TSA authorities can fine you $10,000 for leaving the airport
 

After refusing to go through the body scanner, and refusing to have his junk touched by a TSA agent, a man is threatened by airport security, who tell him he'll face a $10,000 fine and civil lawsuit.

They've gone too far. I'm actually tempted to action about this. Friends of mine are picketing/leafletting PHL the day before T-giving.

there's apparently quite a backlash about the scanning machines--pilots refusing, grass roots movement, etc. Although this guy went in there primed to make a scene, imo, so I'm not too sympathetic to him.

He says he went there because the TSA website indicated there was no xray there.

There were 13,531,058 commercial passenger flights in 2008. If you take that number and multiply it out over the last 8 years, when security had gotten a lot tighter since 9/11, you get about 100 million US flights since 9/11 with not a single plane taken down by terrorists.

The tightened security since 9/11 has worked. Not a single plane has come down. 100 million!

The numbers are not a compelling argument that we need these new extremely invasive security techniques.

Our founding fathers wouldn't be able to recognize us. What a bunch of pussies this country has become. We are so afraid of an infinitesimal risk of terrorism that we are willing to give up all our personal freedoms.

Amen !

TSA screeners pat down three-year-old, putting her into a screaming fit of terror. Do you feel safe now?

FWIW - Anyone think terrorists wouldn't use a kid?

And even at three she looks like a little Muslim, doncha think?

Shrug.
It's a three year old having a tantrum.
I'm not saying the checks are necessary for security, but if the checks are decided to be necessary then parents need to be aware and able to deal with it. I am assuming this child did not have any kind of syndrome that produced this reaction of course.

I've seen children in similar screaming fits in supermarkets/ shopping centres/ pubs - the culprits? Their own mothers.

I suggest that a certain amount of getting precious about children has lead to the increase in the compensation culture. Technically I am not supposed to hug or cuddle a child, touch their hair or help undressing (for PE) or dressing. In reality I do all of the above (inc wiping noses, washing off mud, admiring wobbly teeth etc) because children are people and in order to develop socially they need reactions to their behaviour.

(nods). oh . . . you mean the little girl?

I'd be happy to sacrifice my "modesty" in favor of not getting blown up. In fact, I'd prance naked through the airport if it would save lives. Don't be a pussy--go through the damn machine.

It's for crap like that is the reason I don't fly.

It's not sexual assault when the government does it.

As I said above - I remove children's clothes. It's certainly not sexual assault. At least draw the line at intention.
In which case, neither was the clip.

Based on the dude's description, he cashed in the ticket and was accosted by the TSA guys afterwards demanding that he return to the security checkpoint, which he no longer had reason to pass through, in fact, by TSA rules, since he wasn't a ticket holder, couldn't BE on the far side of the security checkpoint. I don't get how that would be a fine-able situation.

Do you ever put your hand directly on their genitals?

Quite possibly.
But it wasn't my intention.

I've never been in the situation where a child is screaming - I'd back off immediately if they were. But I've never worked in an airoprt where searching people has been deemed necessary.

I completely reject the idea that the person in the clip was copping a feel.