The Freedom Bulletin

I am excited to report that on Monday, former wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura filed a lawsuit against the TSA. He is asking for an injunction against their use of whole body imaging (strip search machines) and intrusive pat-downs.

In the complaint, he writes that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA chief John Pistole “have, and unless enjoined or restrained will continue to violate his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.” As the host of Conspiracy Theory on TruTV, he must travel frequently. Because of his hip replacement surgery, he sets off the metal detector every time he flies, and is now subjected to full-body scanners and pat-downs, even though prior to November, he had only been subjected to a “non-invasive magnetic hand-wand inspection.”

“TSA and DHS have no factual basis to support any reasonable suspicion that Governor Ventura poses any threat to airline safety, nor does he in fact post any such threat,” he points out. In November 2010 he was selected for “additional security” and “was not free to leave the airport security area or to decline his scheduled flight to avoid additional screening, which is a seizure of his person, and he was subjected to a pat-down body search, which is a search of his person.”

The complaint continues,

“WBI violates Governor Ventura’s basic rights to dignity and privacy and his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, because through generation of a three-dimensional image of his person in an unclothed state, which image is viewed by others and can be electronically stored, saved, reproduced and transmitted, the procedure is tantamount to a warrantless, non-suspicion-based, electronically-recorded strip search.

The WBIs…meet the definition of unlawful video voyeurism…and are demeaning and degrading…

Pat-down body searches violate Governor Ventura’s basic rights to privacy and dignity, and his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, because they include warrantless, non-suspicion-based offensive touching, gripping, and rubbing of the genital and other sensitive areas of his body.

The pat-down body searches…meet the definition for an unlawful sexual assault…and are demeaning and degrading.”

This might be the most high profile anti-TSA lawsuit yet, and I am so glad that Ventura decided to stand up for not only his rights, but the rights of all of us. I agree strongly with everything he says in the complaint. Go Jesse, go!

Read the full text of the complaint (PDF).

It’s been a while since I did one of these. Here is a collection of TSA-related news and opinion articles I’ve noticed from the past few days…

• Chris Liu, a pilot for American Airlines, revealed that he is the ”Patriot Pilot” who created a YouTube video in which he criticizes security procedures. The TSA rewarded him for his brave actions by suspending him from a program that allows him to carry a gun in the cockpit.
• Iain Murphy of the Competitive Enterprise Institute writes, “We need to scuttle the TSA’s equal-risk policy in favor of one that concentrates on genuine potential risks.” (The Herald also has a pretty good editorial.)
• Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, to the surprise of no one, defended strip-search machines and pat-downs on Sunday, saying, “Everything is objectively better than it was a year ago, particularly in the aviation environment.” Umm, not if you place any value on sexual innocence, privacy, dignity, freedom, or constitutional rights.
• Darrell Dawsey wrote in a great opinion piece, “The scanners soil our Constitutional rights, pose a potential cancer risk and get the job done about as effectively as a screen door on a submarine.”
• Auditors and security experts question the TSA’s emphasis on advanced technology.
• A rape survivor was forced to undergo an invasive pat-down and then pushed to the ground, handcuffed, thrown in jail, and charged with criminal trespassing and disobedience to police and TSA agents (didn’t know that was a crime) after arguing (correctly) that she has the right to board an airplane without being molested. Disgusting!
• Pilot Patrick Smith argues for a proposal by the International Air Transport Association that would divide passengers into three groups, with the highest-risk group undergoing procedures that are as invasive as those that everyone is forced to go through now.
• The TSA announced right before Christmas that people carrying thermoses and “insulated beverage containers” may be subject to extra scrutiny. Oh joy.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in an interview on ABC, ”Thousands of people are working 24/7, 364 days a year to keep the American people safe.”

Hmm, I wonder what day they take off. Maybe if I flew on that day, I could actually travel without having to give up my dignity and privacy!

In (somewhat) related news, the Washington Post has a great article about how advanced technology isn’t always the best approach to security.

Strip-search machine news roundup:

I don’t know whether I feel happy about the patriots who are courageously standing up to the TSA’s egregious violations of our dignity, sexual innocence, privacy, and freedom, or enraged at the TSA’s attempts to defend same. I’m going to go with the former!

• A brave man, John Tyner, posted a YouTube video of his confrontation with the TSA when he refused to go through a strip-search machine. He was escorted away by police and, according to some people, could face a civil penalty of up to $11,000! “I don’t think that the government has any business seeing me naked as a condition of traveling about the country,” he says.
• A brave New Hampshire woman, Meg McLain, refused both the strip search and pat down. She was handcuffed and her plane ticket was ripped up.
• MyFoxBoston.com has a poll that asks whether “personal comfort” or “national security” is more important. What a biased way of phrasing it. It’s not about comfort, it’s about liberty and individual rights.
• Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano gave a press conference in which she “announced the expansion of a security awareness campaign.”
• Napolitano also wrote a column for USA Today, in which she claims that strip-search machines “protect passenger privacy” and asks for “cooperation, patience and a commitment to vigilance in the face of a determined enemy.”
• A National Opt Out Day, during which people are encouraged to decline the strip-search machine and get a pat down instead, is planned for November 24.
• Another Opt Out Project, during which people will refuse both the strip search and pat down and forfeit their plane ticket, is tentatively scheduled for May 7, 2011.

Questions for the TSA:

1. What’s with the handcuffing and suing of people who decide not to board their plane? I get it, you don’t think that people have any right to board a plane without baring their naked bodies, but even you must admit that people have a right not to go through the security procedures and not board the plane, right? Apparently not.
2. What exactly is the “security awareness campaign”? All that people need to be aware of is a) the Fourth Amendment and b) the fact that the TSA now requires completely innocent people, who are not suspected of crimes, to either be strip searched or have their genitals fondled in order to board an airplane. There is no way that anyone with an IQ above 50 can think that is constitutional.
3. How can the same action be both banned and required by the same government? Taking nude pictures of children is considered child pornography and banned, but children (and adults) are required to have nude pictures taken in order to fly. It is illegal to touch someone’s genitals without their consent, but people are required to have their genitals touched in order to fly. This is the very depth of hypocrisy.
4. Janet, please tell me how on Earth a machine that creates pictures of people’s nude bodies can protect privacy. Examining someone’s nude body with their face blurred, without saving or printing the picture, from a remotely-located room, shreds their privacy essentially just as much as doing the same thing with their face visible, with the picture saved and printed, and with the agent in the same room. Requiring people to have their nude bodies seen necessarily violates their privacy severely. The only way that these scanners can protect privacy is if they don’t show people’s naked bodies.

I do agree with Janet on one thing. I also ask Americans for “vigilance in the face of a determined enemy.” That enemy? The TSA.

I don’t know how I missed this! The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is suing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over full-body scanners. On July 2, EPIC filed a petition for review and a motion for emergency stay in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to halt the use of the machines, which show pictures of people’s naked bodies underneath their clothes.

EPIC contends (in my opinion, correctly) that the use of strip search machines as a primary method of screening – all air travelers are required to undergo them or an equally invasive pat down – violates the following laws:

• Administrative Procedures Act
• Privacy Act
• Religious Freedom Restoration Act
• Fourth Amendment

In other naked machine news (or not so new news), Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced two weeks ago that full-body scanners will be coming to even more airports, “strengthening security at airports throughout the nation while creating local jobs.” And taking away everyone’s privacy and dignity…but I guess Janet doesn’t care about that.

Also, as of yesterday, it turns out that U.S. Marshals have been saving and storing tens of thousands of naked images from a full-body scanner in a Florida courthouse, and that the TSA requires all of its scanners to have the capability of storing and transmitting images! Last summer the TSA said that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.” This makes me wonder what else they could be lying about.

Between EPIC’s lawsuit, the Virginia anti-Obamacare lawsuit going forward, and Proposition C in Missouri, this is turning out to be a good week for liberty across the country.

Read all the motions and related news articles at EPIC’s website. Thank you, EPIC, for all that you do to defend liberty.