As a follow up to this morning’s post on the TSA’s torpedoing of the Constitution comes this disturbing story [via Drudge] of an incident in San Diego.

On Saturday, a traveler named John Tyner was planning to go pheasant hunting in South Dakota when he encountered a cadre blue-shirted of TSA gropers. Unbeknownst to the blue shirts, Tyner had his cell phone on record.

Other than having, perhaps, the most quotable line of the week, Tyner’s ordeal demonstrates the severity of a government out of control, especially when a TSA officer has no problems with sexual assault when it’s the government doing it.

During the next half-hour, his cell phone recorded Tyner refusing to submit to a full body scan, opting for the traditional metal scanner and a basic “pat down” — and then refusing to submit to a “groin check” by a TSA security guard.

He even told the guard, “You touch my junk and I’m going to have you arrested.”

That threat triggered a code red of sorts as TSA agents, supervisors and eventually the local police gravitated to the spot where the reluctant traveler stood in his stocking feet, his cell phone sitting in the nearby bin (which he wasn’t allowed to touch) picking up the audio.

[snip]

Once he threatened to have the TSA agent arrested though, events turned surreal.

A supervisor is heard re-explaining the groin check process to Tyner then adding “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 supervisor, calmly.

“It would be if you were not the government,” said Tyner.

“By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights,” countered the TSA supervisor.

“I think the government took them away after 9/11,” said Tyner.

“OK,” came the reply.

You can read Mr. Tyner’s full account of the incident on his blog, as well as listen to the audio here [money quote at 3:45].

When a government agent says its okay for physical molestation to occur because we “gave up a lot of rights” after 9/11, it is time to get them back.

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.”  Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776