Former lawmaker's group sues TSA for alleged Freedom of Information Act violation

By Keith Laing - 03/16/12 02:27 PM ET

A group led by long-time Transportation Security Administration critic former Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) is suing the TSA for allegedly violating the Freedom of Information Act.

Barr's Liberty Guard group alleges that the TSA refused to comply with FOIA requests from the organization in November 2010, when the group was encouraging airline passengers to opt out of body scanners used by TSA .

Critics have contend that the TSA scanners invade passengers privacy, and Barr said the lawsuit from Liberty Guard, which considers itself nonpartisan, would be good for all Americans.

"This lawsuit will help empower all those who travel by commercial air carrier, to be protected against arbitrary and privacy-invasive techniques employed by the federal government that are of questionable constitutional validity," Barr, who served in Congress from 1995 to 2003, said in a news release.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, says TSA did not comply with with a request for records "which contain any and all administrative directives or memoranda from either the TSA and/or the DHS, or any component there of … pertaining to instructions to staff, employees or supervisors that affect the public when members of the public are asked to submit to full body scans or 'putdowns' while attempting to board aircraft, which have been adopted by the TSA or DHS."

The records request also asked for documents "which discuss the aforementioned issue and contain the terms 'national opt-out day,' 'BobBarr,' 'OptOutAlliance,' 'LibertyGuard,' 'JohnTyner,' 'GeorgeDonnelly,' 'wewontfly.com,' 'domestic extremists,' 'Drudgereport.com,' 'MattDrudge,' 'prisonplanet.com,' 'AlexJones' and any other term or proper name germane to the aforementioned terms and matter."

The lawsuit alleges TSA acknowledged receipt of the records request, but refused to release documents to Liberty Guard because it believed the information was "exempt from disclosure."