Tales from the TSA, Part 414
Here are a couple more TSA nightmare stories with video for you. My guess is when the TSA grabs your groin and squeezes so hard you get lifted into the air … that’s too far. Ya think?
The first story is from Grand Rapids, Michigan. A woman who likens her TSA experience was so violent she cried. Click the pic to watch. But here’s the transcript.
Swift says they told her she was singled out because she was wearing a skirt. She says the search earlier this month was very rough and left her in tears.
“The female officer ran her hand up the inside of my leg to my groin and she did it so hard and so rough she lifted me off my heels,” she says. “I think I yelped. I was in pain for about an hour afterwards. It just felt excessive and unnecessary.”
After reviewing the incident, a TSA spokesman says officers involved in the Grand Rapids search acted “appropriately and respectfully.”
Story number two comes from St Louis who likened her “pat down” to sexual assault. From KMOV in ST Louis.
Moroney explains “Her gloved hands touched my breasts…went between them. Then she went into the top of my slacks, inserted her hands between my underwear and my skin… then put her hands up on outside of slacks, and patted my genitals.”
“I was shaking and crying when I left that room” Moroney says. “Under any other circumstance, if a person touched me like that without my permission, it would be considered criminal sexual assault.”
As the ACLU points out in this story there are no laws governing pat downs so TSA officials can pat down anyone for any reason and set their own standards for a pay down. We give up our fundamental rights way too easily in this country especially when there are other ways.
DHS could require that Airports be in charge of their own security, or could assign highly trained screeners to stand at the gate or at the counter. It would require profiling. No, not Muslim profiling. Watching people, and how they act, how they purchase their ticket, whether it’s round trip or one way … with bomb sniffing dogs everywhere. Expensive? Probably, since it would require police investigation training. But then at least a pat down would come because of reasonable cause.
How far do we let this go? Above stories via Drudge.
11 Comments
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This is government approved sexual assault. Good Lord, what have we come to?
That pretty much seals it for me. Apparently, setting off any alarm subjects one to a full body search. I have two screws in my left knee (thanks to a torn ACL four years ago), so I will set off the metal detector, and, I'm guessing, showing the scars won't give me dispensation. Thus, the TSA's "grope and run" will not be part of my travel plans.
Hey, doesn't Amtrak need more ridership?
Wait a minute…doesn't the government subsidize Amtrak?
After a hip replacement 5 years ago, I have always set off the metal alarm, have wanded and have been patted down. No big deal for me. Where there were scanners, no patting down, nor wanding: works for me.
A few years ago I was randomly wanded. I thought that got a little uncomfortable, though it was by no means like these stories. I will avoid flying at all costs until there are changes. Where are all the lawyers filing suits against unreasonable searches?
Humiliation, degradation, violation are words that come to mind!! I was uncomfortable just reading these transcripts!! I know many women who are victims of molestation/rape and I seriously think something like this would send them over the edge.
Food for thought: men are searched by men, and women by women, presumably because of the potential for abuse or the inappropriateness of males searching females and vice versa.
Then it occurred to me: how does this apply to gays and lesbians in this age of "ask and tell"? Would it be more appropriate for a woman to search a gay man and a man to search a lesbian to avoid the potential titillation factor? Or maybe lesbians should frisk gay men and vice versa? Has this even been considered?
What happened to the presumption of innocence? Is refusing a scan of a pat down the same as pleading the Fifth Amendment?
My head is spinning…
I'm thinking that the biggest body of law that may apply is on the use of breathalyzers. There is a presumption of guilt that allows an officer that observes "drunken" behavior to deprive a citizen of his or her right to be free of unreasonable searches. So, to use this metaphor, if you "unjustifyably" deny the scanner, you are implying your guilt. The only Fourth Amendment right we possess in this case is the right to avoid "junk adjustment" on less than probable cause, which may be impossible to prove in this case. If everyone is treated exactly the same (which as we know from the news they are – little girls to octenagarian nuns) then the TSA is free and clear under equal protection laws as well. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see any way to attack this short of insurrection.
Well, at least if your name is John Bohner, you get to to directly to the gate. What happened to:" trust, but verify". That was Pres. Reagan line.
According to John Pistole you go through the pat down and then the gloves are tested for explosive residue. Now why aren't we using the machines that sniff the air and dogs. He also said that profiling is illegal so that isn't an option. Maybe if the policy makers wife or kids went thru and were subject to a pat down maybe policy would change. <a title="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/security-causes-huge-inconvenience-for-all-of-us-obama-admits-he-has-no-clue-how-intrusive-tsa-searches-are/" rel="nofollow"> <a href="http://;http://www.theblaze.com/stories/security-causes-huge-inconvenience-for-all-of-us-obama-admits-he-has-no-clue-how-intrusive-tsa-searches-are” target=”_blank”>;http://www.theblaze.com/stories/security-causes-huge-inconvenience-for-all-of-us-obama-admits-he-has-no-clue-how-intrusive-tsa-searches-are
sammy: apparently, ALL of the ruling class is exempted from the scan/grope, not just Boehner. Apparently, they CAN profile if it advantages the ruling elite.
You hit the nail on the head, Dims!