http://news.yahoo.com/judge-man-stripped-nude-airport-not-guilty-224222940.html
An Oregon man who stripped nude at Portland’s airport security to protest what he saw as invasive measures was found not guilty of indecent exposure.
Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge David Rees ruled Wednesday that John Brennan’s act was one of protest and therefore, protected speech.
On April 17, Brennan arrived at the airport intending to take a business trip to San Jose, Calif. He works with groups in Silicon Valley and flies out of Portland International Airport about once a month.
When he reached the gate, he declined to go through the airport’s body scanners, instead choosing the alternative metal detector and body pat-down. After the pat-down, Transportation Security Administration officer Steven Van Gordon detected nitrates on the gloves he used to check Brennan.
Brennan said before his trial that after months of angst every time he went through security, the nitrate detection was the final straw for him, a wordless accusation that he was a terrorist.
So he took off all his clothes.
A TSA agent stacked plastic crates high onto several carts and positioned them around Brennan. Port of Portland police arrested Brennan and took him to the Multnomah County Jail.
Brennan insists he didn’t come to the airport intending to protest. He had called the Port of Portland — which operates the airport — a year earlier to ask whether Oregon’s rules involving nudity applied at the airport. Brennan said he was told that they did. Brennan said in court that he asked because he had considered nudity as an act of protest, but hadn’t found cause to strip down.
The law says that naked people are only breaking the law if they’re having sex in public or got undressed “with the intent of arousing the sexual desire” of another person.
Portland would be an interesting test case for such a question. After all, this is the city with the World Naked Bike Ride, before which police simply send out a light admonition to “all riders at least wear a helmet and shoes.”
As Brennan left the stand Wednesday, he said that his protest was also intended to give the TSA an idea of the effect its policies had on travelers, especially the body-scanners that produce images of passengers without clothes on.
“I wanted to show them it’s a two-way street,” he said. “I don’t like a naked picture of me being available.”
Give this man a medal for his heroic deeds against the TSA!
FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!! This is how you protest the TSA.
I mean these people think they can just fondle you and violate the 4th Amendment by searching you and manhandling your junk. Then act like they are these high and mighty defenders as they look through your personal property. Ridiculous.
This is a victory for the first amendment and liberty.
Liberty still reigns in America.
![antigovernmentextremist:
audreybynature:
thedailywhat:
Sweet Vindication of the Day: John E. Brennan, the 50-year-old who protested a TSA search at the Portland International Airport in April by stripping naked, has been acquitted of indecent exposure.
Circuit Judge David Rees agreed with the defense that protest overrides nudity laws: ”It is the speech itself that the state is seeking to punish, and that it cannot do.”
Brennan told the court:
I know the irony of taking off my clothes to protect my privacy. They’re getting close to seeing us naked, so I thought I’d up the ante.
The high-tech consultant and frequent flyer maintains his protest was spontaneous:
The machine went off, and I asked what it was and he said ‘nitrates,’ which I know from Oklahoma City is one of the explosive ingredients. And I was not interested in being hassled so I took off my clothes to show them I was not carrying any explosives.
Brennan still could be fined up to $11,000 if the TSA finds that he interfered with the screening process. He also could land on the no-fly list.
[death+taxes]
Penn and Teller did a thing on free speech a few years ago and by digging through supreme court precedent they came to the conclusion that stripping naked in the form of a protest is actually protected by free speech. If it weren’t in the form of a protest it would be indecent exposure. I think that’s awesome.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7f06qgoET1qzpwi0o1_500.png)
