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Jesse Ventura sues TSA, says body scans and pat-down searches violate rights
By Amy Forliti
Associated Press
Updated: 01/24/2011 07:50:14 PM CST
Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration on Monday, alleging full-body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
Ventura is asking a federal judge in Minnesota to issue an injunction ordering officials to stop subjecting him to "warrantless and suspicionless" scans and body searches.
The lawsuit, which also names Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole as defendants, argues the searches are "unwarranted and unreasonable intrusions on Governor Ventura's personal privacy and dignity and are a justifiable cause for him to be concerned for his personal health and well-being."
According to the lawsuit, Ventura received a hip replacement in 2008, and since then, his titanium implant has set off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints. The lawsuit said that prior to last November officials had used a non-invasive hand-held wand to scan his body as a secondary security measure.
But when Ventura set off the metal detector in November, he was instead subjected to a body pat-down and was not given the option of a scan with a hand-held wand or an exemption for being a frequent traveler, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said the pat-down "exposed him to humiliation and degradation through unwanted touching, gripping and rubbing of the intimate areas of his body."
It claims that under TSA's policy, Ventura will be required to either go through a full-body scanner or submit to a pat-down every time he travels because he will always set off the metal detector.
Ventura, who was Minnesota governor from 1999 through 2002 and is now the host of the television program "Conspiracy Theory," did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
Napolitano said in December that the new technology and the pat-downs were "objectively safer for our traveling public."
The U.S. attorney's office did not immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment Monday.
The TSA's website says there are nearly 500 full-body scanners in use at 78 airports. The scanners show a traveler's physical contours on a computer screen that's viewed in a private room. Faces aren't shown, and the person's identity is supposedly not known to the screener reviewing the images.
Not all travelers are selected to go through the scanners, but the TSA requires people who decline to submit to pat-downs that include checks of the inside of their thighs and buttocks.
The official, Vijay Nambiar, said however that it was not up to Ban to fire the expert, U.S. academic Richard Falk, as demanded by UN Watch, a Geneva-based advocacy group.
Falk wrote in a blog this month that there had been an "apparent cover-up" by U.S. authorities over the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which hijackers flew airliners into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington.
He said mainstream media had been "unwilling to acknowledge the well-evidenced doubts about the official version of the events: an al Qaeda operation with no foreknowledge by government officials."
In a letter to Ban last Thursday, UN Watch director Hillel Neuer called on the U.N. chief to "strongly condemn Mr. Falk's offensive remarks -- and ... immediately remove him from his post."
A letter of reply from Nambiar said Ban "condemns (Falk's) remarks. He has repeatedly stated his view that any such suggestion is preposterous -- and an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in the attack."
Nambiar said Falk and other rights experts were not appointed by Ban but by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, a 47-nation body created by the U.N. General Assembly in 2006. "Their continuance in their jobs is thus for the Council to decide," he added.
UN Watch says on its website it is a non-governmental organization, accredited with the United Nations and affiliated with the American Jewish Committee, that aims to monitor U.N. performance against the yardstick of the U.N. Charter.
It supports U.N. goals but frequently criticizes the Human Rights Council, saying it constantly berates Israel but ignores many rights violations by developing countries. It has often targeted Falk, the council's special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, for anti-Israeli comments.
In a statement, Neuer welcomed Nambiar's letter but said the Human Rights Council could not be trusted to fire Falk. He said Ban and U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay had "the power and responsibility to play an influential and decisive role."
Joe Hillshoist wrote:How do you develop evidence?
I thought you developed a case using evidence.
You may think I'm being pedantic but if you think about it its a very serious question.
Confirmed sources in the Nigerian government tell us, in order to keep former Vice President Cheney out of prison for crimes involving Nigeria, $500,000,000 in bribes have been promised, negotiated by former President George H.W. Bush.
Now, only a day later, Cheney faces possible charges, so many charges they can only be imagined, for planning the Pentagon attack on 9/11.
Stephen Morgan wrote:Joe Hillshoist wrote:How do you develop evidence?
I thought you developed a case using evidence.
You may think I'm being pedantic but if you think about it its a very serious question.
If you were being pedantic you might have pointed out that there was, in fact, airliner wreckage and debris at the pentagon.
no and yes, respectively.norton ash wrote:I suppose every little bit helps ... Disinfo designed to discredit, IMHO.
“What’s with the shades,” CNN host Brooke Baldwin asked at the end of the interview.
“Hunter Thompson’s gone,” Ventura said, “and I’ve been reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson’s work. And now that he’s not here to warn us anymore about what’s going to happen, I would like to assume the role of Hunter S. Thompson now.”
RocketMan wrote:Ok, downgrade to just a fool:“What’s with the shades,” CNN host Brooke Baldwin asked at the end of the interview.
“Hunter Thompson’s gone,” Ventura said, “and I’ve been reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson’s work. And now that he’s not here to warn us anymore about what’s going to happen, I would like to assume the role of Hunter S. Thompson now.”
You'd "like to assume the role of Hunter S. Thompson now", sir? Sure, go right on ahead!
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"
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