As a younger guy who lives in urban settings, I’m surrounded by individuals who almost uniformly detest Donald Trump, and there is a lot of social pressure to vote for Hillary Clinton in my world.  However, I won’t be voting for Hillary Clinton.  Nor will I be voting for Donald Trump.  For the first time in my life, I’ll be voting for a third-party candidate, Gary Johnson, and I’d like to explain.

First, I agree with those around me that Donald Trump would make a horrible president.  I don’t care about the crude remarks so much as I care that I can’t make out most of his policy, and the parts that I can make out, I dislike more often than not.  In particular, I feel that his immigration policy cannot possibly work, that his foreign policy will get us into more conflicts than out, and that his “tough on crime” viewpoint is not the reform this country needs at a time when it has more prisoners than China despite a quarter of the population.  Beyond his views, I don’t think he has the political experience, the temperament, or the vision to “make America great again.”  I do appreciate that he is a Washington outsider and is willing to speak his mind rather than limit himself to speaking like a politician, but this is insufficient.

So why not vote for the only person who has a chance against him?  On the issues, Hillary and I agree a bit more than Trump, although I am concerned about her perspectives on civil liberties (and not just the second amendment) and on keeping the government lean and efficient.  But, I find Hillary to be dishonest.  It’s more than just her atrocious handling of the e-mail scandal — she just seems like a massive phony whenever she speaks.  Maybe she’s just a bad speaker, but that’s an important part of being president.  I also think her campaign was dishonest in how it played against Bernie Sanders.  I think the DNC is dishonest and does not deserve to be rewarded for its manipulation of the primaries.  I’m tired of the dishonesty, and candidates who can’t keep it real won’t get my vote.  I won’t feel that I am responsible for voting for her for “lesser of two evils” purposes, because this simply lets the DNC (and RNC too) know it can do whatever it wants and we’ll choose whatever it puts out there.     If Trump makes it into office, it is the DNC to blame, not the swing voters who couldn’t stomach Hillary.

The candidate who gets my vote instead is experienced — he’s been the governor of New Mexico for 8 years, and in the political world for over 2 decades — yet he doesn’t sound like a Washington politician.  He commitment to civil liberties is unyielding, and relevant to this blog, he is on the right side of every issue I personally fight for, from abolishing the TSA to securing reasonable gun rights.  He recognizes that the war on drugs has failed, that our national debt is a problem that needs to be fixed now, and that we should get the hell out of the Middle East.

In short, he’s what we need, and even if he has virtually zero chance of getting elected this round, I would rather vote for that than for the “lesser of two evils.”  We’ve done that for too many years now, haven’t we?  It seems to just lead to greater and greater evils.  Let’s stop that now and vote for someone who would actually represent us.  For the purpose of sending a message to the parties, as well as to support someone who I actually would like to see as president, I endorse Gary Johnson for President in 2016.

Check out these three candidates side-by-side on the issues, and don’t forget to vote!  Most states now have early voting, so it’s easier than ever to make it happen.

Since 2010, I’ve been using the Twitter handle @tsaoutourpants, but we recently re-branded from the beloved “TSA Out of Our Pants” to “Professional Troublemaker” to reflect that I’m now working on advocating civil rights advocacy on other issues as well.  So, I figured it was appropriate to start the new year by updating that Twitter username to @_JonCorbett.

If you already followed @tsaoutourpants, you’re automatically already following @_JonCorbett, but if you haven’t yet, please come follow my updates on the Twitterverse!

Lawyers for the TSA simply do not care if they are on one side of the argument today and a different side tomorrow when it suits them better.  Throughout the litigation that occurred in 2010 – 2014, in every case where people challenged the nude body scanners, the TSA stated that the fact that they are optional — because anyone can ask for a pat-down instead — is a significant factor in their constitutionality.  In one of my cases, for example, they argue that AIT isn’t so constitutionally offensive in this sentence:

“And as the D.C. Circuit has noted, a passenger may choose between AIT screening and a pat-down, ‘which allows him to decide which of the two options for detecting a concealed, nonmetallic weapon or explosive is least invasive.'”

~~ Corbett v. TSA, 12-15893, Appellee Brief, pp. 28, 29,  January 28th, 2014, citing EPIC v. DHS, 653 F.3d 1, 10.

See if you can spot the difference between the TSA’s argument above from 2014, and their argument filed today in Sai v. Neffenger, a case by another individual opposed to TSA body scanners who filed an emergency motion for temporary restraining order last week.  This argument tries to explain that the TSA didn’t really issue a new rule by making the body scanners mandatory:

“Interested parties should have anticipated that TSA might require mandatory AIT screening, and thus reasonably should have filed their comments on the subject during the notice-and-comment period [in 2013].”

~~ Sai v. Neffenger, 15-2356, Opposition to Motion for Emergency TRO/PI, p. 10, December 29th, 2015 (internal citation omitted).

In other words, despite the fact that the TSA was arguing in courts across the country that there was nothing to worry about because the scanners were optional, we all should have known that eventually, the TSA would make them mandatory.

TSA, it’s not that we all didn’t know that you were going to force these machines down our throats whenever the original controversy started to die down.  It’s that you argued that you wouldn’t in court in order to get your way, and now you’ve changed your position but think the courts shouldn’t change theirs.  We’re not surprised, but we are upset, and we’re asking the courts to decline your request to retract your position without retracting the judgment that came along with it.

Fighting the TSA in court is expensive!  Want to contribute to the fight against TSA assholery? PayPal or Bitcoin: 15ftA2938sp7Mnsi8U7wYVmEtd4BRbFnkT 🙂

When I started this blog over 5 years ago, I named it for my literal goal: to get the TSA’s hands and radiation literally out of our pants.  While minimizing the TSA’s encroachment on our bodies is still a strong focus for me, we’ve also delved into other areas of civil rights advocacy: “street body scanners” proposed by the NYPD, sending the NSA thousands of FOIA requests (and the FISA court hundreds of motions to force the NSA to delete the data they illegally collected), stopping stop & frisk, and other government abuses.  I think we’ve a bit outgrown the name, and so, “TSA Out Of Our Pants” is now “Professional Troublemaker,” a blog about the journey of a civil rights advocate.

What is a “Professional Troublemaker?”

From the first court filings, my polite insistence that my rights be respected has been met with a certain hostility.  The DoJ has said that my arguments are as a terrorist would make.  The Supreme Court had me deliver my petition to them in a garbage bag.  A county sheriff’s office lied about what evidence of their own misconduct they possessed and attempted to evade service like a deadbeat avoiding child support.  And all over, my substantive complaints were met not with substantive defenses, but procedural shields.

Challenging the status quo is viewed as causing trouble, apparently, and as that is the role I’m looking to take on, I’m happy to accept the title as well.

2016 will be full of new things, as my TSA security interview lawsuit gets heard, I continue with my second year of law school, and I start to delve into second amendment rights, as I’m assuming NYC isn’t going to be too accommodating with the handgun license app I’m filing tomorrow.

Getting drunk and having sex on a public beach during the day when there could be kids around isn’t exactly polite, and I’d certainly expect that if caught, one would end up in jail. Maybe some probation, pay a fine, etc., for a first-time offender.

Not in Florida, of course, where the state once again makes the news for being a bit retarded. Jose Caballero and Elissa Alvarez now face 15 years in prison and mandatory registration on the sex offender list for the crime of being drunken assholes. This is a crime where no one was injured, where children were not part of the intent, and the only damage done was that a couple parents had to explain the birds and the bees to their children before they had planned. (Cite me a single study, from a reputable source in the last 25 years, that shows that children have any long-term harm resultant from accidentally seeing a single sex act, and I’ll donate $100 to your favorite charity.)

I looked up the statute under which they were charged, and noticed something peculiar: it’s under the same section of the law that deals with statutory rape. As it turns out, they could literally have walked up to one of the children and persuaded him or her to join in on the sex, and it would have been the same penalty.

What on earth is wrong with the Florida legislature? Why can’t we keep things in proportion?

Because someone screamed, “think of the children,” and tough penalties on sex offenders win elections. As a result, 2 people’s lives are now ruined. Was your re-election worth it?

Feel free to let the prosecuting attorney know how you feel.

I started my first lawsuit against the TSA almost 4 years ago because the TSA had infringed on something I love: the ability to get up, take yourself to an airport, and hours later end up anywhere in the world. Only perhaps 60 years ago was this feat impossible for the average person, and it is truly a gift that we can do so today. When the TSA conditioned that gift upon acceptance of government-sponsored sexual assault, I found it revolting and pushed back with everything I had.

Last week, for me at least, the ability to travel the world has shrank just a bit more. As best one can tell based on the evidence we’ve seen, rebels in the Ukraine armed and supported by Russia were provided with a surface-to-air missile system which they did not know how to use. While targeting what they thought was a military plane, these Russian-sponsored militants accidentally shot down a Boeing 777 passenger plane, killing nearly 300 innocent people from all over the world.

Russia is unapologetic, refusing to admit (while also failing to deny) that it provided the means to the people responsible for this tragedy. It has annexed a part of a sovereign nation, and stands ready to seize any opportunity to take over the remainder of the Ukraine (a possibility that now seems less likely due to the increased international attention brought upon Russia as a result of MH 17). And while I’m not happy about many of the things that are going on in my own government — from NSA spying to rampant police thuggery, a Congress that does nothing except when it is bought, and a President who thinks he is above the law (yes, the last president thought he was above the law, too) — the internal situation in Russia is heading from bad to worse. Reports of restrictions on free speech, criminalizing homosexuality, and violently silencing political opponents threaten to take Russia back to the olden days of Soviet oppression.

Sadly, I love Russian culture. I’ve been to Russia four times in the last 6 years (and the Ukraine several more), I’ve learned a good amount of the Russian language, made many Russian friends, and have absolutely loved my time in that country. But, the downing of MH 17 makes it impossible to ignore that Russia is not a safe place and that much of the leadership of Russia intends to do bad things to both their own countrymen and anyone who has anything that they want. With disappointment, I cross Russia off of the list of places I’m planning to travel until Russia decides to return to being a good citizen. I hope that as, one by one, people, companies, and countries stop doing business with Russia, they will eventually see that there is more to gain by being a contributor to the world than a taker.