The TSA - Running Scared

> In the end, security escorted Tyner out of the airport, after American Airlines refunded his ticket. > > According to Aguilar, Tyner is under investigation for leaving the security area without permission. The TSA is so afraid of the recent backlash against their security puppet show that they are willing to have a press conference announcing an “investigation” into the actions of John Tyner, who resisted the body scan in San Diego last weekend.

Read his original story and hear the audio recording he made here: http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-betwee…

Anyone with a brain can read his story, listen to the recording, and see that he’s perfectly innocent. He didn’t want to go through the full body scan, and he didn’t want to be sexually assaulted by a stranger, so he opted to go home. The airline was smart enough to refund his non-refundable ticket.

Take a look at the two sentences I quoted above, even. He was “escorted” by security officials out of the area, and yet he’s under investigation for leaving the area without permission. How can you be escorted somewhere by officials without permission?

Yet the TSA wants us to fear the “investigation” so we won’t stand up for our own rights like Tyner did. It’s a classic intimidation technique. They even throw in an $11,000 fine, just to scare people where it really hurts: their wallets.

The last thing the TSA wants is for this to go to court, believe me. Any sane judge would throw the case out. Meanwhile, you’d turn this into a full-blown national story. So Tyner is in no real danger. The real motive here is to scare the rest of us into submission. Which was the point of the “enhanced” pat down in the first place.

There’s a movement underway to have an official “opt out” at airports everywhere on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. People are encouraging their fellow citizens to opt out of full-body scans on that busiest travel day of the year, to bring the security lines to a crawl and demonstrate that we’re not going to stand for the intimidation.

TSA and the Department of Homeland Security, of course, are scared out of their minds of this.

I wouldn’t be surprised if two things happened by Thanksgiving.

1. We hear about more arrests and very public “investigations”, complete with their own press conferences, into innocent citizens who take a stand;

2. Cell phones or other hand-held devices that can record audio or video will need to be turned off throughout security checkpoints, suddenly. They’ll make up some nonsense about why.

I, for one, won’t be flying this Thanksgiving, because I’m not nuts enough to travel on that crazy weekend, even without the latest TSA nonsense. I encourage people to either not fly on that weekend (causing airlines to lose revenue), or force the TSA to do their “enhanced” pat downs, or find some other small way to indicate that you don’t approve of this process.

And by all means, spread the word. We’re being violated here, and it has nothing to do with our safety.