December 9, 2021
California Man Suing over Mask Mandate
Challenges TSA’s Revocation of Pre-Check Status
Action Marks Agency’s 3rd Illegal Retaliation
Against Flyers Petitioning to End Forced Masking
Dec. 9, 2021
By LUCAS WALL
WASHINGTON – A California man who does business in Texas and resides most of the year in Israel asked a federal appeals court Thursday to order the Transportation Security Administration to reinstate his Pre-Check membership, which the agency suspended one month after he sued it to overturn the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate.
Uri Marcus has been a Pre-Check member for 4½ years. Pre-Check allows known travelers who register with TSA to use expedited airport security lanes. He’s part of a group of 13 disabled flyers plus a former flight attendant from nine states and the District of Columbia who filed six lawsuits Oct. 19 around the country charging TSA with exceeding its legal authority by continuing to extend a requirement that all public-transportation passengers don face masks. He’s the third litigant TSA has retaliated against.
TSA sent Marcus a letter on Nov. 23 stating “As a result of recurrent checks and based on a comprehensive background check, TSA was unable to determine that you pose a sufficiently low risk to transportation and national security to continue to be eligible for expedited airport security screening through the TSA Pre-Check Application Program.”
In the motion filed today with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Marcus wrote he has not flown in the United States since December 2020, so there’s nothing that could have drawn TSA’s revocation of his Pre-Check membership except suing the agency over the mask mandate.
“At no time did TSA ever inform me that I was found to have committed violations of TSA security regulations, or if I had, it did not give me an opportunity to respond to any allegations made against me,” declared Marcus, who holds a pilot’s license issued by the Federal Aviation Administration and has passed several background checks. “Clearly, TSA’s action represents illegal retaliation against me for suing TSA to stop the FTMM. Because I have not flown in the United States since Dec 9, 2020, there is no other reason TSA would suddenly revoke my TSA Pre-Check eligibility except for blatant retaliation for filing this petition.”
Marcus asks the Court of Appeals to order that “TSA must be compelled to immediately restore my Pre-Check eligibility. Finally, the Court should direct TSA to show cause within 10 days of the entry of an order why it should not be sanctioned and/or held in contempt for illegally retaliating against me for bringing this lawsuit seeking review of its ultra vires FTMM orders in direct disdain for this Court’s constitutional and statutory authority to consider challenges to agency actions.”
This marks the third time TSA has unlawfully retaliated against a disabled American suing to block the mask mandate.
“Surely this Court is not so blind as to believe it’s purely a coincidence that three petitioners have been retaliated against by TSA since these cases were filed Oct. 19,” according to Marcus’ filing Thursday. “TSA’s action annulling my Pre-Check eligibility because I am suing the agency in this petition challenging the FTMM represents the absolute worst form of vengeance against a citizen exercising my First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
The agency placed Michael Faris of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, on a terrorist watchlist two days after he filed suit Oct. 19 challenging the mask requirement. Faris filed an emergency motion Oct. 27 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit demanding he be removed from the watchlist. Three days later, TSA did just that.
“TSA’s blatant act of retaliation against another litigant comes as no surprise to me,” Faris said. “It is just one of its many ‘determinations’ in the agency’s long list of illegal actions against disabled passengers. The fact that TSA feels it may treat disabled passengers this way, much less a certified pilot, should be cause for immense concern. As the first disabled passenger who was retaliated against by TSA in reference to these lawsuits, I know firsthand the feeling of disgust and disrespect that Mr. Marcus is experiencing.”
Anthony Eades of Warsaw, Missouri, filed a similar motion with the D.C. Circuit Nov. 24 alleging TSA revoked his Pre-Check membership because he sued to halt the mask mandate.
“In no way has Congress authorized TSA to declare passengers litigating against its orders a ‘risk to transportation and national security,’ potential terrorists, or otherwise subject them to secondary security screening,” Eades wrote. “By retaliating against me, TSA violates my First Amendment right to petition.”
The cases, all in the D.C. Circuit, are Marcus v. TSA, No. 21-1225; Faris v. TSA, No. 21-1221; and Eades v. TSA, No. 21-1236.
Donate to our legal fund on GoFundMe: Help End Federal Transportation Mask Mandate
Join our Facebook group: Americans Against Mask Mandates