Rutherford targets airline screening scansBy Brandon Shulleeta
The Rutherford Institute is poised to file a second lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, claiming controversial new airport security searches violate passengers? constitutional rights.
The new suit would be filed on behalf of a group of passengers the nonprofit considers egregious examples of travelers who have been stripped of their dignity and constitutional rights.
?When you have women crying after this experience, something?s wrong,? Rutherford Institute President John W. Whitehead said late last week.
The Albemarle County-based institute, which provides free legal assistance for people alleging constitutional rights violations, has received an estimated 500 complaints, Whitehead said.
?I?d say the most complaints have been from women who don?t like touching of the pelvic region,? he said. ?But a lot of guys don?t like the groping of their you-know-what.?
Enhanced airport security measures at airports throughout the U.S. have caused a national uproar in recent weeks. Many airports are conducting full-body scans ? aimed at detecting explosives and other dangerous items hidden on people?s bodies ? that produce unclothed images of passengers. Travelers can opt of the scans in favor of enhanced pat-downs from TSA workers.
The Rutherford Institute already is representing two out-of-work pilots in a lawsuit that claims their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches were violated. The pilots were told they must undergo the same enhanced security methods as passengers as prerequisites to operating planes.
Pilot Michael Roberts refused and was placed on unpaid administrative leave.
?They can see whether a man is circumcised or a woman is menstruating. They can see everything,? Roberts said during a Fox News TV interview.
?If I don?t show it to them,? Roberts said, ?then they insist on touching it, and if I don?t let them do either one of those things, then my only option is to go home.?
Though the TSA agreed Friday to exempt pilots from enhanced pat-downs and full body scans ? in exchange for showing government- and company-issued photo IDs ? Whitehead said the pilots do not plan to drop their lawsuit.
?They will still go forward,? Whitehead said. ?They have a damage claim. The female pilot was groped very badly. ? Michael Roberts was led from the airport, treated like a criminal.?
TSA and U.S. Department of Homeland Security heads John S. Pistole and Janet Napolitano are named as defendants in the pilots? lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in D.C.
The increased airport security follows a failed attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, known as the underwear bomber, to set off explosives concealed in his underwear on an airplane, but the device was faulty. The TSA?s Pistole has told Congress that Abdulmutallab would have been caught before being seated on the plane had he undergone an enhanced pat-down.
The Rutherford Institute argues that the enhanced pat-downs and whole body image scans, when used as a primary security method without suspicion of passenger wrong-doing, violates the Fourth Amendment.
?In this country, the rule is: You don?t pat people down, you don?t search them, you don?t essentially strip search ? [which] is what the body scanner?s doing ? unless there?s a reasonable suspicion they?re involved in criminal activity,? Whitehead contended in an interview. ?What that does [is] that protects us from a police state, where the police can do whatever they want to do to you. The Fourth Amendment doesn?t allow for that.?
Whitehead said he expects to file a second lawsuit within the next couple of weeks on behalf of passengers who say they were violated.
?The stories are very similar, because they?re doing a very similar method ? the slide method where they go up into the buttocks, up into the crotch area, under breasts, over breasts and touching them,? Whitehead said.
While some medical professionals have said passengers being repeatedly exposed to the scanning radiation could pose health hazards, the TSA has contended that the radiation levels are minimal.
http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2010/nov/20/rutherford-targets-airline-screening-scans-ar-667519/
