No, he is interfering because he was told to stand in a place and wait for another screener. Everytime he interacts with the first screener he pulls that screener from his job to pay attention to him. (the guy really should have taken off the watch and put it in the bin with his keys and change but that is a different post)
By being lound and using profane language, he made it necessary for the first screener to not pay attention to the other passengers going through the gate.
If you think that is not a big deal, you are wrong. Thieves do this. One person makes a distraction so someting can be stolen while everyone’s attention is fixed on that one person.
I don’t think people should use profane language in public but I don’t think it should be against the law.
Tough case, actually. On the one hand, he isn’t specifically charged with using profanity, only with “interfering with, assaulting, threatening, or intimidating screening personnel in the performance of their screening duties,” which is content-neutral. OTOH, it appears that all of his actions were verbal–the guy did everything he was asked to do, he just made it clear that he didn’t want to. Does it matter that he was being profane? It certainly offended the screener, but is that the intereference?
What if he had said, in an equally loud voice, using exactly the same gestures, “I can’t believe this is taking so long. Don’t you know who I am?” Or maybe as one of my old bosses was known for doing, just rubbed his temples and said, “Jeeeeeeeeeezus.” Would the charges still have been brought?
What if, using the same tone of voice and gesture, he had said, “let me through or I’ll kick your ass.” What about, “outta my way spic.”? We’ll never know.
This also raises some interesting statutory interpretation issues. The rule prohibits “intimidating screening personnel in the performance of their screening.” Are we to apply a subjective standard to this? What if the screener scares easily? Is there an eggshell skull plaintiff rule? http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=ne&vol=app/0-19990216&invol=1 If not, should we impose a specific intent requirement vis-à-vis the intimidation element? Should the defendant only be held to violate the rule if he intended to intimidate the screener? What evidence should we consider on this issue?
If we adopt an objective standard instead, what consitutes intimidation? Certainly the type of language used by the defendant would be a factor in this inquiry.
It looks the the factual development before the ALJ was insufficient for us to determine whether passenger violated the statute.
That was the exact case I was thinking of. I didn’t know it was overturned by the SCOTUS. Thanks. Did the ruling mean that all anti-profanity laws are unconstituional?
I think the 1st Amendment is largely a red herring here. The guy wasn’t charged because of what he said, but because what he said (arguably) constituted “interfering with a TSA officer”. If we grant for the sake of argument that his statements did constitute interference, then the 1st Amendment doesn’t exonerate this guy any more than it exonerates the mob boss who orders a hit from conspiracy to commit murder, but engages in no action other than speech in doing so. I presume without bothering to read the decision that whether or not the guy’s actions rise to the level of interference is a finding of fact and a question for a jury.