Groping from the TSA. Should it come with dinner and a movie?

When flying, it could cost $10,000 if you don’t let the TSA get to second base.

Today recreational blogger John Tyner’s video-recorded misadventure with TSA agents continues to be disseminated throughout the Internet. The video, which is taken from a cell phone, shows a TSA agent singling-out Tyner for selected screening, which ultimately equated to an attempted enhanced pat down called front of the hand, slide down.

The new security measure started on Nov. 1, 2010 and allows officers to physically pat down and probe traveler’s genitals. In response to the proposed pat down Tyner replied, ”If you touch my junk, I’m gonna have you arrested.”

By entering an airport security line the TSA holds that every traveler has submitted their consent to groping or full strip-search, and the agency will wage a $10,000 civil penalty on anyone who leaves during the screening. Tyner eventually left the airport and is awaiting the lawsuit.

The invasive pat down is the alternative to having a full-body scan that sees through a passenger’s clothing with graphic detail – the device is accurate enough to be deemed a virtual strip-search. In Baltimore, the new device has already earned a nickname from airport agents, the “dick-measuring device.”

This was written in Mother Jones about the TSA’s claim that the screening is not invasive:

The TSA has claimed repeatedly that the scans are not graphic, cannot be stored, that there is “no fondling, squeezing, groping, or any sort of sexual assault taking place at airports,” that pat-downs will be conducted by same-sex officers, and that they improve passenger safety. All of these claims have been proven, at one time or another, false.

Tyner’s tone is irritated throughout the video, and it’s seems like he went into the checkpoint looking to test the new system. Goading traveler or not, Tyner’s video illustrates the effects of these invasive tactics, and gives no excuse to the TSA’s unethical new regulations. By turning an airport into a place where Americans are virtually strip-searched on a massive scale or fondled by government agents, the war on terrorism is yet again furthering invasion of privacy and paranoia throughout America.