Originally Posted by
Often1
How would you know whether there's an LEO at the checkpoint? Not all LEO's wear a uniform. More importantly, just like non-LEO private security, a TSO can certainly hold you for a LEO.
What part of, "TSOs cannot detain you," do you not understand? TSOs have zero law enforcement powers. They're glorified mall cops. A TSO can shout, "Stop right there!", and you're well within your rights to shout, "Eat my shorts!", back at him as you walk away.
I can't say definitively that airports don't have plain-clothes LEOs running around, but I can point out that in all the TSA incident videos out there that were escalated to the LEO level, the only plain-clothes personnel there were high-level TSA supervisors. The LEOs were all in uniform.
Seriously though, the reasons the courts have upheld searches of people who back out (same with U-turns before DUI checkpoints) is pretty obvious.
Making a U-turn before a DUI checkpoint is called probable cause. Being told by a TSO that they would be touching your breasts/resistance and deciding you'd rather drive than go through with that is called protecting yourself.
But, them with $11K+ in their pockets to burn on pranks are free to try.@:-)
If the $11k fine was ever, ever going to be leveled against anyone, it would have been dropped on the "don't touch my junk" guy. He made a public mockery of the TSA, its agents, and its new body scanners.
The TSA will never levy the $11k fine. Never. I can see the story on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News now: a young-ish woman standing behind a podium crying about what the TSA tried to do to her, then an anchor voice-over kicks in and says that she was fined $11,000 because she refused to let an airport security screener touch her genitals.
Full Congressional hearing and TSA public approval rankings below 40% overnight. Even Pistole and Napolitano aren't that dumb.