/ Xeni Jardin / 12:03 pm Tue Jan 25, 2011

Jesse The Don't Scan My Body Ventura sues TSA to stop airport scans

"Jesse 'The Body' Ventura objects to having the U.S. government get a close look at his body while going through airport security. In a lawsuit filed this week against the DHS and TSA, the former Minnesota governor claims that airport full-body scans and pat-downs violate his Constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures." (Reuters, via @AntDeRosa)

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  1. Win if you can…
    Lose if you must…
    But always exercise your right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures!

  2. I’m with “The Body” on this one. Things are getting out of hand, and we’re being ‘conditioned’ to acquiesce to increasingly intrusive infringements on our privacy, personal space, personal data, etc., supposedly for our own protection.

    Meanwhile, an enormous apparatus is being created with huge potential to be used for evil.

    With the tragic event at the Russian airport yesterday, there are those who will say we must go along with all this stuff. But much of it does not protect us, so much as it does gradually erode our sense of self, and gradually accedes excessive authority to the government, it’s agencies, and agents.

    There is not enough of a ‘balancing act’ going on, with our rights as citizens on the scale, just a mad rush to “security”, however that’s defined today.

    1. The bombing happened at the luggage carousel outside of security. The only thing it shows is how it’s more dangerous to have people queuing.

      Remember that when the talking heads get started talking about further security checks. The lines are big soft targets.

  3. Right after 9*11, he came out swinging against civil rights citing that a little infringement on our rights was necessary to defeat terrorists. Now for the captain obvious statement: you reap what you sow.

    1. If that’s true, I can see how that might paint him as a hypocrite in one’s mind. However, a reasonable man is allowed to change his mind given current events and evidence and we must allow him to. If we insist on crying, “Hypocrite!” every time a politician does this, we’re pushing them toward more ideological and less rational positions. That’s no good. Of course, we can still insist on an explanation from him.

    2. On the other hand he’s been vocally pro-civil rights on issues like torture, gay marriage, drug decriminalization and the like. There are few elected officials who were more vocal in their criticism of the Bush/Cheney administration.

      Unfortunately he’s also given credence to some batshit insane 9/11 conspiracy theories. So I guess what I’m saying is that he’s kind of a mixed bag.

    3. A whole lot of people went varying degrees of batshit insane circa 9-11, and some of them have taken a lot longer to get themselves back together than others, and many are still recovering.

      I think if you were to discount the opinions of every American politician who said something preposterous or fascistic within 6 months after the 9-11 attack, you’d be left with a very small handful of pols.

      1. I think if you were to discount the opinions of every American politician who said something preposterous or fascistic within 6 months after the 9-11 attack, you’d be left with a very small handful of pols.

        I fail to see how that would be a problem.

        1. In short: “They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me” –Nathaniel Lee

  5. Come on. Jess Ventura doesn’t just have a body; he has The Body. It’s not a private possession. It’s a public utility. Or a national treasure. Any normal American wants to explore his big guns and search his man-fur forest for tiny, hidden terrorists. Exploring The Body is as all-American as a family trip to Yellowstone.

  6. What shocks me is we had to wait for him to be the one to do this. I’ve never understood why this isn’t unreasonable search and seizure.

  7. I was kinda hoping he’d claim his body is a trade secret or protected intellectual property.

  8. All he needs to do is convince the TSA Agents that they saw the planet Venus, not his bits.

    Okay, on the serious side – I don’t care if he went batshit after 9/11; a lot of people did. I agree with others here that reasonable people can change their minds when circumstances change.

    I might not vote for The Body given the chance, but I certainly agree with him on this point. Nudey scanners definitely seem like illegal searches to me. Seriously – I can tell a cop that he can’t look in my car on a routine traffic stop, but some random Federal employee gets to look at my boobs so I can board a plane? Something seems out of whack with THAT one.

    1. “Okay, on the serious side – I don’t care if he went batshit after 9/11; a lot of people did. I agree with others here that reasonable people can change their minds when circumstances change.”

      Good Answer!

      I think “The Body” makes a great executive, but would be a terrible legislator or judge. I love what he’s doing with this.

  9. Weird to have him as our hero, the one who finally sued the d-bags responsible. Not any specific privacy advocate that I could name, but a former wrestler-turned-politician.

    The rest of us lack the time and money, it seems. Anyway, good for him.

  10. The man’s a GODAMNED SEXUAL TYRANNOSAURUS! But he still deserves his civil right to privacy over your false sense of sercurity and bloated TSA/Homeland Security Budget.

  11. It’s good he’s speaking up, these things are recording your biometric information for the feds – opt out or don’t fly!

  15. I wonder who really owns Reuters. I searched and ended up with gobbledy-gook Mr. This and That. (Hmm, I don’t think I’ve ever typed that word before.)

    I’m glad Someone Who Will Garner Press Attention is standing up to the civil right abuses being perpetrated by the TSA. The slippery slope is getting greasier. But when I linked to the Reuters article I was confronted with a “Crazy Old Man with Craggy Open Mouth” photo of Jesse Ventura. I hate that kind of editorializing, particularly when it is used to discredit a phenomenally serious issue that has been lingering on page 14 for years.

    Happens all the time, but it still pisses me off.

    And, just to chime in, every single politician except Barbara Lee bowed prostrate to the floor and sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic after 9/11. Times have changed, politicians are just beginning to speak up again (barely) and I’m glad they’re doing so. They are all hypocrites, but they’re all we got.

  17. Ventura’s a prime example why every statement a person makes should be judged on it’s own merits, not on the merits of what he said last.

  19. Ventura’s a prime example why every statement a person makes should be judged on it’s own merits, not on the merits of what he said last.

    I agree with that, with one proviso: The “merits” of a statement must involve the rationale and motives behind it, not just whether or not you happen to agree with it. For example, many of you will recall the BoingBoing post a few months ago about the homophobic politician who opposed the new TSA screening procedures because he believed they were part of some “homosexual agenda” to permit men to grope other men. While I can agree with his opposition to TSA screening procedures, I can’t agree with the rationale or the motives that led him to oppose those procedures. In a world as complex and diverse as ours, on occasion someone will, purely by chance, draw the right conclusion for all the wrong reasons. Just because someone wants the same outcome that you want doesn’t mean that he or she is your ally. You’ve got to look at why he or she wants the same outcome that you want. And, when considering someone’s rationale and motives, it is reasonable to take into consideration his or her previous comments.

    Jesse Ventura has said some things that I wholeheartedly agree with, as well as some things that I simply cannot endorse – including some things that strike me as bat shit crazy. I happen to agree with his opposition to TSA pat downs. But I can’t endorse his opposition to TSA policies unless I understand why he is opposing them. I think he’s opposing them for the right reasons; but, based on some of his previous comments, I can’t really be sure. But I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and provisionally endorse his lawsuit, unless and until I learn that the rationale and motives behind that lawsuit are incompatible with my own beliefs and values.

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