The Patriot Post® · We've Now Gone Too Far

Having just traveled to Washington and back, I’ll be the first to say the officers who were at work with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at the airports were polite, business-like, and unobtrusive. I also believe, very strongly, that America has grossly over-reacted to the threat of air-travel safety since 9/11 and that nobody needs to “touch your junk” in order for you to fly on a passenger airplane.

We take off our shoes, remove our belts. We put laptops in separate trays. We remove orthopedic braces – all for what? I’ll guarantee you 99 percent of Americans cannot recall one incident that has just prompted an even greater infringement on our freedom since the Sept. 11, 2001 day of horror.

Now there is a move to establish a “National Opt-Out Day” on the busiest travel day of the year – next Wednesday – in response to an insane new policy that includes total-body scans that leave nothing to the imagination. Worse, TSA agents can – and already do – place their hands in a “pat down” method on travelers’ breasts and genitals in a markedly indecent way almost all civilized people will agree is most inappropriate and – if you are honest – absolutely unnecessary.

John Tyner, a 31-year-old software programmer from San Diego, hotly balked out of a full-body scan while going on a hunting trip to South Dakota last Saturday and, as the incident unfolded, he activated his cell phone and recorded what actually happened.

In a recent interview on the Wired website, he not only told what actually happened but the impromptu video he took with his cell phone affirmed his mortifying account. The video is now the rage on the website YouTube. The video is receiving hundreds of thousands of hits and the TSA, rightfully so in my way of thinking, is getting a well deserved thrashing by an enraged public.

“There was a certain percentage of people who were willingly going through the (full body) scanner,” Tyner told the magazine’s “Threat Level” reporter. “Then, every time the scanner was empty, they would just grab the next person in the line for the metal detector and send them through the scanner.”

When a TSA agent then explained the new “enhanced” pat down procedure, “which includes using the front of hands and fingers to touch passengers in their groin – Tyner balked,” the magazine said.

“If you touch my junk,” he told the agent, “I’ll have you arrested.”

“The agent called his supervisor, who told Tyner that if he wasn’t comfortable with the enhanced pat-down ‘we can escort you back out and you don’t have to fly today.’

"Tyner told the agent, ‘I don’t understand how a sexual assault can be made a condition of my flying.’

"When the agent replied that a pat-down was not considered a sexual assault, Tyner said, ‘It would be if you were not the government.’

"The TSA supervisor told him, ‘By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights.’”

It is pretty obvious we’ve gone too far. Brian Sodegren, a savvy blogger, wants next week’s “National Opt-Out Day” to be a revolt of sorts where passengers will decline “en masse,” thus causing chaos, when the TSA orders them towards the technological “strip searches” and “government-approved gropings.”

He says his goal next Wednesday is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change,“ reads the call to action at OptOutDay.com. "No naked body scanners, no government-approved groping,” he says. “We have a right to privacy, and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we’re guilty until proven innocent.”

But if you read about John Tanner’s ordeal, the TSA is currently considering leveling him with a fine of $11,000. “What he’s done, he’s violated federal law and federal regulations which states once you enter and start the process you have to complete it,” a still-fuming TSA security director told a San Diego TV station.

Tanner said as much in his interview with “Wired.” He said that after he had gotten his ticket refunded, a man in a sports jacket accosted him, telling him he would be subject to a civil penalty and prosecution if he left the airport. “Go ahead and sue me,” Tyner told the man before promptly leaving the building. Who among us is comfortable with that!

Since the Saturday incident, the uproar has snowballed into an avalanche of anger and the most common quote that is being used is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who once said, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

This has got to stop. Until common sense returns to airports, blockades are removed from Federal buildings, and we cease our unnecessary paranoia, only one thing is for sure – the damn terrorists have won.