TSA sued over suspicionless detention of political activist

[Locke]

This guy was a jerk and so was the TSA officer. He should have just told them who he was and what the cash was for; but he was just all fired up from being at a Libertarian event. Simpler for everyone and he would have been on his way after a 5 minute screening.

That said this is a little concerning. It’s not just that he can choose to drive to his destination as was mentioned above. It was too late for that. I listened to the full audio on the ACLU website. Once his answers were not satisfactory they took him to a private room and interviewed him. At this point he was being detained and could not just leave and take the bus. The TSA agent escalated and had the police interview him. When this was not satisfactory they threatened to take him to the station and have him answer to the FBI and DEA. This escalated to the point of them telling him he was being detained and asked if he would go quietly or if cuffs were needed. He was packing up his stuff to go quietly with them when someone called the police and told him they had figured out he was a Ron Paul campaign worker. Then the whole tone of the conversation changed and they quickly let him go.

Once you question a LEO's authority all kinds of bad things can happen. If it had been you or I in that situation, without his political connections, we’d be spending the night in jail. It’s good he pushed it and made the recording so that TSA can review their process and hopefully write better guidance for their agents.

[Liberty]

I'm going to address in advance one of the objections that is often raised in these discussions: that flying is voluntary. Breathing is voluntary, when you come down to it. If you have to do business in the modern world, flying is often the only option.

- Jim

I used to fly a lot, It has become such an ordeal for me that I refuse to fly unless I absolutely have to.
Today I'm in Atlanta, I drove rather than put up with the abuse of flying. No nosey questions about why I wanna bring a gun. No xrays, No Feds inspecting my personal belongings. I hate being treated like cattle, and hate paying to be treated like cattle even more.

I used to love flying, but it has changed into something very unpleasant, and the government has had a lot to do with it.

[seamusTX]

I used to fly a lot, It has become such an ordeal for me that I refuse to fly unless I absolutely have to.

Me too.

Flying nowadays combines the worst features of a Bulgarian border crossing and a second-class train.

- Jim

[Drewthetexan]

I love that TSA goes after people with a wad of cash but fails to find legitimate weapons. As if a pilot is going to be bribed into flying into any target of some villain's choice.

I should be in a federal penitentiary for carrying this (unknowingly) onto a 737 in my carry on bag:



I still don't know what scares me worse, that they didn't find it, or what would have happened if they did.

[seamusTX]

This is one over 15,000 web pages about the TSA failing to find weapons carried by testers or individuals like yourself:

http://www.google.com/search?q=tsa+fail ... =firefox-a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

... a source who works in security at Logan [Boston airport] said the undercover agents, who work for the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, brought knives, a bomb, and a gun in carry-on baggage through several checkpoints at different terminals without being stopped.

A pocket knife set off alarms at one checkpoint, the source said. It was concealed inside an agent's pants, hanging by a string behind his zipper. The screeners wrongly believed it was the zipper that had set off the alarms.

A criminal in Chicago used this technique to get a small pistol past the cops who arrested him, being booked into jail, being searched going into court for his arraignment, and being booked back into jail.

So now, thanks to DHS, you know how to do it.

-Jim