I Suppose There’s Always the Bus

By now, John Tyner’s video is national news, as it should be. This has gone too far.

I don’t mind removing my shoes and putting them on the conveyor. It’s a mild inconvenience. The metal detector has been used since the 1970’s without significant complaint, so I’ll comply. If I forget about the steel belt buckle and they have to pass the wand over me, so be it.

But hands on the crotch? Naked body images? Slow down there, tiger. I expect to be romanced first, and airport checkpoints don’t have the ambience for that.

This goes far beyond petty indignity.

No other law enforcement agency in America has the right to do such an invasive search without proving reasonable suspicion based on “specific and articulable facts.” We’ve endured enough of this “post-911 world” nonsense. It’s not keeping us any safer.

When sharp objects were banned, an English petty criminal with wider designs failed to trigger a bomb in his shoe. When triacetone triperoxide failed, they tried peroxides. When that didn’t work, a sexually confused Nigerian attempted to detonate penthrite in his pants.

The common factor is that all of these plots involved awareness of then-current security protocols and the means to bypass them. Sooner or later, someone may get it right. Chances are, we won’t see it coming.

In the meantime, the rest of us have to suffer unacceptable affronts to our privacy in exchange for the illusion of security. This is going to end up in court, and soon.

It won’t be a case brought by the ACLU. It’ll come as part of a criminal appeal. When Mr. Johnson goes to the airport with his 13-year-old daughter and sees a TSA agent groping her breasts, there will likely be a punch thrown.

And I can’t think of many juries that wouldn’t sympathize with him.