Legislative Leaders, ACLU Ask Congress to Review New TSA Screening

Vote in the latest Herald online poll: Will TSA regulations stop you from flying this holiday season?
The mass exodus for the holiday weekend will begin this week kicking off the holiday travel season.
In late October, the TSA implemented more invasive patdown rules that are leaving some questioning whether flying is the better option. Travelers and pilots are now faced with have a revealing, full-body scan or a security patdown procedure that includes the touching of passengers’ inner thighs and women’s breasts.
Earlier this week a secretly recorded video by a 31 year-old California software engineer exposed what some are equating to a “sexual molestation” or “sexual assault.”
In the video posted on YouTube a TSA screener can be heard explaining in detail how he will go about feeling John Tyner’s groin.
“If you touch my junk, I’m going to have you arrested,” Tyner told the male screener.
A supervisor comes over, explains the groin check and tells Tyner, according to the cell-phone recording: “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 female supervisor.
“It would be if you were not the government,” Tyner said. He then adds: “I’d like only my wife and maybe my doctor to touch me there.”
The invasion of privacy is not the only concern with the body scanners. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who landed a U.S. Airways flight on the Hudson River last year, told CNN’s American Morning he opposes the new full-body scanners for flight personnel due to their radiation risk.
The New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union joined bi-partisan legislators to reject “invasive” TSA measures on Mon. Nov. 15, at the Statehouse.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey said in a press release they will stand alongside legislative leaders from both sides of the aisle to support a resolution asking the United States Congress to review new TSA screening procedures at airports that violate privacy, and provide little in the way of security enhancements.
“This technology involves a direct invasion of privacy,” said ACLU-NJ executive director Deborah Jacobs, “It produces strikingly graphic images of passengers’ bodies, essentially taking a naked picture of air passengers as they pass through security checkpoints.”
The ACLU maintains that the likely effectiveness of such a technology in preventing attacks does not justify the level of intrusion involved.
Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D-1st) said he applauds his colleagues from both sides of the isle for wanting to second look at this including the radiation exposure to frequent flyers. “As we go through these trying times people need to keep their freedom, their dignity and their health”, he said.
“There is an old saying by Benjamin Franklin, ‘Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one,’ and I think that’s very true,” Van Drew said.