sefrischling

I have sought clarification on the wording, but the actual policy announcement was denied ... then I was told it was SSI. So either it does not exist or its SSI ... it can't be both.

Last time I was told a Security Directive did not exist a few weeks ago, I wrote about it in detail (the printer cartridge directive) and the DHS announced it three days later exactly as I had written it. But the TSA and DHS all denied it... you know until they announced it.

I am still working to get clarification I know will never come anyway.

TSAisaJoke

There is no way the airlines will let this fly. God forbid they lose any of their precious dollars or waste fuel by allowing planes only 2/3 full of people take off. Someone from the airlines will put their foot down if checkpoints are actually closed down.

The TSA knows their final days are coming. These are the actions of a bunch of overpaid underqualified bullies who are now afraid of losing their cushy government jobs & I say GOOD! It's about [expletive deleted] time.

Ok so here is the question I've had since day one. Why on earth can't you opt out of the NoS & go through the WTMD? If you don't alarm, you're done!!! Why is this now unacceptable?

DevilDog438

Follow the money...TSA has to justify all of the dollars spent making Chertoff and Soros rich.

JoeBas

Because at that point, who WOULDN'T opt out of the scanner and do the WTMD, which is what everyone is "used to", and is 10x faster?

Saitek

so if they evac the terminal because of this, that means all those people will have to be strip searched and groped again for the SAME flight?

JoeBas

Forget that one terminal, 3 or 4 well-timed terminal closures would bollox the entire system.

Every plane going somewhere, is coming from somewhere.

TXagogo

OUCH - good point.

JoeBas

All between 10AM and 10:30AM EST.

ATL
EWR
ORD
SFO
DEN

Can you imagine? You're talking about 5 people, can cripple the entire US network.

I doubt that terrorists would actually do this, though... why spend $55k (5*11k each in fines) when you can get us to fetch, roll over and play dead for $4,200...

packet

Because if you're a foreign national, who exactly is going to force you to pay? It's a civil fine, not bail. They can do it as much as they want. What's the TSA going to do, garnish their foreign wages?

RoadVeteran

How long after this announcment is made will there be another incident like Mr Tyner in SAN because some smurf/clerk "did not get the memo"?

KwintSommer

I've been seeing the word "radiated" a lot lately and if I may say so, it pains me.

Radiated is what your heater did.

Irradiated is what happened to those who did not opt out.

When you can't even use the correct terminology it does a real disservice to your cause. Every person complaining they got "radiated" makes it that much easier to dismiss what is a very serious issue as nothing more than ignorant fearmongering.

schizoid

If I were younger and had less to lose, I'd throw a baseball through a checkpoint and run like hell out of the airport.

gojirasan

I regard this is a big win for the resistance movement. At least we really do have the right to leave now. Political protests really can work. But this should only motivate us to step up our efforts. Remember we don't actually need a majority of the US sheeple to agree with us. All we need is a large number of people to engage in protests/demonstrations etc.

I have to say that as much as I think the TSA is an evil, anti-American organization, clarifying this was a very humane thing to do. It makes me believe that as bad as the TSA is (and they are bad), they are still at least partially human and don't want people to have to worry about an $11,000 fine because they don't want to be sexually molested. The fine was downright cruel and barbaric.

Of course I am probably being far too generous. They probably clarified their policy (for once!) to make lawsuits and sexual assault/battery prosecutions more difficult etc. High up TSA lawyers probably heard about plans of citizen arrests and formal sexual assault charges and decided that this announcement would be helpful in the event of legal action against their employees, since you really are completely free to leave instead of undergoing the sexual assault. Before it could have been argued that you were being coerced to stay due to the fine. If they were smart they would also require each passenger to at least verbally give formal permission to have their genitals touched/rubbed and to admit that such actions will under no circumstances be interpreted as sexual assault/battery. Asking passengers to formally sign a carefully worded document to that effect would be even smarter. Very evil, but smart.

Of course, this does leave them open to some new DOS attacks. Now that there are no repercussions other than a ticket change fee or none at all with the purchase of a fully refundable ticket, we could have a massive DOOD or Double Opt Out Day. That would slow things down even more and put extra pressure on the airlines for having to refund or change all those tickets from passengers that were denied entry.

I wouldn't recommend that anyone try to reenter unless you are really ready to go to the mat for your rights. The public would be a lot less on your side in any legal battle because that kind of behavior really does seem suspicious. And in a jury trial (which you would certainly want) public opinion does matter. There may also be a slight possibility that you could be shot or at least tazered by an overzealous LEO. Of course, if you are willing to go to jail or even risk injury/death to help keep our country free I will only applaud your actions. It's probably a moot point though because I would imagine that in practice an LEO would continue to watch you outside the airport to make sure you don't try to reenter. A safer approach would be to buy a refundable ticket and just keep rescheduling until you manage to make it through without the nudie-scanner or sexual abuse. I think you would be allowed to keep trying as long as you were willing to wait until the next day.

Nonrefundable tickets can be very expensive, but it is still preferable to having to buy a boat to make a transatlantic/transpacific voyage or to driving all the way across the country etc. Of course this would only work if you are flyiing out of a terminal that has both nude-scanners and metal detectors.

pmocek

The rumored new policy, as described on Steven Frischling's blog, is ridiculous -- just the sort of thing TSA would announce.

So someone who declines to be frisked after being warned about the consequences will be prohibited from ever again trying to cross the TSA barricade and enter the terminal? Or prohibited from doing so for the next few minutes after he's ejected? For weeks afterward? Will TSA keep a list of the names of those people who are banished? Do TSA even have the authority to banish someone from an airport?

If this announcement does come tomorrow, I suspect we won't get answers to these questions. When the rules people are required to follow are not based in law, the details seldom matter.

Ari

Are you sure? There is a huge legal difference between refusing to have your person screened (double opt-out) and submitting your person to screening by passing through a WTMD or an AIT device then wanting to leave if you alarm.

Under the TSA's current policy, a double opt-out is technically permitted to leave (see MD-100.4), so this would clarify that rule for overzealous TSOs. If you can now refuse and leave after submitting your person to screening, then this would indeed be a change in policy. The courts have said detention in the later case is constitutional, so I an surprised that the TSA would backstep on a constitutional policy; I suppose the risk of bad press from these continued detention incidents might be greater than the risk of allowing "those who would do us harm" to probe the system, something that is unlikely.

Obviously they wouldn't catch that. The only thing they could do would be to try to convince the airline to cancel the ticket.