TSA grope-gate

| | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Links on the TSA's "enhanced pat-downs," the "alternative" to the scanner that shows you naked.

boingboing: Man at San Diego airport opts out of porno scanner and grope, told he'll be fined $10K unless he submits to fondling. The man got cellphone video of his encounter with TSA officers. (Here's a transcript of the first of three segments.)

PNC-Minnesota Bureau: Rape Survivor Devastated by TSA Enhanced Pat Down (NOTE: The link leads to the "Pagan News Collective" website, and the rape survivor quoted below is a Wiccan; thus the "Goddess" reference.)

"He started at one leg and then ran his hand up to my crotch. He cupped and patted my crotch with his palm. Other flyers were watching this happen to me. At that point I closed my eyes and started praying to the Goddess for strength. He also cupped and then squeezed my breasts. That wasn't the worst part. He touched my face, he touched my hair, stroking me. That's when I started crying. It was so intimate, so horrible. I feel like I was being raped. There's no way I can fly again. I can't do it."

If you dress modestly, your modesty will be violated. This woman (a commenter on the previous article) was willing to go through the scanner, but the TSA didn't like her choice of clothing:

I was pulled aside for a pat down in Phx's Sky Harbour Airport in October. They pulled me aside because I was wearing an ankle-length skirt. The agent told me that the TSA cannot specifially tell people what they can and cannot wear, but they will do pat downs on every person wearing ankle-length skirts on planes. The female agent told me I had two choices: I could go to a room and strip NAKED in front of a TSA officer, or they could pat me down in full view of the other passengers. She said the pat down would require her to touch my genitals. Well, gosh - be groped in public or naked alone in front of a stanger? Such options. When I said neither option was great, she said I wouldnt be escorted from the airport if I didnt comply. Duress much? I have to give you my full name, my birthdate, my gender and now I HAVE to let you humiliate me in public (or oogle my naked body in provate)?? Wow. This cant be the only way.

If only she had worn a burka, she'd have been left alone.

Melissa Clouthier tells of a harrowing TSA encounter from 2002, when unfeeling TSA agents separated her from her baby daughter in a stroller and her two-year old autistic son with a tendency to roam:

My son was walking away from me, looking after the direction his dad went and wanting to follow. He was about twenty five feet away from me, when I tried to go get him, the TSA agent restrained me and said,"Ma'am you need to stay here."

When I tried to explain about my son, she would have none of it. I was reduced to yelling to him to stay, don't go anywhere.

Hysteria rose in my throat. At this point, being felt up by the female agent mattered little to me. My children were separated from me, my son shuffling around, my daughter sitting 20 feet away in a stroller, hundreds of people milling through the Houston airport and I was terrified that someone would grab one or both of my children and I would be helpless to stop it.

And the TSA agents did not care. As I write this, my heart is pounding....

The TSA regulations make average citizens miserable while the real medicine-an Israeli-type profiling would actually make a security difference. But no. Security placebos for Americans.

I share this story to provide additional evidence of the overreach of the TSA. It's time for Congress to clip back these inane regulations.

It's time for Americans to resist this tyranny. When average Americans have more to fear from their government than from some radical Muslim terrorist jerk, the balance has been tipped.

I have managed to avoid flying very much this year, despite a lot of travel, although I haven't been able to avoid it entirely. I actually like being up in the air, and I get a window seat as often as possible so I can watch the scenery and try to deduce our location. But I hate the process of getting from the ticket counter (actually quite painless these days) to the plane. For all the restrictions and all the advanced technology, you have to get even more undressed and undone now for the nekkid scanners than you do for the X-ray machines. I have to pack once to get my stuff to the airport, repack and rearrange to get through security in an efficient manner, and then rearrange again, particularly if it's a small plane and the roll-aboard has to be gate-checked.

We have a pretty good idea of the sort of person who would try to blow up a plane while on board. While we might still need X-rays and metal detectors to deter the old-fashioned kind of hijacker that just wanted a free trip to Cuba, the new-fangled suicide hijacker should be more easily detected. Offer every male passenger between the ages of 18 and 45 a pulled-pork sandwich or a beer; if you won't consume either one, you get the special scope-and-grope. (Some non-yeasty alcohol would be provided for Passover.)

0 TrackBacks

Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: TSA grope-gate.

TrackBack URL for this entry: https://www.batesline.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/5849

2 Comments

Bob said:

Some of these comments, while shocking, are also likely the future "urban legends" of flight safety.

Yes, the new virtual strip search is beyond crazy, and a violation of the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Yes, it amounts to kiddy porn for those under-age children who are virtually scanned, and amounts to actual child molestation for those small children who receive the enhanced Pat-Down.

YES, the TSA and the Homeland Security Dept. are certainly LYING about what the actual image looks like, repeatedly showing a Version #1 RapidScan sample image that shows a lack of detail, when in fact the new versions of the scanning platform show INFINITE detail of the person's anatomy, right down to the size of the nipples, and all the details of a person's physiognomy.

ALL of them.

And, YES, the TSA is lying about the ability of the Scanners to store images of the passengers. Using exactly the same scanners as are used in our airports, a Miami Florida Federal Courthouse security contingent stored over 35,000 images of individuals who were scanned as a pretext of entering the Federal Courthouse.

Regarding the patdowns, female passengers are patted down by female TSA agents. Male passengers are patted down by male TSA agents. The Wiccun princess that claimed she was patted down by a male TSA agent is probably lying.

I would not expect to see that happen unless all the female TSA airport agents phoned in sick the same day.....

You can also request a private screening, if you either "Opt-Out" from the full body image scan, or are selected for some reason for an enhanced pat-down.

Regarding solo parents traveling with small children, YES, I can believe that parent is correct: That the TSA agents could care less if your small children wonder off, are abducted or lost because the parent is in "quarantine".

The TSA agents also do not seem to care very much that when they perform either the full-body imaging scan, or the enhanced pat-down, that they SEPARATE you both in time and space from ALL your property, and I mean ALL:

Purse/Wallet, cash, airline ticket, computer, heavy jewelry, I-Phone, I-Pad, carry-on luggage, briefcase, etc.

There is a recent report of a woman whose I-Pad was stolen while she was being scanned.

I wonder how many professional thieves, with a bargain airline ticket, or simply a ticket copy, are roaming the airports all day, continuously going through TSA security, and looking for potential robbery victims. Especially a solo parent with one or more small children, who are being harassed by the TSA agents......a ideal robbery victim.

P.S. Tulsa International Airport is down to only four scheduled airlines: SW, American, United-Continental, and Delta-NW.

So WHY is TAIT therefore remodeling the two terminals when we only need one?

I think I know why....I saw the Manhattan Construction sign.

Roy said:

While I suspect some 'urban legends' amid those reports, they still capture the reality.

9-11 immediately upon overcoming the shock of realizing that I'd just seen in real time a bunch of people die, my first comment to my wife was, "We're gonna lose a lot of liberty."

It grates that liberty loss purchases nearly nothing in terms of safety. It stops fools, but would not stop those with technical sophistication and backing. Only the old way will this sort get stopped : passengers refusing to tolerate it.

But while it does not buy saftety, it does buy in two other areas, both counterproductive. First, TSA lets politicos insist they have responded. It certainly helps them not have to 'fade the heat' of weighing difficult alternatives and deciding that, yes, a war does exist. Second, it tranfers to unaccountable agencies an incredible amount of information.

Unless I have to travel on the order of 1,000 miles or more for business, I drive.

What little safety TSA provides comes at an enormous economic cost. All to avoid the tough choices.

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Michael Bates published on November 15, 2010 11:50 PM.

Links elsewhere 2010/11/14 was the previous entry in this blog.

Bring on the LFL! is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Contact

Feeds

Subscribe to feed Subscribe to this blog's feed:
Atom
RSS
[What is this?]