Thread: TSA ejects man from airport for refusing security check

TSA ejects Oceanside man from airport for refusing security check

By Robert J. Hawkins
Originally published November 14, 2010 at 12:07 a.m., updated November 14, 2010 at 2:06 p.m.

SAN DIEGO — John Tyner won't be pheasant hunting in South Dakota with his father-in-law any time soon.

Tyner was simultaneously thrown out of San Diego International Airport on Saturday morning for refusing to submit to a security check and threatened with a civil suit and $10,000 fine if he left.

And he got the whole thing on his cell phone. Well, the audio at least.

The 31-year-old Oceanside software programmer was supposed to leave from Lindbergh Field on Saturday morning and until a TSA agent directed him toward one of the recently installed full-body scanners, Tyner seemed to be on his way.

Tyner balked.

He'd been reading about the scanners and didn't like them for a number of reasons, ranging from health concerns to "a huge invasion of privacy." He'd even checked the TSA website which indicated that San Diego did not have the machines, he said in a phone interview Saturday night.

"I was surprised to see them," said Tyner.

He also did something that may seem odd to some, manipulative to others but fortuitous to plenty of others for whom Tyner is becoming something of a folk hero: Tyner turned on his cell phone's video camera and placed it atop the luggage he sent through the x-ray machine.

He may not be the first traveler tossed from an airport for security reasons but he could well be the first to have the whole experience captured on his cell phone.

During the next half-hour, his cell phone recorded Tyner refusing to submit to a full body scan, opting for the traditional metal scanner and a basic "pat down" -- and then refusing to submit to a "groin check" by a TSA security guard.

He even told the guard, "You touch my junk and I'm going to have you arrested."

That threat triggered a code red of sorts as TSA agents, supervisors and eventually the local police gravitated to the spot where the reluctant traveler stood in his stocking feet, his cell phone sitting in the nearby bin (which he wasn't allowed to touch) picking up the audio.

According to TSA at the time the controversial body scanners were installed, travelers would have the option to request walking through the traditional metal detector but that option would be accompanied by a "pat down."

Why Tyner was targeted for a secondary pat down is unknown.

Asked if he thought he looked like a terrorist, Tyner said no. "I'm 6-foot-1, white with short brown hair," he said Saturday night.

Was he singled out for "punishment"?

Before Tyner was told he was getting a "groin check," a TSA agent is heard on the recording telling another agent "I had a problem with the passenger I was patting down. So I backed down. He was obnoxious."

Tyner is sure he was talking about someone else. On the whole, with a single final exception, he found the agents "professional if standoffish."

He did marvel that while his own situation was being deliberated, many passengers passed through the metal detector and on to their flights with no pat-down. "One guy even set off the alarm and they sent him through again without a pat-down," he said.

Once he threatened to have the TSA agent arrested though, events turned surreal.

A supervisor is heard re-explaining the groin check process to Tyner then adding "If you're not comfortable with that, we can escort you back out and you don't have to fly today."

Tyner responded "OK, I don't understand how a sexual assault can be made a condition of my flying."

"This is not considered a sexual assault," replied the supervisor, calmly.

"It would be if you were not the government," said Tyner.

"By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights," countered the TSA supervisor.

"I think the government took them away after 9/11," said Tyner.

"OK," came the reply.

More senior TSA administrators showed up, and one San Diego police officer. Tyner's personal information was taken down and then he was escorted out of the security area. After he put his shoes back.

His father-in-law, a 40-year retired deputy sheriff, can be heard pleading in the back ground for some common sense.

Tyner went over to the American Airlines counter where an agent, to his amazement, refunded the price of his non-refundable ticket.

Before he could leave, however, he was again surrounded by TSA employees who told him he couldn't leave the security area. One, who kept insisting he was trying to help Tyner, told him that if he left he would be subject to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine.

Tyner asked if the agents who had escorted him from the security area would also be sued and fined.

The same man who told Tyner he would be sued and fined if he left, also insisted that he did not tell him he couldn't leave.

So Tyner left.

Two hours later he wrote the whole experience up on his blog and posted the audio files to YouTube.

You could say it has gone viral.

By Saturday evening, 70,000 people had accessed the entry and 488 comments were posted to the blog item. Those comments are divided over Tyner's experience. "Only 5 percent say I'm an idiot," he said.

Far more applaud him for "standing up" to the security forces. Many more people share his disdain for how airport security is conducted.

"People generally are angry about what is going on," said Tyner, "but they don't know how to assert their rights....there is a general feeling that TSA is ineffective, out of control, over-reaching."

If Tyner has touched some undercurrent of resentment, he doesn't want to be the guy who leads the charge to overturn the machines. "I'm not so sure I'm the right person to start a movement," he said.

If he isn't, he can sound at times like he's auditioning for the job.

Tyner points out that every terrorist act on an airplane has been halted by passengers. "It's time to stop treating passengers like criminals and start treating them as assets," he said.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010 ... -security/

I don't want anyone who refuses a security check on any plane that I'm on.

The Public can stop this nonsense simply by not flying, The TSA and the powers to be have become obsessed with political correctness and rather then single out 1 million people it will harass 300 million.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

I don't want anyone who refuses a security check on any plane that I'm on.

I don't consider the porno scanners/gropes to be a needed security check, they are more like Gestapo privacy violations.

THey do this at airports. And the borders are not closed. Illegal aliens enter when they want and I read online potential terrorists as well. THe borders must be closed.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

I don't want anyone who refuses a security check on any plane that I'm on.

Yeah, what about those covered birka ladies, you think they are gonna make them get felt up if they don't want to submit to the naked machines? Not likely. They probably won't even pick one of them. This could not be about security because terrorists can hop across our borders every day and plant bombs and shoot people if they wanted to. Is on an airplane the only way bombs can be planted? Go ahead and submit to this type of screening and the next step is cavity searches. Don't think so? I say boycott flying and protect our rights now before things get dramatically worse with this farce.

If everyone doesn't get checked what do we do about this?

11 firearms found at airport checkpoints last week

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-218180.html

TSA: Despite objections, all passengers must be screened

By the CNN Wire Staff
November 15, 2010 1:50 p.m. EST

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- In response to a video of a California man's dispute with airport security officials, the Transportation Security Administration said Monday it tries to be sensitive to individuals, but everyone getting on a flight must be screened.

The video, in which software engineer John Tyner refuses an X-ray scan at the San Diego, California, airport, has sparked a debate over screening procedures.

Tyner told CNN on Sunday that he was surprised to see so many people take an interest in his refusal and the dispute with airport screeners that followed it. But he said he hoped the video will focus attention on what he calls a government invasion of privacy.

"Obviously, everybody has their own perspective about their personal screening," TSA administrator John Pistole told CNN. "The question is, how do we best address those issues ... while providing the best possible security?"

Tyner, 31, said his hunting trip to South Dakota was cut short before it even started Saturday morning -- when TSA agents asked him to go through an X-ray machine.

Napolitano: We're just doing what's best

"I don't think that the government has any business seeing me naked as a condition of traveling about the country," Tyner said.

Pistole said the agency is "trying to be sensitive to individuals issues and concerns," but added, "the bottom line is, everybody who gets on that flight has been properly screened."

The cell phone video Tyner recorded of his arguments with security screeners over the scan and pat-down they proposed had garnered more than 80,000 hits on YouTube by early Monday morning.

Tyner said that after he declined the body scan, a TSA agent told him he could have a pat-down instead. Once the procedure was described, Tyner said he responded, "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested."

The dispute that followed, Tyner said, included police escorting him from the screening area and a supervisor saying he could face a civil lawsuit for leaving the airport before security had finished screening him.

"The whole thing just seemed ridiculous. ... I don't intend to fly until these machines go away," he said.

"Advanced imaging technology screening is optional for all passengers," TSA said in a statement released Monday. "Passengers who opt out of [advanced imaging] screening will receive alternative screening, including a physical pat-down."

But anyone who refuses to complete the screening process will be denied access to airport secure areas and could be subject to civil penalties, the administration said, citing a federal appeals court ruling in support of the rule.

The ruling, from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, says that "requiring that a potential passenger be allowed to revoke consent to an ongoing airport security search makes little sense in a post-9/11 world. Such a rule would afford terrorists multiple opportunities to attempt to penetrate airport security by 'electing not to fly' on the cusp of detection until a vulnerable portal is found."

The TSA's advanced imaging technology machines use two separate means of creating images of passengers -- backscatter X-ray technology and millimeter-wave technology.

At the end of October, 189 backscatter units and 152 millimeter-wave machines were in use in more than 65 airports. The total number of imaging machines is expected to be near 1,000 by the end of 2011, according to the TSA.

The agency has previously said that the new technology is safe and protects passenger privacy.

"Strict privacy safeguards are built into the foundation of TSA's use of advanced imaging technology to protect passenger privacy and ensure anonymity," the agency says in a statement on its website.

Images from the scans cannot be saved or printed, according to the agency. Facial features are blurred. And agents who directly interact with passengers do not see the scans.

iReporter: "Don't touch my junk" Tyner shouldn't fly

But Tyner isn't the only one with concerns about the new security procedures.

Grass-roots groups are urging travelers either not to fly or to protest by opting out of the full-body scanners and undergoing time-consuming pat-downs instead.

Industry leaders are worried about the backlash. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano met with leaders of travel industry groups to discuss the concerns.

"We certainly understand the challenges that DHS confronts, but the question remains, where do we draw the line? Our country desperately needs a long-term vision for aviation security screening, rather than an endless reaction to yesterday's threat," the U.S. Travel Association said in a statement after the meeting. "At the same time, fundamental American values must be protected."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/11/15/ca ... gletoolbar

Napolitano: We're just doing what's best

Oh thanks anyway but YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT'S BEST! The government did not invent airplanes or airports or travel or vacations. The government does not mind that we have hundreds and thousands of potential criminals streaming across our borders, digging tunnels, pulling up to our table to take the bread out of our childrens' mouths and our livelihoods and provisions. The government says we are old and becoming a drag on resources. The government is looking for new blood (votes & tax-payers). The government is not capable of doing what's best, especially not THIS government!

Local news now says this whole thing was a set-up against the TSA.
The guy wants free publicity for his blog, on which he has been posting anti-government comments for years.
That's why he had the camera and recorder running before he even entered the security area.

johnnyedge.blogspot.com