Weird News

[Lamplighter]

The Columbian
PDX stripper fights $1K federal fine
5/10/13

PORTLAND — John Brennan, who stripped naked last year
to protest a security check at Portland International Airport,
said he expects to lose the first round of his legal fight against a $1,000 fine.

Still, he plans to press his free-speech argument in an appeal
and push for effective security checks that aren't as invasive.
"I totally support airport screening," Brennan said.
"I just don't want it to be at the expense of my constitutional rights."<snip>

In April 2012, as Brennan started a business trip to California,
he declined to step into a Transportation Security Administration body scanner.
He was asked to walk through a metal detector and submit to a pat-down.
A screener said traces of nitrates, which could indicate an explosive, were detected.
Brennan took off his clothes to show he wasn't carrying anything explosive
and to get the security check over quickly, he said.<snip>

In July, a judge in Multnomah County found Brennan not guilty
of violating a Portland ordinance that forbids exposing genitals in public
and in the presence of the opposite sex.
The judge said Brennan was acting in protest and his strip was protected speech.

A few weeks later, Brennan said, he was told he'd be fined for violating
a rule that forbids passengers to interfere with, assault, threaten or intimidate the screeners.