Passenger Refuses Groin Check, Full Body Scan

There's been a confrontation over full body scans at a U.S. airport: A California man refused a scan in San Diego Saturday; he also refused a pat down.

"We're spending inordinate amounts of money on security that isn't necessary and arguably doesn't work," John Tyner said. "I didn't intend to go through the machine or be groped."

"They told me to go through the scanner and I said, 'I don't think so,"' Joyner remembered.

He used his iPhone to record the conversation with a security agent.

When the agent told Tyner he was going to get to a groin check, he wasn't having any of it. "We can do that out here, but if you touch my junk, I am gonna have you arrested," Tyner said.

"After I was trying to leave, and the supervisor's supervisor's supervisor came over and told me that I needed to go back through security, because it was against federal law to start the security process and not finish it," Tyner recalled.

Tyner says he was then escorted back to the American Airlines ticket counter, where the airline refunded his money, but he says that wasn't the end of it: He says he was threatened with a civil lawsuit, but he left anyway.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano addressed heightened security checks at airports Monday, writing in a USA Today opinion piece that body scanners used at many airports are safe and the images viewed in private.

She wrote pat-downs have been used for years at airports and measures are in place to protect travelers' privacy.