How to Flex Your Rights During Police Encounters

Frishling, tell him to get a warrant. Crap. Too late.

There's lots of web chatter about the two travel bloggers who got home visits from Transportation Security Administration agents. Following last week's attempted underwear bombing, the bloggers had posted a leaked TSA memo with instructions to airlines. The most familiar and ridiculed requirement blocks passengers' access to bathrooms, blankets, video entertainment, and carry-on bags during the last hour of flight.

So in an attempt to plug their own administrative leak, the new law enforcement agency did what law enforcement agencies do: they sent agents to investigate. While it's terrifying to imagine TSA agents harassing us at our homes beyond the confines of airport security, this should surprise no one.

Also not surprising is the fact that one of the two bloggers failed to flex his rights in the face of police intimidation and trickery.

According to the AP:

Steve Frischling, said he met with two TSA special agents Tuesday night at his Connecticut home for about three hours and again on Wednesday morning when he was forced to hand over his laptop computer.

Hours after I met Phil Mocek at the Drug Policy Alliance conference in Albuquerque, he was arrested at the local airport after he refused to show Transportation Security Authority officials his identification.

While we at Flex Your Rights start by educating folks on how to avoid arrest, we admire the Flex experts (Flexperts?) like Phil who know their rights and are prepared to take an arrest in order to test bad laws in court.

And this is where things get weird with the shadowy world of the TSA: Phil didn't break any written laws. Refusing to provide ID to TSA agents isn't a crime -- yet he was charged with disorderly conduct, concealing identify, resisting arrest and criminal trespass.

Presumably, most or all of these charges will be dropped. And Phil is likely to fight things out in court if they are not.

Regardless of the outcome, Flex gives major props to freedom fighters like Phil and John Gilmore who put their freedom on the line to expose new and strange limitations on everyone's personal freedoms.