It Was Only A Matter of Time I Guess..
The TSA Demands to Touch Your...McDugle...if You Travel By Plane
I travel extensively for business purposes, international flights, usually arriving in Denver, Chicago, Houston, or San Francisco, where one can catch a connecting flight back to Oklahoma City. Because of the amount of travel I have passed the Global Entry background checks, the TSA Pre Check background checks, and a separate U.S. Customs process. Any connecting flight tickets get reprinted once you arrive in the U.S. so that the TSA Pre Check logo is present, allowing the use of the Pre Check lane which in the past has been minimally troublesome.
I travel extensively for business purposes, international flights, usually arriving in Denver, Chicago, Houston, or San Francisco, where one can catch a connecting flight back to Oklahoma City. Because of the amount of travel I have passed the Global Entry background checks, the TSA Pre Check background checks, and a separate U.S. Customs process. Any connecting flight tickets get reprinted once you arrive in the U.S. so that the TSA Pre Check logo is present, allowing the use of the Pre Check lane which in the past has been minimally troublesome.
But not on that day.
International flights are going to take around fifteen to sixteen hours of flight time plus the travel to the airport and waiting for the flight so by the time you reach the U.S. you have already spent 26 hours traveling, generally with zero sleep, and if you aren't worn out and a bit frazzled then you aren't human. Factor in the fact that subjecting yourself to travel in a carbon fiber and aluminum tube with hundreds of other people coming from countless locations means that you can and do catch lots of colds and the flu. Before I boarded the plane I could feel the sinuses swelling and the heat from increased blood flow, I had caught something and by the time I reached the U.S. it had settled deep into the lungs and I was coughing up junk and running a mild fever.
Cleared Customs with zero problems, those folks are very professional and focus on the bad guys, re checked the bags and had the one remaining flight ticket re printed, and off through the security checkpoint to get back into the secure area of the Denver airport. Cleared the metal detector while a laptop bag was x-rayed, no alerts on either, then was told that although there was no alarm I had been selected at random for a pat down. Hell, this is why I went to all the trouble of going through the background checks, to avoid this crap. No alarms, no suspicions, no probable cause, but it happens on occasion so I agreed on the condition that the guy didn't touch my ….. McDugle. Half jokingly of course as the pat downs usually stopped from going over your private parts. And here is the thing about using euphemisms; while they are polite to others they also mask the sheer ugliness and disrespect of a stranger fondling your junk.
Much to my surprise the little fellow in the rubber gloves said no, that they were required to search the "groin area". I refused consent saying that there was no way I would subject myself to sexual assualt without legal justification. Little fellow tries to be personable saying "Do I look like the kind of guy that wants to play with your d*ck?" And without hesitation I replied that yes, he did look exactly like that kind of person.
See, this is the thing, no normal decent person is going to work a job where they have to play with people's gentiles. Not only is it unmanly and inhumane, it is disgusting and abhorrent to the vast majority of Americans short of having a really, really, good reason to have to do it. Legally you need probable cause or at least an articulated reason for going past a brief pat down in the non sexual areas of a body. A cop has the right for a Terry search to check for weapons before he interacts with a citizen, assuming he has reasonable suspicions or probable cause to stop you in the first place and you have consented to the search. When you are going through Customs it is as if you were at a border, indeed the airport is the first border you approach when coming back into the U.S. but even there they must have reasonable suspicion before going past the basic questioning, bag check, or a non sexual assault type pat down.
At that point I demanded a supervisor if I wasn't being allowed to fly even after I had passed the metal detector and my carry on had been x rayed. What they do is to make you go back before the x ray scanner, causing confusion to other travelers as to why you are standing there and you are in their way of poking their bags into the conveyor. So you explain, they wanna touch my junk in order to fly today and I am refusing.
Well that got their attention and they figured out that they were better off with me being more towards the end of the process so after about ten minutes they moved me up to the end of the x ray conveyor belt and table. But while waiting I got to see exactly what the little fellow wanted to do. After the previously normal pat down of non sexual parts, the perverts link their fingers together and press into your lower stomach and sweep across vertically five or six times and again across horizontally five or six times till they have swept you from navel to the top of your thighs. Women would get a bonus; the screener would make a box shape and dive into the crotch, sweeping up and down and back and forth.
Now you are offered to move the search to a private room but no one in their right mind would do that as the screeners are free to do a full blown strip search at that point and the leader of the TSA has publicly stated that they believe they have the right to do body cavity searches. Your phone is in your bag, which you aren't allowed to touch, as is any writing instrument or paper to record names and badge numbers.
After a half hour wait a TSA supervisor shows up, another half hour before a Homeland security supervisor shows up, two of them actually. They are adamant, despite having zero cause I have to subject myself to sexual assault if I want to fly. Luckily my plane had been delayed for about an hour so I had time to stand up for my rights and after all it was not that long of a drive home if I had to rent a car. Now we have a Mexican standoff, with the supervisors not knowing what to do with a rebellious sheep and me having decided not to back down a single inch. I explain that my right to travel and freedom from unwarranted search are being violated and that I will have zero problem suing every single person involved on a personal level if it comes to that.
The solution that the TSA/Homeland security supervisors come up with is to pitch the decision to the airline, United Airlines in this case, if they say I can fly despite not "clearing" security then I can fly. Now sad to say on my part I had little knowledge of my rights going through security at the airport other than seeing a few blood boiling videos of TSA goons molesting women and small children. I knew that I had the right to refuse the search and leave at anytime and try to fly again another time but past that I was unaware that I could have videoed, in fact they do all they can to make that impossible but you do in fact have the right to record your interactions with the TSA or cops as long as you don't include their scanning equipment.
The United rep arrives after maybe an hour. I explain what had occurred, including that both my person and my laptop bag had passed through screening without exception or alarm, offered to subject myself to going through the porno scanner system, or even accept a normal pat down in order to comply but there was no way in hell that I would give up my 4th Amendment right and be sexually assaulted in order to continue my trip. I pointed out the background checks that I had been through, that I was currently Gold status and had been Platinum status in previous years, and that I was zero threat to their airline. And the nice lady said no, as in let them fondle your McDugle if you want to fly.
So I refuse and at that point the nice (not really) policeman escorts you out a side door into the unsecured part of the airport.
The first thing I do is call my excellent attorney, Kevin Adams, and start the ball rolling on a lawsuit. Then off on a shuttle trip to the car rental compound, no cars available for the nine hour drive to Okc, so back to the airport to take the train to Denver to find a bus station. I kid you not, a freaking bus station was the only option. Later I found out that Amtrak can get you there but at a higher cost and 32 hours of travel plus the wait time compared to the 19 hours for the bus. After navigating the Denver RTD train system and a free bus to near the greyhound station I find the ticket office is not only closed, the sign says they are closed for the day. On the smart phone I go and secure a ticket, only to find that the ticket office has magically re opened despite the dire warning on the signs a few minutes earlier.
Yikes, I have never used a bus for travel in the U.S.. The customers are very low class, mostly illegal aliens, folks that likely aren't wanting to be stopped driving or at a security checkpoint if you know what I mean, liberally flavored with a few crazy people, one of whom boarded the bus at the last minute, took in the "color" of the majority of the occupants, and exited the bus loudly exclaiming "I can't be on this bus!". Only to chase the bus down the street for a few blocks beating on the door demanding to be allowed to board. And the poor driver is surrounded by a Plexiglas shield complete with a door with speaking slots. Dear God, what have I got myself into?
Despite all that the trip was long and boring but uneventful. Heading straight to OKC was what I had envisioned but the route headed South to New Mexico, then Southeast into Texas to Amarillo, then back East through Elk City to Okc. Along the way the bus stopped in small towns to drop off or pick up passengers, traveling throughout the night. The people behaved themselves well enough despite the rough looks and it was an eye opener as to what it means to be poor in the U.S., a 90 minute flight to Denver becomes a nineteen hour ordeal, but they don't ask to touch your d*ck. The other passengers might though. Data service was good despite the route and along the way I was able to research exactly what the TSA was up to with this new policy.
It turns out that the TSA did have five different search processes ranging from very minimal questions being asked progressing up to strip search but the TSA felt that their employees were not "cognitively aware" enough to know when to use the right method of the five methods so the simplified things down to one single groping process: "On the TSA's website, the agency stipulates that everyone, including passengers in its Pre✓ program, may be required to undergo a pat-down from a person of the same gender. A passenger might be required to undergo a frisk after the TSA's screening machines trigger an alarm, as part of "random or unpredictable security measures," or as an alternative to machine screening. The agency says its officers use the backs of their hands on sensitive parts of the body but, "in limited cases," may use the front of the hand in "sensitive areas."
Note that even the TSA required an alarm from the screening machine, as part of a random security measure. Note also that the TSA in Denver admitted that two of their screeners were fired for plotting to grope male passengers. The operator of the porno scanner would receive a signal from the male TSA screener when he found an attractive traveler and the female porno scanner operator would set the machine to female mode in order to trigger an alarm to allow the male TSA operator to do the dirty deed.
This is all because the TSA failed a 2015 inspection where 67 of 70 stimulated explosives or weapons were missed by TSA inspectors as part of an internal testing effort. Of that 67 only one case involved something taped to a person's body, in the small of their back. Then again in July 2017 the same Red Team TSA group had to suspend the simulated weapons/explosives smuggling test after the failure rate once again exceeded 95% failure to detect rate. Then in November the failure rate in one test was between 70 and 80%, an improvement no doubt but still abysmal. And this is AFTER the TSA dropped the five screening processes into one process that was literally sexual assault. Here is a link to a TSA pervert groping a disabled teenager around March 2017, in fact, the TSA does this a lot of times each day.
And despite all of this the TSA has never foiled a single plot nor captured a single terrorist. The underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was actually known to be an extremist after the man's own father traveled to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria to report his own son. The authorities refused to put Umar on the no fly list to avoid endangering another operation. Not only that, witnesses testified in court that a well dressed man with an American accent actually helped Umar evade most of the security at the airport. In fact, Umar was working for the CIA at the time of the trip and court testimony revealed that the FBI had supplied a defective bomb to Umar as part of a sting operation.
No doubt I will find myself on a TSA list and yes, they do compile a list of "troublesome" travelers. You either find yourself on a no fly list or on the dreaded SSSS list, so called that because that is what is stamped on your ticket as it is printed by the airline. Supplemental Security Search something.... you are gonna be forced through the porno scanner and probably get a pat down.
All of this woke me up. I had assumed that going through the background checks and expense of Global Entry and the TSA Pre Check program would put a stop to this foolishness. Time to look at the legalities of all this.
The freedom of movement and travel in the U.S. was considered such an self evident and fundamental right that the Bill of Rights and the Constitution itself refused to consider any Constitutional protections. When it was looked at the Supreme Court decided that the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Constitution covered things nicely: "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." Yet it is actually the state that is given the authority to protect the freedom of travel, not the Federal Government. I doubt that anyone including our founding fathers thought that the federal government would ever be jamming fingers into your wife and kid's private parts. Their response would have been to draw a pistol or later a bowie knife and deal with the pervert themselves.
This Clause requires that people be treated equally, as does the 14th Amendment:
"protection by the Government; the enjoyment of life and liberty ... the right of a citizen of one State to pass through, or to reside in any other State, for purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; to claim the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus; to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the State; to take, hold and dispose of property, either real or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by the other citizens of the State. "
Other benefits or rights are retained by states for their own citizens such as hunting and fishing license charges that can discriminate.
Wikipedia has a good write up on the freedom of movement including this:
"The U.S. Supreme Court also dealt with the right to travel in the case of Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999). In that case, Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, held that the United States Constitution protected three separate aspects of the right to travel among the states: the right to enter one state and leave another, the right to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than a hostile stranger (protected by the "Privileges and Immunities" clause in Article IV, § 2), and (for those who become permanent residents of a state) the right to be treated equally to native born citizens (this is protected by the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause). "
All of this means you can move around the U.S. freely. Another state can't limit your welfare payments or a long residency period before voting, or a long period before obtaining state medical care.
The same article also covers air travel specifically:
" In 49 U.S.C. § 40103, "Sovereignty and use of airspace", the Code specifies that "A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit through the navigable airspace."
You also have the freedom to travel as part of First Amendment rights of freedom of association and expression but one of the most useful legal strategies is denied when using First Amendment claims, the Bivens case. Biven cases are lawsuits that sue the federal worker personally.
By the mid 1860's the Supreme Court had decided that travel is a fundamental right not regulated by the state. The Privileges and Immunities clause was solidly determined to protect the right of free travel. There are restrictions as there are with all protected rights. You need a passport to enter or exit the U.S., and that passport can be revoked for foreign policy or national security reasons. But due process had to occur before the state of federal government restricted your right to travel. You an also be punished for crimes or unpaid child support by removing your right to leave the country.
Next week we will cover more of the legal aspect of airline passengers as well as the sexual assault aspects. Meanwhile a Biven's lawsuit will be prepared and filed in the near future against the individual TSA and Homeland Security employees that demanded such over the top searches without rhyme or reason.
If you aren't angry enough already watch this video about a young woman that was molested at an airport by the TSA.
