Yet Further On the Pat Downs

Your "what!?" moment of the day, courtesy of the TSA blog (apparently, not a joke):

...And finally, the $10,000.00 question of the day… Will you receive a $10,000.00 fine if you opt out of screening all together and leave the checkpoint? While TSA has the legal authority to levy a civil penalty of up to $11,000.00 for cases such as this, each case is determined on the individual circumstances of the situation. 

One man's experience:

..."If you touch my junk, I'm going to have you arrested," John Tyner told the male screener. Tyner recorded audio of the whole 30-minute incident with the TSA on his cell phone's video camera, a video now with hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube.

"It was probably not the most artful way of expressing my point but I was trying to keep it lighthearted; I did not want a big situation. I said it with a half smile on my face," Tyner told ABC News.

A supervisor comes over, explains the groin check and tells Tyner, according to the cell-phone recording: "If you're not comfortable with that, we can escort you back out and you don't have to fly today."

Tyner responded "OK, I don't understand how a sexual assault can be made a condition of my flying."

"This is not considered a sexual assault," replied the female supervisor.

"It would be if you were not the government," Tyner said. He then adds: "I'd like only my wife and maybe my doctor to touch me there."...

So will he fly again soon?

"I'm not planning on it. You know, I've had some people suggest that I'm probably on a no-fly list now," Tyner said. "But until these machines go away, I wasn't really planning on flying anywhere again anyway."

Further info:

...According to a TSA blog posting, airport security officials screen nearly two million passengers daily.

But very few of those people are required to submit to enhanced security measures, such as the thorough pat-down and the full-body scan.

And here:

Myth: Everyone who travels will receive a pat-down.

Fact: Only passengers who alarm a walk through metal detector or AIT machine or opt out of the AIT receive a pat-down. It is one layer in our tool kit to address the nonmetallic explosives threat. In yesterday’s hearing, Administrator Pistole said: “The bottom line is few people in the overall scheme of things will actually receive those pat downs. Now, we've heard some examples, and obviously, there's a vocal group out there who have experienced this for the first time, and, rightfully so, raising concerns, what's behind this. And the bottom line is we, the transportation security officers in particular, are trying to work in partnership with the traveling public to say we want to ensure that you are safe on this flight. Work with us in a partnership to provide the best possible security. And that's what it comes down to...”

TSA blog has more.