Jesse Ventura managed to get himself back in the news today, something his new TruTV show couldn’t manage to do, by suing the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration over his recent treatment in an airport. Ventura, who has a hip implant, got the full-body patdown that has become standard when travelers can’t clear the metal detector. Until recently, Ventura claims that TSA personnel only used the non-invasive hand wand on him, and that the patdown and full scans violate his rights:
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.” …
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.
I feel so conflicted over this development. Ventura has a point about the new regulations, especially since we’ve seen how they work in practice. TSA and DHS tied these new procedures to the Christmas Day bomber, but one can bypass the patdown in most airports by going through the full-body scanner — which wouldn’t have picked up the PETN underwear bomb used in that attack. Patdowns are given either randomly or when a traveler fails another measure, like the metal detector, which means that we wouldn’t catch an underwear bomber in airports without the scanners, either.
On the other hand, Ventura is, well … a drama queen. He once accused a talk-show panelist of sexually harassing him by patting his arm. Notice, too, that Ventura isn’t suing to end the pat-down process overall, but only as it applies to him. The suit refers to Ventura as “governor” (as is protocol for former governors but is hardly a legal title) and he wants an exemption for being a “frequent traveler.” As usual, everything is about Jesse Ventura, an approach that Minnesotans will find all too familiar from his single term as governor, at least during those months when he wasn’t announcing football games for the now-defunct XFL.
Perhaps this is the right message, but it’s definitely the wrong messenger.
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