Two F-15 fighter jets escorted a passenger jet that had been headed for Hawaii back to Portland International Airport in Oregon after a passenger in coach became “uncooperative,” an airline official said Wednesday.

thanks again to facebook group: f*** the tsa

Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy.

Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list.

“Meet Mikey Hicks,” said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person. “It’s not a myth.”

thanks again to facebook group: f*** the tsa

Special thanks to the group on Facebook: F*** The TSA

http://www.mybottlesup.com/tsa-agents-took-my-son/

The female TSA agent stood in front of me while I sat with Jackson and she continued to watch luggage come through the conveyor belt.

“Ma’am, can someone please just search me so we can be on our way? We are going to miss our flight,” I said.

The female agent then called an older gentleman, also a TSA agent over. The male TSA agent stood in front of me and said “I’m going to have to pat down your son.”

With Jackson still sitting in my lap (he was being so good despite all of this chaos) I said ok and continued to hold on to my son, expecting the male TSA agent to start touching Jackson.

He then told me, “I’m going to have to pick him up to inspect him.”

I rolled my eyes and sternly told him “It’s his pacifier clip that went off, can’t you just run that back through the belt and let us go. We are going to miss our flight.”

The female TSA agent, who had been standing there the entire time said to me, “You need to adjust your attitude and do as you are told.”

The male TSA agent repeated, “I’m going to have to pick him up to inspect him.”

I handed him my son.

I handed him my son and he walked away with my child.

My eyes welled up with tears, I stood up from my chair and I asked the female TSA agent, “Where is he going? Where is he taking my child? Why is he leaving?”

Jackson, while being whisked away looked at the male TSA agent awkwardly and repeated “no no no no.”

I started crying.

The female TSA agent did not answer me.

Panic set in. My hands began to shake. My body was sweating. My breath was short and my heart was racing.

They had taken my child and not told me.

The good news is that some parts of the PATRIOT Act could expire at the end of the year. This provides an opportunity to roll back many of these dangerous provisions. Toward this end Senator Russ Feingold introduced the JUSTICE Act (S. 1686) on September 17, Constitution Day. JUSTICE stands for the Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts.

Won’t you visit them?

from http://www4.infoweb.net/l/news.php.

In addition to wrassling this obvious enemy of the state to the ground, the good folks at the TSA use an elbow to the head to push her face down, twist her arms to the breaking point to handcuff her and finally lead her away.

Reason?

A spokesman from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority says that Kassner, “was interfering with the screening process and refusing to follow security procedures.”

dean cameron, steve bierfeldt, matt holdridge

I’m on the left, Steve’s in the center and another Campaign For Liberty hero, Matt Holdridge, is on the right. This is us backstage at the Penn & Teller Theater at the Penn & Teller show at the beautiful Rio in Las Vegas, Nevada.

He is so nice, soft-spoken and modest. If you haven’t listened to the audio of the incident, you might want to. Goodness gracious.

Take a look:

I Am Not Afraid

Steve Bierfeldt is accusing the Transportation Security Administration of “harassing interrogation.”

On a recording a TSA agent can be heard berating Bierfeldt. One sample: “You want to play smartass, and I’m not going to play your f**king game.”

Bierfeldt is director of development for the Campaign for Liberty, an outgrowth of the Ron Paul presidential campaign. He was returning from a regional conference March 29 when TSA screeners at Lambert-St. Louis (Illinois) International Airport saw a metal cash box in his carry-on bag. Inside was more than $4,700 dollars in cash — proceeds from the sale of political merchandise like T-shirts and books.

There are no restrictions on carrying large sums of cash on flights within the United States, but the TSA allegedly took Bierfeldt to a windowless room and, along with other law enforcement agencies, questioned him for almost half an hour about the money.

The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up Bierfeldt’s cause and is suing Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, whose department includes the TSA. Their complaint alleges that Bierfeldt was “subjected to harassing interrogation, and unlawfully detained.”

Larry Schwartztol of the ACLU said the TSA is suffering from mission creep.

“We think what happened to Mr. Bierfeldt is a reflection that TSA believes passenger screening is an opportunity to engage in freewheeling law enforcement investigations that have no link to flight safety,” he said.

Schwartztol believes many other passengers have been subjected to the same kind of treatment, which he claims violates constitutional protections against unlawful searches.

The TSA wouldn’t comment on the lawsuit, but said in a statement that the movement of large amounts of cash through a checkpoint may be investigated “if suspicious activity is suspected.”

Unbeknownst to the TSA agents, Bierfieldt had activated the record application on his phone and slipped it into his pocket. It captured the entire conversation.

An excerpt:

Officer: Why do you have this money? That’s the question, that’s the major question.

Bierfeldt: Yes, sir, and I’m asking whether I’m legally required to answer that question.

Officer: Answer that question first, why do you have this money.

Bierfeldt: Am I legally required to answer that question?

Officer: So you refuse to answer that question?

Bierfeldt: No, sir, I am not refusing.

Officer: Well, you’re not answering.

Bierfeldt: I’m simply asking my rights under the law.

The officers can be heard saying they will involve the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration, and appear to threaten arrest, saying they are going to transport Bierfeldt to the local police station, in handcuffs if necessary.

Bierfeldt told CNN he believes their behavior was inappropriate.

“You’re in a locked room with no windows. You’ve got TSA agent. You’ve got police officers with loaded guns. They’re in your face. A few of them were swearing at me.”

But the officers did not follow through on their threats. Near the end of the recording an additional officer enters the situation and realizes the origins of the money.

Officer: So these are campaign contributions for Ron Paul?

Bierfeldt: Yes, sir.

Officer: You’re free to go.

According to the TSA, “Passengers are required to cooperate with the screening process. Cooperation may involve answering questions about their property. A passenger who refuses to answer questions may be referred to appropriate authorities for further inquiry”

Bierfeldt contends he never refused to answer a question, he only sought to clarify his constitutional rights.

“I asked them, ‘Am I required by law to tell you what you’re asking me? Am I required to tell you where I am working? Am I required to tell you how I got the cash? Nothing I’ve done is suspicious. I’m not breaking any laws. I just want to go to my flight. Please advise me as to my rights.’ And they didn’t.”

The TSA says disciplinary action has been taken against one of its employees for inappropriate tone and language.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/20/tsa.lawsuit/index.html

Penn & Teller put airport security to the test

Penn & Teller put airport security to the test

Updated 5/15/2009 9:27 AM

Penn & Teller are the resident headliners at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

By Harriet Baskas, special for USA TODAY
Like many travelers, the infamous, eccentric, libertarian-leaning magicians known as Penn & Teller have a gripe with airport security. “What really bothers us about the TSA is not the men and women employed there,” says Penn Jillette, the taller, more talkative (at least on stage) member of the performance team. “We’re just against the idea of people allowing themselves to give up freedoms when confronted with fear.”
Jillette says both he and Teller used to really love being on the road. They’d been touring since the mid-1970s, but after the events of September 11, 2001, the experience lost, well, some of its magic. “We were both getting older, I wanted to have kids, and that was certainly part of it. But we also just seemed to be getting our hearts broken every time we went through airport security. We’re often recognized and we are always treated very well by the TSA employees, but it bothered us to see other people getting hassled and it made being on the road much less fun.”

So in 2002, the pair leaped at an opportunity to become the resident headliners at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Their fast-paced, awe-inspiring magic shows include guns, wood-chippers and nail guns, and are laced with laughter-inducing and, at times, biting commentary, but rarely will you hear anything overtly political. They do, however, have a few bits that touch on basic issues of rights. A long-running bit that entails wrapping the flag in the Constitution and then lighting it on fire is as much a chance to make people think about the First Amendment as is it to dazzle the audience with expert sleight of hand. And a brand new bit for which Penn & Teller purchased their very own TSA-style metal detector creates a platform for discussing the Fourth Amendment, the section of the Bill of Rights that addresses unreasonable searches and seizures.

“The bit is essentially comparing magicians, who earn their living by doing things that are sneaky and disingenuous, with bad people who do things that are sneaky and disingenuous,” Jillette explains. And because he’s confident that not too many people who see their show will read this column, or remember reading it when they visit Las Vegas, he gave me the OK to tell you what happens:

In addition to that real metal detector, Penn & Teller bring out one of those wands we’ve all had waved over us at the airport when the change in our pocket or the wire from our bra causes the machinery to beep. An audience member is invited up on stage to make sure the equipment is working, and when Jillette’s pocket beeps he hands over a playing-card-sized piece of metal that just happens to have the Bill of Rights printed on it with the Fourth Amendment highlighted. Jillette says it usually elicits a big laugh when he gives the audience-assistant the mini-metal Bill of Rights and tells him how much fun it will be if he keeps it in pocket when going through the security checkpoint at McCarran International Airport.

Read the rest of the article:   Harriet Baskas writes about travel etiquette for MSNBC.com and is the author of the airport guidebook Stuck at the Airport and a blog of the same name.