On The Front Lines
TSA Agrees to Exempt Pilots from Scanners & Full-Body 'Rub-Downs' After Rutherford Files Lawsuit
WASHINGTON, DC -- Within days of The Rutherford Institute filing a Fourth Amendment lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Transportation Security Agency (TSA) over its security screening procedures for airline pilots, the TSA has announced that it is amending its policy to exempt pilots from having to submit to either full-body scans or enhanced pat-down searches.
In a press release issued today, TSA Administrator John Pistole stated that the agency is immediately modifying security procedures to allow U.S. air carrier pilots to pass through security by showing airline-issued identification and another form of identification.
The Rutherford Institute filed a lawsuit on Tues., Nov. 16, on behalf of two airline pilots who refused to submit to airport security screening involving full-body scanners or enhanced pat-down searches, which involve groping of persons' intimate areas. The Institute's lawsuit asks the court to prohibit DHS and TSA from continuing to unlawfully use full-body scanners and newly-implemented enhanced pat-down procedures as the first line of airport security screening.
The complaint in Michael Roberts, et al., v. Janet Napolitano, et al. is available here.
"Although the TSA's concession may make it easier for pilots to travel, American passengers will still be subjected to these full-body scans and invasive pat downs in violation of the Fourth Amendment," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "No American, pilot or passenger, should be forced to undergo a virtual strip search or subjected to such excessive groping of the body as a matter of course in reporting to work or boarding an airplane when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. To do so violates human dignity and the U.S. Constitution, and goes against every good and decent principle this country was founded upon."
Collectively, Michael Roberts, a pilot for ExpressJet Airlines, Inc., and Ann Poe, a pilot on the Boeing 777 for Continental Airlines and one of the first 100 women commercial airline pilots in the United States, have more than 50 years of piloting experience and thousands of hours of combined flight time.
In two separate incidents taking place on Oct. 15, 2010, and Nov. 4, 2010, respectively, TSA screeners asked Roberts and Poe, who were on their way to work, to submit to full-body scanning or be subjected to a full pat-down frisk of their persons. Upon refusing, both pilots were prevented from passing through security, and unable to report to work on the days in question and since then.
The only alternative to the full-body scan, which has been likened to a "virtual strip-search," is an enhanced pat-down in which a TSA screener presses their "open hands and fingers over most parts of an individual's body including the breasts, and uses the back of the hands when touching the buttocks. Additionally, officers slide their hands all the way from the inner thigh up to the groin until the hand cannot venture any higher because it is literally stopped by the person's groin."
The complaint alleges that these procedures amount to an unreasonable search and seizure of airline employees and travelers passing through security. DHS continues to rapidly deploy full-body scanners throughout U.S. airports, with 491 machines to be deployed by December 2010, and an additional 500 machines in 2011. However, a growing number of Americans are voicing concerns about the impact of the scanners on their privacy rights and the risks they pose to travelers' health.
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