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View Full Version : Penn Jillette Calls The Cops On The TSA (From 2002)




Zatch
11-16-2010, 08:50 PM
Federal V.I.P Penn - 11/13/02


Last Thursday I was flying to LA on the Midnight flight. I went through security my usual sour stuff. I beeped, of course, and was shuttled to the "toss-em" line. A security guy came over. I assumed the position. I had a button up shirt on that was untucked. He reached around while he was behind me and grabbed around my front pocket. I guess he was going for my flashlight, but the area could have loosely been called "crotch." I said, "You have to ask me before you touch me or it's assault."

He said, "Once you cross that line, I can do whatever I want."

I said that wasn't true. I say that I have the option of saying no and not flying. He said, "Are you going to let me search you, or do I just throw you out?"

I said, "Finish up, and then call the police please."

When he was finished with my shoes, he said, "Okay, you can go."

I said, "I'd like to see your supervisor and I'd like LVPD to come here as well. I was assaulted by you."

He said, "You're free to go, there's no problem."

I said, "I have a problem, please send someone over."

They sent a guy over and I said that I'd like to register a complaint. I insisted on his name and badge number. I filled it out with my name. The supervisor, I think trying to intimidate me, asked for my license, and I gave it to him happily as he wrote down information. I kept saying, "Please get the police," and they kept saying, "You're free to go, we don't need the police." I insisted and they got a higher up, female, supervisor. I was polite, cold, and a little funny. "Anyone is welcome to grab my crotch, I don't require dinner and a movie, just ask me. Is that asking too much? You wanna grab my crotch, please ask. Does that seem like a crazy person to you?" I had about 4 of them standing around. Finally Metro PD shows up. It's really interesting. First of all, the cop is a BIG P&T fan and that ain't hurting. Second, I get the vibe that he is WAY sick of these federal leather-sniffers. He has that vibe that real cops have toward renta-cops. This is working WAY to my advantage, so I play it.

The supervisor says to the cop, 'He's free to go. We have no problem, you don't have to be here." Which shows me that the Feds are afraid of local. This is really cool. She says, "We have no trouble and he doesn't want to miss his flight."

I say, "I can take an early morning flight or a private jet. " The cop says, "If I have a citizen who is saying he was assaulted, you can't just send me away."

I tell the cop the story, in a very funny way. The cop, the voice of sanity says, "What's wrong with you people? You can't just grab a guy's crank without his permission." I tell him that my genitals weren't grabbed and the cop says, "I don't care, you can't do that to people. That's assault and battery in my book."

The supervisor says that they'll take care of the security guy. The cop says, "I'm not leaving until Penn tells me to. Now do you want to fill out all the paper work and show up in court, because I'll be right there beside you."

The supervisor says it's an internal matter, and they'll take care of it. "If you want to pursue this, we're going to have to go through the electronic evidence."

I say, "You mean videotape? Yeah, go get it."

She says, "Well, it'll take a long time, and you don't want to miss your flight. We have no problem with you, you're free to go."

The cop says, "Your guy grabbed his crank. That ain't right."

So, I fill out all the paper work and insist on a number to call to register a complaint. She says that I filled out a complaint, and I say, "I want more, give me another number. " She gives me a number that I find out later has been disconnected. I leave. I have a card with the name and number on it and the bad 800 number for the FAA.

My flight is way delayed, so I go to Burger King with Glenn - and all the feds are now off duty and at BK and sneering at us.

The next day the woman in charge of public relations calls me to "do anything to make my McCarran experience more enjoyable." I was a little under the weather with allergies and busy, so I didn't call back until yesterday.

It took some phone tag, but I finally got the woman on the phone. I was very cool and sweet. I explained the problem. "Do you allow your crotch to be grabbed without being asked?" I didn't exaggerate, I said that there was nothing sexual, I wasn't hurt, and it wasn't my genitals. I just said it was wrong. She said "Well, your feedback is really important because most people are afraid of us." She said, "I'd love to meet you so we could clear this up, and everyone wants to meet a celebrity." She said she had watched the videotape and there was no sound, but she saw him reach around. She said she couldn't tell me what was being done to him but . . . and I stopped her and said, she shouldn't do anything wrong.

I said that I had talked to two lawyers and they said it was really a weird case because no one knows if he can be charged with assault and battery while working in that job. But I told her, that some of my lawyer friends really wanted to find out. She said, "Well, we're very new to this job . . ." and I said, "Yeah, so we need these test cases to find out where you stand."

She said, "Well, you know a LOT about this." I said, "Well, it's not really the right word, but freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more of it."

She said, "Well, the airport is very important to all of our incomes and we don't want bad press. It'll hurt everyone, but you have to do what you think is right. But, if you give me your itinerary every time you fly, I'll be at the airport with you and we can make sure it's very pleasant for you."

I have no idea what this means, does it mean that they have a special area where all the friskers are topless showgirls, "We have nothing to hide, do you?" I have no idea. She pushes me for the next time I'm flying. I tell her I'm flying to Chicago around 2 on Sunday, if she wants to get that security guy there to sneer at me. She says, she'll be there, and it'll be very easy for me. I have no idea what this means.

I tell her that I'm still thinking about pressing charges, and I don't just care about me, it's freedom in general. I say the only thing that was good about it, was that while they were dealing with me, maybe they weren't beating up people in wheelchairs. It was amazing. All she was trying to do was make me happy. She said she'd burned a CD ROM of my video and it was being sent all around and they were going to change their training. She said, "We're federal employees, we're working for you, you pay us and we want customer satisfaction. It doesn't matter what the law is, we have to make you very happy so your flying experience is a pleasurable one, and most people don't give us this kind of intelligent feedback."

So, that was it. I'm flying on Sunday, I have no idea what will happen. How crazy is this? Do I really have some sort of mysterious VIP status to shut me up? Should I press charges? She said she was going to talk to the cop. I said he didn't see anything. She said, "Well, he may be able to see the forest for the trees, because he was right there." I quoted his "crank" comment and she laughed and then knew that was a very bad sign. I said, "He'll tell you I was polite, cold, angry, and funny" - that's more than should be expected of me. I still don't know what I'm going to do, but my advice to everyone is complain all you can and call the cops. I think it might make a little difference. Maybe you can become a VIP too.



Penn

http://www.pennandteller.com/03/coolstuff/penniphile/roadpennfederalvip.html

wormyguy
11-16-2010, 08:54 PM
8 years old . . .

james1906
11-16-2010, 08:56 PM
Luckily he's a celebrity or else Vegas' finest would have shot him and got a vacation for the hassle.

Deborah K
11-16-2010, 09:00 PM
Wow! What a load of preferential crap!!!!


"We're federal employees, we're working for you, you pay us and we want customer satisfaction. It doesn't matter what the law is, we have to make you very happy so your flying experience is a pleasurable one, and most people don't give us this kind of intelligent feedback."

Quite a different scenario than what Tyner went through.

Deborah K
11-16-2010, 09:01 PM
WTF!! Why are you posting 8 year old news?

Anti Federalist
11-16-2010, 09:01 PM
Here we are 8 years later and still fighting this shit.

Fuck....

QueenB4Liberty
11-16-2010, 09:05 PM
Too bad people can't do that now.

Zatch
11-16-2010, 09:07 PM
Someone posted it on reddit and I thought it was new. Didn't notice that it said '02.

Dan710
11-16-2010, 09:21 PM
Penn and Teller are awesome. I love their show, Bullshit!

Matt Collins
11-16-2010, 09:30 PM
WTF!! Why are you posting 8 year old news?
Because it's HIGHLY relevant today

dannno
11-16-2010, 09:40 PM
WTF!! Why are you posting 8 year old news?

Because it is highly relevant to the guy who said, "If you touch my junk I'll have you arrested!" :confused:

amy31416
11-16-2010, 09:43 PM
It's good to post older articles about this stuff--it has been going on for a long time now, and it's fascinating, yet disturbing, to see how it progresses.

I flew to Africa when I was a kid, we stopped in several foreign countries and the only place I recall being scary was Austria--bunch of military guys with machine guns...not just slung over their backs, but AIMED--and they looked tense. Even then, nobody touched me, made me go through a scanner or treated me or my family like a criminal. Back then I wanted to travel the world, and even almost ended up in Iran in the 90's.

So much for that. I'll never fly again unless the circumstances are so important as to be life or death. Too bad too, I had every intention of going back to South Africa when things settled down there.

Brooklyn Red Leg
11-16-2010, 09:44 PM
Second, I get the vibe that he is WAY sick of these federal leather-sniffers. He has that vibe that real cops have toward renta-cops.

This is where it goes off the rails for me. First off, these are Federal thugs, not Private Security. Second, local Cops are just as parasitic as these assclowns. As someone that IS a private security 'officer' (for lack of a better term) I DESPISE that term 'rent-a-cop'. I'm there to actually DO something: protect private property and/or private citizens. Police aren't. They only protect and serve one master: The State.

Kludge
11-16-2010, 09:50 PM
Crooked-seeming cop was an interesting touch to the story, seeming to be an instigator for Penn against the TSA.

Slightly off-topic, but Teller said (?) recently that they're thinking about scrapping Bullshit and leaving Showtime to start a show on Discovery - to reach a wider audience, I'd guess.

Deborah K
11-16-2010, 10:27 PM
Because it's HIGHLY relevant today

The OP already said it was because he also thought it was new info. So, how is it highly relevant today?

Deborah K
11-16-2010, 10:31 PM
Because it is highly relevant to the guy who said, "If you touch my junk I'll have you arrested!" :confused:

It's 8 years later. When I thought it happened recently, I was much more alarmed. Since it happened 8 years ago, it doesn't mean much to me. Especially since it happened right after 9-11.

pcosmar
11-17-2010, 12:07 AM
It's 8 years later. When I thought it happened recently, I was much more alarmed. Since it happened 8 years ago, it doesn't mean much to me. Especially since it happened right after 9-11.

TSA was created shortly after 9/11.
Many folks were opposed to the very concept at the time, but it was implemented anyway.
What is happening today was not only predictable (it was predicted), but inevitable.

poorly conceived, horribly implemented.
Federal Government at it's finest.

:mad:

james1906
11-17-2010, 08:17 AM
Since it was 8 years ago, it's likely the cop would have shot Penn had it happened now.

Matt Collins
11-17-2010, 08:43 AM
The OP already said it was because he also thought it was new info. So, how is it highly relevant today?
Because the situation hasn't changed, and it provides valuable insight into the TSA's activities.

Chester Copperpot
11-17-2010, 08:44 AM
maybe thats the answer to this problem.. let everybody be sexually assaulted and bam.. immediately call the police.. file criminal complaints..sexual assault, 4th amendment rights violations...

Fredom101
11-17-2010, 09:05 AM
I wonder if Penn now just flies around on a private jet?

I wish he would do a Bullshit! episode on the TSA and expose the fact that it's just security theater!

fisharmor
11-17-2010, 09:39 AM
WTF!! Why are you posting 8 year old news?

Well, the point that I don't think is being made really well is this:
TSA has verifiably had at least eight years to find out what the fucking law is and how not to break it.

Here is a list of random things that took less than eight years.

-The construction of the Empire State Building.
-Going from having a small military to the conquest of half of Europe and all of Japan's territory.
-The Manhattan Project.
-We put men on the fucking moon.
-Internet spread to a majority of American homes.

It's relevant because we can reasonably assume at this point that TSA has no intention of ever obeying the law, and every intention of making our lives as miserable as possible.

HOLLYWOOD
11-23-2010, 03:25 PM
Latest from Gillette via SECupp:

twitter:

http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/1110726280/haircut_normal.jpg
pennjillette (http://twitter.com/#%21/pennjillette) Penn Jillette by secupp

Don't think of 11/24 as flying home to your loved ones, think of it as a replication of Stanford Prison Experiment http://tinyurl.com/4r93a

1 hours ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/pennjillette/status/6910929824382976) Favorite (http://twitter.com/?status=World%27s%20Best%20Cat%20Litter%20is%20now %20being%20sold%20at%20Target%21%20Enter%20to%20wi n%20big%20http://jit.ly/_zUR7i%20cc%20@bestcatlitter#) Retweet (http://twitter.com/?status=World%27s%20Best%20Cat%20Litter%20is%20now %20being%20sold%20at%20Target%21%20Enter%20to%20wi n%20big%20http://jit.ly/_zUR7i%20cc%20@bestcatlitter#) Reply (http://twitter.com/?status=World%27s%20Best%20Cat%20Litter%20is%20now %20being%20sold%20at%20Target%21%20Enter%20to%20wi n%20big%20http://jit.ly/_zUR7i%20cc%20@bestcatlitter#)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment


The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology) effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Psychology professor Philip Zimbardo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zimbardo) at Stanford University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University). Twenty-four students were selected out of 75 to play the prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Roles were assigned randomly. The participants adapted to their roles well beyond what even Zimbardo himself expected, leading the guards to display authoritarian measures and ultimately to subject some of the prisoners to torture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture). In turn, many of the prisoners developed passive attitudes and accepted physical abuse, and, at the request of the guards, readily inflicted punishment on other prisoners who attempted to stop it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his capacity as "Prison Superintendent," lost sight of his role as psychologist and permitted the abuse to continue as though it were a real prison. Five of the prisoners were upset enough by the process to quit the experiment early, and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. The experimental process and the results remain controversial. The entire experiment was filmed, with excerpts soon made publicly available, leaving some disturbed by the resulting film.[citation needed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)] Over 30 years later, Zimbardo found renewed interest in the experiment when the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse) scandal occurred.

Elwar
11-23-2010, 03:43 PM
Penn used to sell this metal card with the bill of rights on it. He'd carry it with him and when he'd go through the metal detector it would beep and he'd pull it out and say "Oh, do you need to take away my bill of rights to get through"?

jmdrake
11-23-2010, 04:36 PM
Well, the point that I don't think is being made really well is this:
TSA has verifiably had at least eight years to find out what the fucking law is and how not to break it.

Here is a list of random things that took less than eight years.

-The construction of the Empire State Building.
-Going from having a small military to the conquest of half of Europe and all of Japan's territory.
-The Manhattan Project.
-We put men on the fucking moon.
-Internet spread to a majority of American homes.

It's relevant because we can reasonably assume at this point that TSA has no intention of ever obeying the law, and every intention of making our lives as miserable as possible.

This. It's just one more piece of the tyranny puzzle. It's also relevant because it shows this crap was happening under Bush. (Yeah, I know everybody here knows this. But there are crapper loads of neocons on talk radio who want to pretend this is all new).

Here's the timeline.

pre 9/11 : Al Qaeda agents enter the country thanks to Bush administration's "Visa Express" program that grants reduced screenings to Saudi nationals.
(See: http://old.nationalreview.com/mowbray/mowbray061402.asp)

9/11 : Self explanatory

2002 : Penn's crotch get's grab by TSA. Thanks to his celebrity status the TSA backs down apologetically.

2004 : Two Russian planes blow up minutes apart. Circumstantial evidence points to possible Chechen "breast bombers". (See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5810127/ns/world_news)

2004 : In response the TSA begins groping women's breasts, but backs down after numerous complaints (See: http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-23/travel/tsa.pat.downs_1_pat-downs-metal-detector-screeners?_s=PM:TRAVEL)

2009 : The underwear bomber's father tells the U.S. government that his son is a terrorist, but they ignore this and refuse to revoke his Visa or put him on the no fly list. Undie bomber gets on plane after being helped clearing security by a "sharp dressed man. Passengers stop the bomb from going off. (See: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/12/hoekstra-on-underwear-bomber-we-missed-him-at-every-step.html)

2010: Copier bomb attempt at cargo plane fails.

2010: TSA rolls out porn scanners and "enhanced pat downs" and shows no willingness to back down.


Penn crotch grabbed in 2004

jmdrake
11-23-2010, 04:36 PM
penn used to sell this metal card with the bill of rights on it. He'd carry it with him and when he'd go through the metal detector it would beep and he'd pull it out and say "oh, do you need to take away my bill of rights to get through"?

lol

libertarian4321
11-24-2010, 01:00 AM
Was there ever a follow up on this article?