Woman Says She Was Cuffed And Booted From Airport For Questioning Body Scanners

Meg McLain claims that the TSA ripped up her US Airways plane ticket and called police who restrained her in a chair, cuffed her, and escorted her out of the airport after she opted out of the backscatter can. Her radio interview describing the incident is at 390,000 hits and growing, and the TSA has posted CCTV of the incident on their blog.

Read: Interview With Meg McLain, Ejected From Airport After Questioning Body Scanners

Reached for comment, Meg McLain admitted that she may have misplaced some details in her radio interview, which occurred 30 minutes after she left the airport and was still a bit distraught. She said, “A lot of people are focusing on the specifics of this. I told the story as best I could recall and I’d like people to more focus on the issue at hand. We don’t have to subject ourselves to this, it’s not necessary, and it’s overstepping all bounds of humanity. People really need to stand up and say no, because if enough people say no, there’s nothing they can do.”

She has also posted a public statement on her blog and done a followup interview to address questions about the TSA video.

A request to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for police reports surrounding the incident was deferred to the TSA.

We’ve reached out to the TSA, and US Airways for comment, and will update when we get more info.

Here is McLain’s version of the events as she recounted them on a radio show 30 minutes after it happened:

Here is CCTV footage released by the TSA of McLain going through the checkpoint (she shows up at 1:13). Note that there are several minutes where she is off-camera and we don’t see what happens in-between this clip and the one where she leaves the airport. The lack of sound also removes a lot of contextual information:

Here is CCTV footage of McLain exiting the airport:

On their blog, the TSA was circumspect, writing, “You can listen to her radio interview, and then you can view our airport CCTV footage. We’ll let you decide what really happened.”

Isn’t the procedure for when you opt-out of a backscatter scan they give you the pat-down? It’s unclear why this passenger was ejected from the airport in. It would be more helpful if the CCTV clips had audio as well.

Here is the followup interview she did to answer questions about the TSA video:

Radio Host Cuffed for Refusing Full Body Scan at Airport [NBC Miami]
Response to “Female radio host cuffed to chair, ticket ripped up…” [TSA.gov]
My Continued TSA Saga [FreeKeene]
Meg Addresses Tough Questions About TSA’s Video “Evidence” [FreeKeene]

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