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Assault and battery are not some vague ideas that you can argue the meanings of. They have clear legal definitions - if you threaten someone and make physical c

Assault and battery are not some vague ideas that you can argue the meanings of. They have clear legal definitions - if you threaten someone and make physical contact with them without their permission, you are guilty of assault and battery. I don't know about you, but if any authority figure told me “Once you cross that line, I can do whatever I want,” I would absolutely interpret that as a threat. I agree with you that TSA agents have a difficult job, and I don't believe that they deserve disrespect just because they're TSA agents, but clearly some of them have decided that they're above the law, and that is absolutely not the case.

M1573RMU74710N 16y ago
If you go back and read my post, you'll see I say nothing about legal definitions. Granted, I see how you could mis-interpret the "real" comment, but I assure you that it had nothing to do with the law. I am not a lawyer, and am not qualified to judge....I would say I think this probably does technically fit the legal definition of assault. However, I would note there are quite a lot of things which are technically illegal but in practice are only partiall enforced. Our law is designed with a lot of breathing room. I agree the agents comment sounds pretty prick-ish and sinister, but this is a second-hand story casually related and it's really hard to tell not having been there. We don't even know that Penn is quoting verbatim and not paraphrasing. Based on Penn's apparent disposition towards the incident, and how he didn't give any indications that the guy was out of control...I'm going on the assumption that what this was was a failure to observe proper procedure rather than a drastic over-stepping of bounds, harassment, etc etc. If that was not the case, I'd withdraw my statements re: this particular agent... but I stand by them overall.

M1573RMU74710N 16y ago

If you go back and read my post, you'll see I say nothing about legal definitions. Granted, I see how you could mis-interpret the "real" comment, but I assure you that it had nothing to do with the law. I am not a lawyer, and am not qualified to judge....I would say I think this probably does technically fit the legal definition of assault. However, I would note there are quite a lot of things which are technically illegal but in practice are only partiall enforced. Our law is designed with a lot of breathing room. I agree the agents comment sounds pretty prick-ish and sinister, but this is a second-hand story casually related and it's really hard to tell not having been there. We don't even know that Penn is quoting verbatim and not paraphrasing. Based on Penn's apparent disposition towards the incident, and how he didn't give any indications that the guy was out of control...I'm going on the assumption that what this was was a failure to observe proper procedure rather than a drastic over-stepping of bounds, harassment, etc etc. If that was not the case, I'd withdraw my statements re: this particular agent... but I stand by them overall.