Logic for not flying
 

OK, folks, I just drew up the following logic:

- I will not submit to a scope-or-grope, nor do I intend to break any laws or wind up in custody, court, or even having to lawyer up.

- If I arrived at an airport and got "selected" for scope-or-grope, my preferred method would be to turn around, return to ticketing, and ask for my luggage back, fully understanding that I'd lose the ticket price. Then go to the nearest bus station and make my way back home.

- Once a TSO selects you for scope-or-grope, you are legally bound to choose one or the other; it's illegal to refuse and turn around.

- Since 100% of my air travel is personal, I tend to buy my tickets months in advance, therefore, whatever this forum says about Nude-O-Scopes might be null and void by the time I actually arrive at the airport.

Conclusion: flying in the USA makes you vulnerable to being forced, by law, to select a scope-or-grope. Therefore, I'm done flying in the USA.

In the near future, I was planning to fly to EYW in July and MHT in August. These are both small-ish airports, as is my home TLH. But that's no guarantee that the Nude-O-Scopes won't be waiting for me when I show up.

Rather logical....
 

...but chances are you could emerge from the plain ol' magnetic gate and get frisked.

So even if you don't alarm the WTMD you can still be selected for a grope? Well that's just peachy. I guess that's my time to turn around and try to leave. We'll see how that works out for me. :td:

Fair enough.

It has been speculated that the TSA will try to stop you even though they do not have the authority to detain you. They will certainly call an LEO who will try to find you.

IMO, the best approach if you really want to avoid legal hassles at that point is to double opt out by saying "I opt out of the scanner and the patdown. Please call over a police officer immediately. I will wait." IMO, you want to be the one to request the LEO. Not them. No matter what you will be dealing with the airport police, but you want to frame the incident in your terms, not theirs. As soon as you double opt out the TSA becomes irrelevant. Theoretically you could even ignore them if you like. Just step out of the way of the other passengers. Their best case against you seems to be for causing a disruption. If they grab you for any reason they could be liable for assault and battery charges. They are not LEOs and do not have such authority.

When the LEO approaches I would simply tell him that I have opted out of the nude scanner due to the privacy/safety issues and I also opt out of the enhanced patdown due to not wanting to have my genitals massaged by a stranger. If you want you can add that you believe both to be unreasonable searches and fourth amendment violations. If the officer gives you a hard time in any way or tells you that you will not be able to leave the airport if you don't submit to a patdown then go into the standard "Am I being detained? Am I free to go?".

[citation needed]

[citation needed]

Fair enough, but that may not be completely necessary. I believe a TSO here stated that he would guess you have about a 1 in 5 chance of being selected for the NoS. That gives you an 80% chance on each leg of avoiding the opt-out grope. Of course you still have to get past the standard secondary screening grope. I have no idea what the odds are for that. I seem to get them frequently but I may be on a list of some kind. Still I believe it would be fair to say that, as long as you are not an attractive female, you have a greater than 50% chance of not being groped for each trip departure.

Also there are still some smaller, regional airports that don't yet have the scanners. In those airports you only have to avoid the secondary screening grope, which makes your chances of getting on your plane much, much higher.

MHT doesn't have the scanners yet. Although they could have them by July. Check the list and maybe ask around to see if EYW or TLH have the scanners. In the end it is up to you whether you want to risk being harrassed, yelled at, and illegally detained for a double opt out, but I do believe that the more people DOOP (Double Opt Out as Protest) the better it will be for the resistance.

I can personally vouch for that. I have never set off a WTMD and have had secondary screenings many times.

Remember what goes on at airport checkpoints is an administrative search. While it might carry a civil penalty there is nothing illegal about refusing an additional search.

A LEO (probably several) will undoubtedly be called, run a NCIC check, interrogate you and possibly perform a criminal frisk (which is less objectionable than the TSA version). Ultimately if you continue to refuse they will eventually let you leave.

There's a thread on here somewhere in which someone did exactly that.

IANAL

Is this where the civil penalty of $11,000 comes in? Refusing to complete the security check?

The TSA has announced that there will not be any $11,000 fines. That passengers are free to walk without penalty if they Double Opt Out. People have speculated that stance is being taken due to larger legal implications. That man who did double opt-out has not being fined.

Oh, thank you. I hadn't heard that. That was one of the reasons I haven't been flying. I am afraid that if they touch me, I might freak out, and then incur huge fines that I can't afford.

I haven't flown since I found out about the enhanced pat downs.

I've thought about flying recently, as long as I only have to go through the metal detector. I have never been frisked, and not sure how I would handle it. :(

Citation?

That doesn't look like a "TSA announcement" to me.

I guess I shouldn't have called it a "TSA announcement". The travel blogger claims that is what the TSA told him and that the TSA would be announcing the clarified opt-out policy soon. But it has been nearly a week and no sign of any announcement. I suspect that even if that is their real policy they are not going to announce it.

Here is the FT thread on that article BTW. Since some seem to have missed it.

So basically it is an uncomfirmed report of an alleged TSA policy. It's good enough for me to test out, but it may not be good enough for you.

SSI, Citizen. We can't have you "fares" quoting our policy back at us, now can we ?

Perfectly logical, and why I won't fly if I have any choice in the matter either. (If I do fly, it now has to be something so important that I'm willing to trade all my bodily privacy for it.)

Yes, you can get selected for patdown even without alarming the WTMD. This happens to my husband frequently -- he thinks it's because he frequently flies with a case of photography equipment, and the TSA considers that suspicious in some way. While they test his equipment with the sniffer, they pat him down. (Wow, that sentence sounds a lot dirtier than I meant for it to sound...)

I also spent a lot of time mulling over whether I'll choose scope or grope, if I absolutely have to fly. I decided on grope, even though I find that more personally upsetting. My logic for that: If I go for the scope, there's a decent chance I'll get groped anyway. Seems like anything from an underwire bra, to a sanitary napkin, to a fold in my clothing, could look unusual on the scope and trigger a pat-down. Might as well just get it over with in the first place.

And furthermore, with the grope, at least the person experiencing my junk is doing it to my face, and I can identify them. With the scope, I have no idea who is looking at my picture or what they might be doing with it (commenting on it over the radio, taking a cell phone camera picture of it, etc.).

That's been something of my rational too. I'm likely to get the grope either way due to an underwire bra, or a sanitary napkin. Also if someone is going to violate my 4th Amendment Rights, I'm going to at least make them look me in the eye while their doing it rather than let them do so in anonymity.