TSA: Worse Than You Thought

Jon Corbett over at TSA Out of Our Pants is making his displeasure with the TSA felt and in the process has become a real thorn in their side. After being denied access to his flight when he refused to either enter the scanner or submit to having his genitals groped, he filed suit in November 2010. That suit is now headed for the supreme court: Corbett will shortly file a petition for a writ of certiorari.

Most Irreal readers are aware of the issues involved here and know that what the TSA provides is not security but security theater. I’m sure, therefore, that most of those readers will, like me, consider Corbett a hero.

Now Corbett has outdone himself. On March 6 he posted a video of himself taking a metal object through the scanners (at two different airports) without being detected. The video explains how he did it and why anyone could do the same. That, he claims, renders the billion dollars spent on the scanners wasted. The TSA was to quick to respond in a blog post at tsa.gov. The response was, to say the least, underwhelming. While they did everything they could to disparage Corbett (including refusing to refer to him by name) they didn’t actually dispute his claims. The comments to the post are hilarious in their evisceration of the response.

Now Corbett is reporting that the TSA is threatening the mainstream media not to cover the story. A South Florida reporter told Corbett that the TSA “strongly cautioned” him not to cover the story. As I wrote in my last post on the TSA they have a unique ability to combine heavy-handedness with incompetence. This latest event serves as yet another example.

Corbett is taking donations to help fund his appeal to the Supreme Court. If you can afford a few dollars stop by his site and contribute. The rest of the country will be grateful.

Update: Ken over at Popehat follows up on the cautioning of the reporter(s). BoingBoing also covers the story and has some entertaining comments.

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