Polaneczky: TSA responds to jailed passenger's suit

THE TRANSPORTATION Security Administration wouldn't comment for my column last week about Roger Vanderklok, who was arrested after he tried to file a complaint about a TSA supervisor at Philadelphia International Airport.

After Vanderklok's story went viral, though, the TSA issued a statement on its website about Vanderklok's case. Included was a photo that TSA agents took of the capped PVC tube Vanderklok had in his carry-on bag. The photo was placed alongside a photo of an actual pipe bomb that had been made from PVC tubing, apparently to show the similarities between the items.

Why did Vanderklok have the tube in his bag?

He is a half-marathon runner who'd recently received an expensive Garmin athletic watch and a heart-monitoring chest band as a gift, he says. He didn't want them damaged when he traveled to marathons. He is also an architect and one day, at a construction site, he noticed that the piping used for plumbing was the ideal width to hold and protect his watch and monitor while traveling.

Vanderklok told me that he asked the plumber on site to cut him an eight-inch length of the pipe, which he then used to hold the items.

The TSA website states that the TSA alerted the Philadelphia Police Department to investigate Vanderklok "based on the items in the carry-on bag and interaction with [Vanderklok]."

But Vanderklok's lawsuit against the TSA, among others, states that the TSA already knew that Vanderklok's items were harmless when police were summoned. And, he says, police never questioned him about anything.

Video surveillance of Vanderklok's arrest appears to support the lawsuit's allegation.

- Ronnie Polaneczky