Update: Nation Editor Katrina vanden Huevel has apologized for publishing the piece.

"Touch my junk and I'll have you arrested." That's what San Diego resident John Tyner famously told a TSA agent when he was subjected to one of the new, controversial invasive pat down searches. Fed up with the ongoing government erosions of our privacy, Tyner stood up for his rights -- and all of ours. So why is The Nation magazine smearing him as a tool of right-wing corporatists?

In a piece published November 23, "TSAstroturf: The Washington Lobbyists and Koch-Funded Libertarians Behind the TSA Scandal," authors Mark Ames and Yasha Levine outrageously suggest that Tyner's activism is suspect all because he has described his political views as "libertarian," lives in a GOP stronghold and once attended a Christian school. And from that, they suggest he's possibly a phony-baloney faux-activist raking in cashing from his corporate overlords.

The piece has attracted widespread criticism, with the magazine's own Jeremy Scahill denouncing it as a "shameful smear." Yet the authors refuse to acknowledge that their article crossed the line. Meanwhile, Nation editor Katrina vanden Huevel, who allowed the piece to be published in the first place, has yet to apologize for recklessly smearing a concerned citizen.

The Nation clearly owes John Tyner a formal apology. Too few Americans stand up for their rights anymore -- and it's not right for one of the nation's leading liberal publications to smear those who do.

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