I've made more or less one visit/year to the USA over the past few years, and every one of these visits have results in my being threatened with arrest by the TSA. My response has consistently been to tell them to go ahead and do so if they think they have grounds to, and then ask exactly what they propose to be arresting me for.

As in the past, my most recent experience was similar, although the circumstances in this particular incident were unique.

I arrived into IAD late last thursday, disembarked and headed towards customs inspection. In part because the customs employee barking at arriving passengers distracted me, I mistakenly took the route for passengers transferring to another flight rather than for those arriving at their final destination.

CBP decided to give me a "random" secondary, so I was directed to the inspection area where they pawed through my stuff for a few minutes before sending me on my way. Because of this delay, I was basically the last person through customs before they closed up for the night (it was by that time past 23:00). I wandered out of the customs hall down a corridor and through a labyrinth of queue control barriers, all empty at this hour, until I turned a corner and was confronted with a bank of 6 - 8 TSA checkpoints, all closed save one. I paused as I approached the single open security lane and one of the six or so agents barked at me to take my laptop out of my bag, take my shoes off, etc. I stood there for a long second and then said, "no, thanks, I decline to undergo inspection." One of the agents then said, "you have to." I said, "no, I don't" and he responded by saying the only exit was through the secure area, so I had to undergo inspection. I said, "looks like I'm stuck here then," and I turned around, walked over to a nearby bench, sat down, and took out my book and started reading.

At this the TSO asked if I wanted him to summon the police. I said, "summon them for what?"; he replied, "to have you arrested." I asked, "arrested for what?" His response: "it doesn't matter", so I told him he'd better get the cops there soon so that I could complain about his illegal threat. The whole time six TSOs were just standing around, all waiting to clear me so they could end their shift and go home.

They summoned the cops, various officials and supervisors, all of whom tried to persuade me to agree to inspection. They contacted customs, who controlled the area I had just left and tried to send me back there. Customs refused. Unbelievably, the TSO who radioed the cops was asked "is he interfering with the inspection process in any way," the TSO said, "yes, he is." As I was the only passenger in the terminal at that point, with six TSOs standing around, there wasn't any inspection process going on that I could have interferred with if I wanted to.

Finally they hauled some senior TSA guy out of bed who arrived to speak with me, and he also tried the "reasonable" approach, asking that I please just consent to the search. They insisted they had to do this because there was no other way out of the airport, yet all these officials kept appearing out of some door behind me that obviously led outside. I told him I would agree to the inspection under the condition that he put his request in writing. He refused. I sat down and started reading my book again.

Finally, one of the cops volunteered that he could drive me around the front, which he did.

Once again, I'll be filing a complaint, but as previously, it won't go anywhere -- still waiting on responses to my complaints about my 2004 and 2007 threats of arrest.