch My Junk'
What Happens if You Decline a Full Body Scan?
When you ask a friend to join you for a nice weekend cruise from Miami, you don't expect the friend to be hauled away by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents into a private room where she says she was practically strip-searched. But that's what happened at Logan International Airport in Boston
I breezed through security, taking off my shoes, putting my stuff on the belt and walking through the traditional metal detector machine. The process took less than five minutes.
Then I looked over to the adjacent security line and saw to my horror my red-faced friend questioning TSA officers after she was chosen at random for, and refused to go through, a full body scanner.
My pal happens to be a Boston media personality and crime reporter, Michele McPhee. She is not a shy lady. When this tough blond makes up her mind she makes up her mind. There was no way she was going to be convinced to do a body scan if she didn't want to.
So instead, she opted for a pat down and was whisked away, barefoot, by two women - a TSA officer and her supervisor - to a private room, where McPhee says a very intrusive body search was conducted.
"They run their hands inside your leg and under your bra strap and patted the front of my breasts," she says. "If someone had done that to me at a nightclub I'd call the cops."
McPhee says the officers were "nice and apologetic" and seemed to feel bad they couldn't give her her shoes back until after the search, especially when she pointed out how dirty the floor of the terminal was. The whole process took about 15 minutes.
So why did she reject the full body scan? McPhee says her big issue is privacy when it comes to the images that are taken.
"I have questions about privacy. I don't really trust the TSA to keep these things private," she says.
McPhee says she'd also like to know who profits from the proliferation of the body scanner machines the TSA is rolling out.
With some grass roots groups calling for a boycott of full body scanners on Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving and one of the busiest travel days of the year, McPhee says she's all for it if it shakes things up.
"People need to know why we need body scanners," she says. "The humiliation of walking across a crowded, dirty terminal in bare feet, escorted by two TSA agents, dragged into a room and essentially assaulted, I really did leave mad."
The TSA maintains both pat downs and full body scans are designed to find dangerous items such as explosives and bomb parts that can be concealed on the body.
Coming back from Florida, at the airport in Fort Lauderdale, neither of us was asked to go through a body scanner or given a pat down.
Re: California Man Tells TSA, Don't 'Touch My Junk'
on second thought...
Last edited by YusufNoor; 11-17-2010 at 05:47 PM.
Had the non-believer known of all the Mercy which is in the Hands of Allah, he would not lose hope of entering Paradise, and had the believer known of all the punishment which is present with Allah, he would not consider himself safe from the Hell-Fire http://www.muftimenk.co.za/Downloads.html
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When you ask a friend to join you for a nice weekend cruise from Miami, you don't expect the friend to be hauled away by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents into a private room where she says she was practically strip-searched. But that's what happened at Logan International Airport in Boston
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