Former Libertarian Presidential Candidate Bob Barr and the organization he heads,LibertyGuard.org, are determining whether or not to move forward with a lawsuit against TSA after the agency ignored a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed in December to release documents regarding a stand-down of airport security during the Thanksgiving Holidays. The deadline for a response to the FOIA was today, January 25.
Joe Seehusen, executive director of LibertyGuard, appeared on the Alex Jones Show today to weigh the organization’s next step in investigating whether TSA’s decision not to use body scanners during one of the busiest traveling period of the year was provably motivated by politics. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA head John Pistole have insisted that the use of invasive body scanners and secondary pat-downs in the nations’ airports are absolutely necessary in order to stave off the imminent threat of terrorism, yet they appeared to back off from controversial airport security measures after groups publicly planned an ‘opt out’ protest targeted for November 24, the day before Thanksgiving.
Use of body scanners did ‘in fact’ stop during the period in question, Seehusen explained. The big question that needs to be probed and proven, he argued, is whether DHS and TSA knowingly played politics with the safety of Americans in doing so. LibertyGuard may grant TSA addition time to respond with the documents they seek, but are prepared with a lawsuit to insist on the matter.
“Considering recent hardline statements made by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole, this apparent sudden reversal in the TSA’s direction warrants additional scrutiny,” reads a statement from Joe Seehussen on the website for Liberty Guard. “We’d like to know if we can expect a policy shift from the TSA or if they were merely attempting to shut down the public outcry regarding their search procedures.”
TSA spokesman Kawika Riley responded to some of Seehusen’s public statements, boldly denying that any breech in normal screening procedures occurred the day before Thanksgiving. “AIT operations were normal throughout the week,” Riley said, retorting that “Any suggestions to the contrary are not true.”
Yet Seehusen has identified numerous mainstream news reports, including the NY Times, Gizmodo, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The New Jersey Star-Ledger, which all present a different account. Further, Seehusen has combed through many anecdotal accounts from travelers and bloggers, and the fact that a stand-down occurred at airports across the country seems undeniable.
This reporter, on business for Infowars.com, traveled through Denver International Airport on November 24, the day in question, and personally witnessed the lack of body scanner usage or of secondary pat-downs. No one in line was even noticeably questioned at all, and strangely, the employees themselves were perceptively nicer than countless other trips I’ve been on all across the nation.
“We’d like to think that the TSA has been listening to citizens concerned,” LibertyGuard chairman Bob Barr has stated, “However, it’s far more likely the reason was political and we think the public should be made aware of the motivations of our country’s security chiefs.”
The significance of this inquiry involves a double-standard for Homeland Security, who insist on one hand that these extreme and intrusive measures are necessary for the safety of all Americans in the face of imminent terrorism, yet were willing to abandon these security tools when it was concerned with shutting down public criticism and managing its public image. Seehusen commented that DHS and TSA have been “playing fast and loose with our freedom” while at the same time continuing to seek an expansion of power.
“If anyone looks at the aggregate scope of what’s happening [with expanding bureaucracy] it’s alarming,” Seehusen said. “The nature of government [is that] it will go as far as we will let them. I think their mission is to grow, to get bigger, to get richer by way of more budget to them, to hire more staff, to expand their scope… They can always find numerous rationales for that.”
The TSA has recently been forced to settle with passengers who’ve claimed abuse during airport security checkpoints, including a woman from Amarillo, Texas whose breasts were exposed by ogling and laughing TSA employees. Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura also just announced a lawsuit against TSA and DHS for groping and other invasive pat-down measures he says amounted to the legal definition for “sexual abuse” and have caused him to abandon commercial air travel. Will Ventura’s lawsuit, along with LibertyGuard’s probe,re-ignite the TSA revolt?
Bob Barr, who first filed the FOIA request back in December on behalf of LibertyGuard, is alsoseeking information on reported surveillance of top TSA critics, including Matt Drudge of the top alternative news website DrudgeReport.com, John Tyner, the individual who made news after telling TSA he would sue them if they ‘touched his junk’ and radio host Alex Jones of Infowars.com. The WeWontFly Blog, who were heavily involved in supporting the ‘opt out’ protests in question, caught visitors originating from a Homeland Security IP address trolling their blogs and leaving repeated nasty and disparaging comments.
“Unless we involve ourselves and decide to stand tall, it’s going to sweep over us,” Seehusen observed. “Our civil liberties will buckle. Our Constitution is certainly threatened,” he added.
Read LibertyGuard’s FOIA request here (PDF).
Scridb filter
Of course this “joke” is completely misleading. Obama is refering to a high-speed rail system where you won’t have to get a pat-down. With DHS rolling out their sexual assault program to malls, train stations, sporting events, and bus stops, of COURSE you’re going to get a pat-down before boarding a high-speed railroad. Unless WE stop it.
Scridb filter
News that Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura is striking back against being personally subjected to TSA harassment by suing the federal agency is sure to re-ignite a TSA revolt that has led many airports to consider abandoning the TSA altogether and replacing them with private security, while the TSA has until the end of today to respond to a FOIA request filed by former Congressman Bob Barr that could send further shockwaves through the Homeland Security-controlled federal body.
Having first privately told Alex Jones back in November of his intention to sue the TSA in a lawsuit that directly names DHS chief Janet Napolitano and TSA head John Pistole, yesterday’s announcement of legal proceedings against new invasive groping measures introduced last year has provoked a tidal wave of media coverage.
The TSA has become embroiled in a number of lawsuits and legal challenges over the past few months as the agency’s policies are flagrantly abused by TSA staffers in numerous blatant examples of sexual harassment, violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and wanton disregard for the 4th amendment to the Constitution.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the case of Lynsie Murley, 24, of Amarillo, Texas, who received compensation from the agency after TSA workers pulled down her blouse, exposed her breasts and then laughed in her face, leaving Murley, “extremely embarrassed and humiliated” according to the lawsuit.
The actions of Ventura, who is risking his television career by refusing to fly until TSA policies are changed, are sure to once again stir a national debate about TSA policies that peaked back in November and culminated in a national opt out day protest on Thanksgiving.
The revolt was led largely by the Drudge Report website, which flexed its significant media muscle to ensure the issue was kept in constant focus for weeks on end.
In a crude political stunt designed to deflate the success of the opt out protest, the TSA completely reversed its procedures as travelers across the country reported that the agency had temporarily roped off naked body scanners and relaxed supposedly mandatory invasive pat down policies.
This led to former Congressman Bob Barr’s Liberty Guard organization filing a Freedom of Information Act request demanding an explanation as to why the TSA felt comfortable in briefly mothballing policies it claimed were vital for national security simply as a propaganda ploy.
Obviously reticent to address the FOIA, the TSA pulled out all the legal tricks to delay their response and in fact Liberty Guard’s Shane Cory informs us via email today that the agency has until the end of the day to formally respond to the FOIA request.
Any admission that the TSA amended its policies as part of a coordinated media stunt will send shockwaves through an agency already on the ropes, and we’ll have more on this story within the next 24 hours.
Scridb filter
A 57-year-old Palestinian woman with a pacemaker died over the weekend, after passing through the scanning machine at the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt. The woman, Fatima Mahmoud Abu Obeid, crossed over to Egypt along with her husband, and about half an hour later suddenly collapsed. She was taken by ambulance to a Rafah hospital on the Egyptian side where she was pronounced dead.
Palestinian sources blamed her death on the border scanning machine, described as a “U.S.-made advanced portal using millimeter wave holographic technology to screen passengers for weapons and explosives.”
Military sources deny any link, saying that the machine has been tested and found not to harm those passing through it. Similar machines are also used at Ben-Gurion International Airport.
Abu Obeid reportedly did not tell the operators that she had a pacemaker, and the incident is being investigated. The sources also dismissed the idea that the millimeter waves were not the same level used for all other passengers. Palestinian operators last week closed the Rafah Crossing to protest the installation of the new machine; they claim it emits dangerous radioactive waves.
Scridb filter
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura is suing the TSA and Homeland Security for humiliating and ‘offensive’ pat-down procedures he’s been subjected to during airport security checks that included ‘warrantless, non-suspicion-based offensive touching, gripping and rubbing of the genital and other sensitive areas of his body.’ Ventura, who had a hip replacement procedure in 2008, says he was unduly targeted due to his disability. His lawsuit, filed yesterday in Minnesota, claims the pat-downs violated his privacy, his 4th Amendment right and legally meet ‘the definition for an unlawful sexual assault’.”
Alex Jones, who traveled with Ventura last September during the production of his “Conspiracy Theory” TV show over the course of multiple flights, witnessed the former governor being groped and inappropriately touched in a pat-down procedure that Ventura faces everytime he travels. “That’s why I want to leave the United States,” Ventura had told Jones at the time. “This is why I go down to Mexico– this is wrong.”
But Jones says Ventura was even more upset everytime he witnessed some old man in a wheelchair harassed or manhandled by the TSA, without any basis for suspecting them. That’s when Ventura first revealed his thoughts of suing the TSA. In November, Ventura went on the Alex Jones Show and vowed never to fly commercially again until TSA reversed its policies. Part of Ventura’s suit includes a complaint about violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, whereby he says TSA has unduly selected numerous disabled passengers for secondary screening and potential harassment without cause.
Ventura, who travels frequently for his job hosting a TruTV program when he isn’t in Mexico, further commented that he would ‘no longer be forced by the TSA to prove he is not a criminal or terrorist.’ Ventura lamented on Jones’ program. “It probably means an end to my career,” referring to his difficulties with air travel. He’s not alone, as representatives from the travel, airline and tourism industry have already met with Big Sis to lobby DHS to back off of the enhanced pat-downs that caused a traveler backlash in the fall and what they say are more than 41 million travelers who ‘avoided’ flights and didn’t spend an estimated $9 billion in travel sales.
Ventura’s attorney, David Olsen, told KSTP in Minnesota “The security procedures are going too far. There’s a line somewhere and he believes that line has been crossed.”
Steve Wagstaffe, then D.A.-elect, now current D.A. of San Mateo County, California, stated in November 2010 that he and his deputies would be patrolling San Francisco International Airport for possible violations by TSA staff and would prosecute any employees engaged in “lewd and lascivious behavior” while conducting pat-downs. He further noted that groping of travelers’ genitals, even if backed by TSA policy, amounted to a felony offense. The TSA recently settled with an Amarillo, Texas woman whose breasts were exposed by TSA employees who then laughed at the matter.
Jesse Ventura is reportedly working with the press from Mexico and should be appearing on the Alex Jones Show in the near future.
Scridb filter
Phil Mocek of Seattle was told by TSA goons and police at the Albuquerque Airport on November 15, 2009, that he did not have the right to use a video camera in a public space outside a TSA Gestapo zone. He was also told that when goons ask him for ID, he must comply or the police will be called. Mocek was arrested for disorderly conduct and concealing his identity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc5DBUK1K8M
Mocek is a software developer and civil liberties advocate. He was in New Mexico in November of 2009 to attend the International Drug Policy Reform Conference on behalf of the Cannabis Defense Coalition.
Visible and audible in the airport video are Mocek, Albuquerque Airport Police Department officers Robert F. “Bobby” Dilley (badge number 116), Landrow “Wiggy” Wiggins (badge number 137), and Julio A. De La Peña (badge number 135), and TSA staff LTSO Jonathon Breedon, TSM Gerald Romero, STSO Anthony M. Schreiner, Greg Martinez, and BDO Laura Moots.
According to Edward Hasbrouck, founder of the Identity Project, a nonprofit organization that “builds public awareness about the effects of ID requirements on fundamental rights,” Mocek’s case marks the first time anyone has ever challenged the TSA’s authority to question and detain travelers, Seattle Weekly reported on January 19.
“[TSA] wants people to show ID and submit to a search and groping, but there’s no legal basis for most of this,” Hasbrouck said. “The TSA relies fundamentally on intimidation. The ultimate threat is ‘We’ll call the local police.’ And when they’re called in, they don’t say ‘We don’t see a crime here.’ They get that person out of there.”
On January 21, a jury cleared Mocek of all misdemeanor charges. “I feel good that we had police and TSA on record saying that you don’t have to show ID to fly and that you can use a camera at the airport,” Mocek told KOBTV 4 in Albuquerque.
Mocek was represented by Nancy Hollander, a New Mexico defense attorney known for representing two Guantanamo Bay detainees. Hollander argued that Mocek did not conceal his identity because his name was on his boarding pass.
Scridb filter
It was only a matter of time before the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) campaign of groping and intimately photographing frequent flyers would come back and bite the agency. That time has come. House leaders have put a frequent traveler in charge of the Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations.
In an interview with The Washington Times, Rep. Jason Chaffetz vowed to use the chairmanship to encourage the agency to adopt a new outlook. “TSA has a credibility problem from my vantage point,” the Utah Republican explained. “They have said things repeatedly to the public that just aren’t true.”
As a freshman in the last Congress, Mr. Chaffetz secured 310 votes for an amendment that only would have allowed use of the pornographic scanners after a metal detector provided probable cause for additional investigation. The measure died when the Senate denied a vote on the underlying bill. While Senate Democrats may once again succeed in shielding the agency from legislative scolding, TSA Administrator John S. Pistole will be forced to answer tough questions about his policy choices. “We’re going to have some hearings and try to understand why they’re so enamored with pieces of technology that also happen to have very high-priced lobbyists associated with them,” said Mr. Chaffetz.
Political concerns often seem more important to the TSA than keeping terrorists off airplanes. Instead of focusing on real threats, the agency has gone after harmless cranks who highlight the downsides of the TSA’s security theater. Phil Mocek faces trial for refusing to show his identification papers before boarding a flight in Albuquerque. Mr. Mocek argues that we lose an important freedom ceding to the government an ability to make arbitrary decisions about who can and cannot travel. A Charlottesville man was arrested Dec. 30 for stripping down to his running shorts at the Richmond airport, exposing a message written across his chest: “The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.” Although charges were dropped last week, it’s obvious the TSA hasn’t dropped its contempt for the Fourth Amendment.
Since Thanksgiving’s uproar over invasive procedures erupted online – primarily through attention from the Drudge Report – the TSA has quietly backed off its use of scanners [ed - they have?]. It’s obvious bureaucrats know they’re in trouble and hope the attention will blow over. Upcoming House hearings could be what’s needed to ensure Mr. Pistole’s plan is grounded.
Scridb filter
Airport Body Scanner Truth- Bob Barr, watchdog weigh lawsuit after TSA refuses disclosure January 26, 2011
- President Obama Jokes about TSA Groping In his SOTU speech January 26, 2011
- Ventura Lawsuit To Re-Ignite TSA Revolt? January 25, 2011
- Security scanner blamed for woman’s death January 25, 2011
- Ventura Lawsuit: TSA Pat-Downs Classify as ‘Unlawful Sexual Abuse’ January 25, 2011