Summary: In another lawsuit against the TSA, law student Jonathan Corbett is asking for a new policy to be overturned by federal appeals court.
Law student Jonathan Corbett has asked for the federal appeals court to be overturned regarding the Transportation Security Administration’s policy on full-body scanners. The new policy announced last week by the TSA will require some travelers to use full-body scanners at airports even when they ask for a pat-down search instead.
While the TSA does not expect the policy to affect many people, they made the change primarily “for some passengers as warranted by security considerations.” Full-body scanners can detect non-metallic weapons that are hidden under clothing.
Corbett has sued the TSA a number of times since 2010 for a variety of reasons. He prides himself as being a “troublemaker,” blogging about his legal actions and thoughts at professional-troublemaker.com.
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In his filing, Corbett cites his own experience of flying over 150,000 miles on over 100 flights in the past two years and asking for a pat-down over a full-body scan. The TSA estimates only 2 percent of travelers prefer pat-downs but that calculates to around 14 million people each year. The reasons for opting for a pat-down over full-body scan include concerns over their physical appearance, inability to walk through a scanner, and the pose in which one stands for the scan.
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Corbett argues the lack of travelers’ rights to refuse saying, “This requirement is particularly odious because passengers do not retain the right to discontinue screening and leave the checkpoint without flying.” Travelers can be fined up to $11,000 for refusing to be scanned.
There is also the argument against the TSA that they never posted a final ruling when they started using full-body scanners in 2007. They collected over 5,500 comments in 2013 regarding the scanners but never finished the survey process because Corbett claims 95 percent of the comments were negative.
The Competitive Enterprises Institute has filed a separate lawsuit against the TSA which will be ruled on in March.
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/12/24/court-challenge-tsa-change-full-body-scans/77873878/
Photo: forbes.com