Well, on 12/25, I was flying SNA-SJD on WN and at the Terminal C checkpoint, there were no signs saying that AIT was optional, but when I was told that I would have to, I opted out. I did have a "penalty wait,' but after a few minutes, they did the pat-down, swabbed my hands and I was on my way.

I didn't get the selectee beep because WN does not allow PASS ID numbers to be inputted for international boarding passes.

You noticed? :D

Honestly I was surprised that they even admitted fault at all. With 3 years for their lawyers (which includes Megan H. Mack, the DHS Officer for Civil Rights & Liberties, from whom I got the response directly) to find every possible loophole… I guess they still didn't manage to find any way around it.

So instead, they say that my plain reading of the language of their policy is "objectively unreasonable". Because I took it at face value.

Rather than admit I'm right, their plan is to update their public communications to let people know that TSA won't be letting people travel with liquids unless a smurf thinks the liquid is medically necessary and limited to an amount to be used on the flight.

Which, frankly, suits me fine. I would rather win in court and obtain an enforceable permanent injunction than have them claim to change their policy. This way if I win, and they do it again, I go right back to court to get sanctions for contempt. If they just changed the policy themselves, I'd probably have to go through all this again next time they violate it.

I would just love it if I could get this before the 9th Circuit and have Kozinski write an opinion about their suggestion that transferring my liquids into 30 3.4 oz bottles is a "reasonable alternative accommodation"… and their claim that taking them at their word is per se "objectively unreasonable". LOVE IT. :D

So as it stands, I am only too delighted to hand them a bigger shovel.

Here's various evidence related to the SFO incident.

Includes statements from all the people involved (except the DFSD), and record of a similar incident in July 2012 at LGA. (I can think of at least another two, incl. MIA, but I figure two is enough for now.)

Got any questions about my litigation?
 

I mean to write up something about the broader impact of my litigation, both in what I've gotten so far and what I'm aiming to get.

For instance, consider the opinion in Sai v. DHS, No. 1:14-cv-1876 (D.D.C. Dec. 15, 2015). At the simple level, it just says that TSA has to respond to my Rehab Act complaints. (And they complied with the order; TBD whether they timely respond to the appeal.)

But really, the impact is much broader. For instance:
* Procedural relief expressed in regulations is enforceable using the APA, even if substantive relief is separately available.
* Agency delay of 4-5x the amount allowed by regulation is per se unreasonable — at least when the thing in question is not super technical.
* Procedural relief under the Rehabilitation Act is distinct from substantive relief (albeit not one with damages available, short of a Bivens claim.)

To the best of my knowledge, this is new precedent, though hardly an entirely novel question. I'll have to translate that to make it understandable for non-lawyers why it matters. But, well, it does. Hopefully it'll get used in lots of other civil rights litigation against administrative agencies (like the TSA) that don't think they have to obey the law.

So: do you have any questions about my litigation? Questions about any of the opinions or arguments?

Please let me know what'd be good to explain, what seems like it might be interesting, what might or might not be covered, what you think possible upshots / other applications are, etc. <insert broadly open ended question here>

I'll try to add a set of "why this matters" explanations in plain English to the whole set. (And better explanations of the holdings, as well.)

To me, this particular issue is the most troubling. It indicates an agency that is either totally inept and incompetent in the most basic functions, or is completely lawless (or both).

Do you think the Court will substantively address this, or will it get swept under the rug in favor of other points in your litigation?

I have communicated with my Congresswoman on this, but she is a Security Hawk, and apparently doesn't have any concerns about TSA responsiveness or overreach.

I have a question. Do you think it wise to be this public about how you intend to proceed? Seems you are giving the opposition information that might be beneficial to their rebuttal.

I'll take "lawless" for 3 years, BSBD.

To be more specific: I filed complaints in January 2013 (BOS) & March 2013 (SFO).

TSA wrote its response re. BOS between August 8-16, 2013. The SFO response was written between Aug 16 and Sept 18. 2013. (Source: direct emails to me, + FOIA of some of their internal emails.)

That's already unlawfully late — the 180 day deadline ended July 25 (BOS) and August 28 (SFO) — but then they sat on it, refusing to answer me, until March 2015 (BOS) & January 2016 (SFO).

Fortunately, the court did not find their argument — "yeah we violated the rules, but you can't make us" — very convincing. :D

Most likely this would be an ancillary issue in future litigation. It's already been decided in my Rehab Act case (cited in OP). I won.

It's not likely to come up again directly unless they're nice and hand me preliminary injunction on a silver plate by failing to respond to my appeal by Feb. 14.

If they don't respond by then, they'll be back before the same judge within days having to explain why they have again violated the law he just slapped them for.

If they do, that case will be closed, and I'll promptly sue them for SFO, and use their own administrative responses to skewer them. The position they put forward in the Rehab Act response is, IMO, unwinnable. I would be delighted to litigate it. I just want them 100% pinned down first, and I want all of the administrative remedy I'm entitled to.

Everyone has their own issues. Sounds like she's not going to be amenable to an argument about intrusion on privacy.

However… she might have concerns about, say, the fact that TSA spends $7B/yr yet can't detect 96% of poorly concealed obvious bombs. ;)

See also some explanations I gave on this Facebook thread.

Possible class action suit v TSA re liquids policy
 

I'm going to be filing a lawsuit soon about TSA's treatment of me at SFO. One aspect is a potential class action: TSA's policy of preventing or confiscating liquids in more than a small amount.

I'll be suing for damages (cost of liquids, injury, distress, etc) and injunction (to prevent TSA from refusing to screen liquids or refusing to let people travel with liquids that have been cleared by screening).

If you would be interested in being part of the class, please let me know using the form below — especially if you

1. personally have had liquids confiscated or been prevented from traveling with them — includes water, juice, pie, perfume, snow globes, etc
2. suffered some economic loss (like the value of the liquid discarded, cost you had to pay for liquids you would otherwise have brought, harm caused to you because you did not have something medically necessary, etc)
3. are willing to testify to the facts of your situation in a sworn affidavit that will be made public (possibly as a John Doe, if justified by the facts, e.g. harm to your career from being outed as having a disability)

If you are interested, please fill out this form.

I am of course not a lawyer and not your lawyer. I can't represent you in court. As the primary class representative, I will be trying to get a lawyer to represent the entire class in court, in addition to aspects of the case that are specific to me.

In short: I'm not promising you anything at all, other than that I will take your info into consideration and try to do what I think is right.

Part of what would help me to find a lawyer for this is to demonstrate that the class exists, and what typical claims are. Possibly I may want to have other class representatives as well, if someone else's situation is more typical than mine or represents a different group than mine.

Feel free to discuss, ask questions, etc. here, and feel free to share.


ETA: The whole point of a class action lawsuit is to make it viable to sue over a whole lot of people being injured a small amount (including e.g. less than $1). So please do fill out the form even if your injury is very minor, so long as it's at least $0.01. And list the total amount. ;)

Can people who are not US citizens/not in US do this?

That's a legal question. I can't give legal advice, but I'm not aware of anything that says you can't.

I'd appreciate your info regardless. I added a question about this at the end of the form. :)

If a party to a legal civil action was harmed in the US, there is no general requirement applicable to common members of the public to be US citizens/US residents. That said, for class actions, the class may be constrained to a subset of all harmed.

And the harm may be in the form of deprivation of property rights.

INAL either. Seems the class could be everyone who has flown during the period that TSA liquid restrictions have been in place. TSA is authorized to interdict WEI. I don't think that includes common liquids.

Just imagine the class size under this class group.

Not quite. It's the subset of those people who have suffered some sort of harm as a result of the policy. Not everyone who flies has attempted or desired to take liquids with them.

BTW, when was the liquid ban started? The oldest policy document I have is dated Sept. 2006, but it says it's reiterating / clarifying a previous policy.

It doesn't. I'm looking forward to getting their response to my Rehab Act appeal, where I said that in fact I don't think they have any authority to stop me from traveling with "several gallons" of juice, whether or not I have a medical need for it, so long as they're capable of screening it.

As it stands, they actually refuse to screen liquids unless you first convince them it's medical. Or they refuse to allow people to travel with liquids that have already been screened and cleared.

It'll be interesting to see how they argue that in court — a refusal to do the only job they legally have. I submit liquids for screening, have no objection to it being screened, yet they actively refuse. Hmm…

Roughly 700 million people fly in the US per year from what I can tell. Since 2006, I'd guesstimate roughly 1-2 billion total unique people flying through, in, or over US territory.

Then of those, how many suffered at least a cent's worth of damage, e.g. in discarded bottles and so forth? I would imagine that TSA has some numbers somewhere on # liquids confiscated / "relinquished" per checkpoint per day. But let's guess it's 10%.

So I'd guess that the class size is roughly a hundred million.

Imagine the potential damages, when we're talking probably a few dollars per class member, plus overhead, plus punitive damages etc. Might even make a dent in their budget. :D

Anyone who bought a travel size of whatever or didn't take some LGA item was impacted by this TSA rule put in place without benefit of proper rule making, not just those who had items confiscated by TSA.

Do keep in mind that other citizens/taxpayers will shoulder any monetary awards. DHS/TSA could care less and suffers nothing from having to pay settlements.