CNN: "TSA: Despite objections, all passengers must be screened"

From CNN:

TSA: Despite objections, all passengers must be screened

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- In response to a video of a California man's dispute with airport security officials, the Transportation Security Administration said Monday it tries to be sensitive to individuals, but everyone getting on a flight must be screened.

The video, in which software engineer John Tyner refuses an X-ray scan at the San Diego, California, airport, has sparked a debate over screening procedures.

Tyner told CNN Sunday that he was surprised to see so many people take an interest in his refusal, and the dispute with airport screeners that followed it. But he said he hoped the video will focus attention on what he calls a government invasion of privacy.

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Tyner, 31, said his hunting trip to South Dakota was cut short before it even started Saturday morning -- when TSA agents asked him to go through an X-ray machine.

"I don't think that the government has any business seeing me naked as a condition of traveling about the country," Tyner said.

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The cell phone video Tyner recorded of his arguments with security screeners over the scan and pat-down they proposed had garnered more than 80,000 hits on YouTube early Monday morning.

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Tyner said that after he declined the body scan, a TSA agent told him he could have a pat-down instead. Once the procedure was described, Tyner said he responded, "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested."  [Emphasis added]

The dispute that followed, Tyner said, included police escorting him from the screening area and a supervisor saying he could be faced with a civil lawsuit for leaving the airport before security had finished screening him.

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"Advanced imaging technology screening is optional for all passengers," TSA said in a statement released Monday. "Passengers who opt out of [advanced imaging] screening will receive alternative screening, including a physical pat-down."

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The TSA's advanced imaging technology machines use two separate means of creating images of passengers -- backscatter X-ray technology and millimeter-wave technology.

At the end of October, 189 backscatter units and 152 millimeter-wave machines were in use in more than 65 airports. The total number of imaging machines is expected to be near 1,000 by the end of 2011, according to the TSA.

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Grassroots groups are urging travelers to either not fly or to protest by opting out of the full-body scanners and undergo time-consuming pat-downs instead.

Industry leaders are worried about the backlash. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano met with leaders of travel industry groups to discuss the concerns.

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