TSA ejects Oceanside man from airport for refusing security check



SAN DIEGO — John Tyner won't be pheasant hunting in South Dakota with his father-in-law any time soon.

Tyner was simultaneously thrown out of San Diego International Airport on Saturday morning for refusing to submit to a security check and threatened with a civil suit and $10,000 fine if he left.

And he got the whole thing on his cell phone. Well, the audio at least.

The 31-year-old Oceanside software programmer was supposed to leave from Lindbergh Field on Saturday morning and until a TSA agent directed him toward one of the recently installed full-body scanners, Tyner seemed to be on his way.

Tyner balked.

He'd been reading about the scanners and didn't like them for a number of reasons, ranging from health concerns to "a huge invasion of privacy." He'd even checked the TSA website which indicated that San Diego did not have the machines, he said in a phone interview Saturday night.

"I was surprised to see them," said Tyner.

He also did something that may seem odd to some, manipulative to others but fortuitous to plenty of others for whom Tyner is becoming something of a folk hero: Tyner turned on his cell phone's video camera and placed it atop the luggage he sent through the x-ray machine.

He may not be the first traveler tossed from an airport for security reasons but he could well be the first to have the whole experience captured on his cell phone.

During the next half-hour, his cell phone recorded Tyner refusing to submit to a full body scan, opting for the traditional metal scanner and a basic "pat down" -- and then refusing to submit to a "groin check" by a TSA security guard.

He even told the guard, "You touch my junk and I'm going to have you arrested."

That threat triggered a code red of sorts as TSA agents, supervisors and eventually the local police gravitated to the spot where the reluctant traveler stood in his stocking feet, his cell phone sitting in the nearby bin (which he wasn't allowed to touch) picking up the audio.

According to TSA at the time the controversial body scanners were installed, travelers would have the option to request walking through the traditional metal detector but that option would be accompanied by a "pat down."

Why Tyner was targeted for a secondary pat down is unknown.

Asked if he thought he looked like a terrorist, Tyner said no. "I'm 6-foot-1, white with short brown hair," he said Saturday night.

Was he singled out for "punishment"?

Before Tyner was told he was getting a "groin check," a TSA agent is heard on the recording telling another agent "I had a problem with the passenger I was patting down. So I backed down. He was obnoxious."

Tyner is sure he was talking about someone else. On the whole, with a single final exception, he found the agents "professional if standoffish."

He did marvel that while his own situation was being deliberated, many passengers passed through the metal detector and on to their flights with no pat-down. "One guy even set off the alarm and they sent him through again without a pat-down," he said.

Once he threatened to have the TSA agent arrested though, events turned surreal.

A supervisor is heard re-explaining the groin check process to Tyner then adding "If you're not comfortable with that, we can escort you back out and you don't have to fly today."

Tyner responded "OK, I don't understand how a sexual assault can be made a condition of my flying."

"This is not considered a sexual assault," replied the supervisor, calmly.

"It would be if you were not the government," said Tyner.

"By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights," countered the TSA supervisor.

"I think the government took them away after 9/11," said Tyner.

"OK," came the reply.


More senior TSA administrators showed up, and one San Diego police officer. Tyner's personal information was taken down and then he was escorted out of the security area. After he put his shoes back.

His father-in-law, a 40-year retired deputy sheriff, can be heard pleading in the back ground for some common sense.

Tyner went over to the American Airlines counter where an agent, to his amazement, refunded the price of his non-refundable ticket.

Before he could leave, however, he was again surrounded by TSA employees who told him he couldn't leave the security area. One, who kept insisting he was trying to help Tyner, told him that if he left he would be subject to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine.

Tyner asked if the agents who had escorted him from the security area would also be sued and fined.

The same man who told Tyner he would be sued and fined if he left, also insisted that he did not tell him he couldn't leave.

So Tyner left.

Two hours later he wrote the whole experience up on his blog and posted the audio files to YouTube.

You could say it has gone viral.

By Saturday evening, 70,000 people had accessed the entry and 488 comments were posted to the blog item. Those comments are divided over Tyner's experience. "Only 5 percent say I'm an idiot," he said.

Far more applaud him for "standing up" to the security forces. Many more people share his disdain for how airport security is conducted.

"People generally are angry about what is going on," said Tyner, "but they don't know how to assert their rights....there is a general feeling that TSA is ineffective, out of control, over-reaching."

If Tyner has touched some undercurrent of resentment, he doesn't want to be the guy who leads the charge to overturn the machines. "I'm not so sure I'm the right person to start a movement," he said.

If he isn't, he can sound at times like he's auditioning for the job.

Tyner points out that every terrorist act on an airplane has been halted by passengers. "It's time to stop treating passengers like criminals and start treating them as assets," he said.


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/14/tsa-ejects-oceanside-man-airport-refusing-security/

Dude is a douchebag

Good for him!

Even better for his Mom!!!!!!!!!!


The dude is 31 and his step-father is freaking 40?


WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW

TSA people are rent-a-cops that hate their lives even more than regular rent-a-cops.

Luckily if you travel most airports have "cut" lines for business and frequent travelers. I have never been hassled in these lines, where going through the regular line you stand about a 1 in 10 chance of getting a in-depth (basically raped) search.

Father started his carreer as fetus.

SBP

Re-read it a third time.

You're still wrong.

I caught it before reading this atleast. tilted and erased my arguement. Yeah I guess I'm a bigger d-bag than him.

Onestep for TSA agent of the year.

No search = no fly. Pretty much been the rule all along, afaik.

Also, being loud/making scene is a surefire way get yourself barred from flying.

i understand personal freedoms and everything, but how much of a prude/homophobe/attention whore must you be, to turn such a trivial process into a big ordeal.

it's only sexual assault if someone grabs your junk without consent. when you're flying you either stop being a bitch and walk through that big fucking scary cancer machine, or you let someone grab your sack. if not, stay the fuck home.

these people are douchebags who think they are special. they have a problem with authority, even if it's some rent-a-cop loser who has the unfortunate job of touching balls all day.

you should have stopped right there and this post would have been worth reading.

O well, if Ryland the ball sniffer's poker career dries up I'm sure his ball sniffing skils are easily transferable to working for TSA.

I know it's not practical for most people given the time constraints they have to operate under but for me the only way to travel is road trip.




Highly recommended whenever possible....

I haven't flown in years, and after reading about all of this nonsense certainly won't be flying in the near future.

The piece of this I don't understand is how a person can be put in a situation where their ONLY three options are:

1. Get blasted with radiation and have someone see their naked body.

2. Get molested

3. Leave and face a $10,000 fine

Where am I agreeing to these terms when I purchase an airline ticket and enter an airport? Is this information posted outside of the airport?

And from all appearances, these "random" screenings that take place at airports where not everyone gets screened are mysteriously happening quite often to young attractive women. Thanks TSA. I can't wait for the inevitable "TSA employee caught jerking off to scanner images" scandal.

And they have authorization to do this to children as young as 13. Why was 13 the cutoff point for this? Why not 18? I mean, this screening process is basically a field day for pedophiles to either feel up or see naked images of 13 year olds. How is that legal?

I can't believe how tilted I am over this, but it's ridiculous.

What sucks is that there isn't enough organization amongst citizens to fight stuff like this.

http://nation.foxnews.com/tsa/2010/11/1 ... slim-women

I mean, this is just LOLOLOLWTFWTFWTFWTFHYACHACHACHACHACHA on so many levels.

So a demographic that seems to be statstically more likely to commit an act of terror doesn't have to go through the body scanners and gets a much less invasive and less thorough pat-down.



I don't get it.

I'll respond to my own post. Apparently, CAIR is asking the TSA to agree to not give the full pat-down to muslim women. No indication of whether the TSA will actually comply with that.

You do realize this country is not going to make it? The sooner you accept this reality and plan for the future the happier and better off you will be. Don't think for one second any of this is going to turn around and things will get better. They aren't supposed to, we have been engineered to fail (as a country I mean).

Yes, I do realize that, and accept it. I just hoped it would't happen in my lifetime, or at least, not this early in my lifetime.