TSA Airport Screening

[BrothaJason]

Does anyone else besides me find these TSA X-Ray machines and the pat downs or should I say groping's very disturbing at the very least. And here is the kicker it doesn't actually help us be secure! Not to mention the corruption with these machines, also they aren't necessarily safe. All of this has nothing to do with keeping us "safe".

[Sis]

PLUS women wearing skirts will be targeted. They can't target foreigners, they're targeting women wearing women's clothing. They said the looser the skirt, the more they're targeting.

We're flying in December and I'm praying every day I don't bust loose and cry. When you've been molested in your past, it might just come back when they "touch" you.

There was a flight attendant on the radio who said  they don't use the backs of their hands anymore, either. And they don't just touch, they squeeze. And one said that when a woman wears a skirt, they have to go someplace and take it off. Sheesh! Makes me want to wear shorts.

Just a personal thought, what if it's THAT TIME and you're wearing protection?

I told Stevebert, I should pee on  them if they grab.

I think the whole country should boycot the airlines until they stop this nonsense. The Muslims attack us and WE are the ones who get punished!!

[Amelia Bedelia]

I fly fairly often and have never had a problem.

Now they have the x-ray type scanner at a lot of airports, the image is transmitted elsewhere and clearance is radioed back. No one is touching and the images aren't really identifiable

Even on the very rare occassion I was singled out for extra wand over or pat down its always been very professional and respectful

[Jaybee]

Will Turkey Day Fliers Cry Foul?
by Scott McCartney
Thursday, November 18, 2010

Full-body scanners, now deployed in 68 airports, and more-thorough pat-downs have some fliers concerned about their privacy and the airlines worried about delays.

Airlines will have extra staff, spare airplanes and plentiful plastic bags for shipping car seats. Airports will have executives working as greeters, gifts in Los Angeles for restless kids in long lines, and people with big yellow clipboards in Boston acting as roving information booths.

Yet even with most elaborate preparations for the crowded Thanksgiving travel rush, which starts this weekend, the lowdown is that the pat-downs could sour some family feasts.

An estimated 24 million people will fly over the river and through the woods to grandma's house and other destinations this Thanksgiving holiday, according to the Air Transport Association. That's up 3.5% over last year.

While bad weather is usually the biggest threat to holiday travel, there's a bigger concern this year: new Transportation Security Administration procedures, including full-body scans and aggressive pat-downs that have screeners feeling inside waistbands and touching all the way up legs and on breasts.

The body scanners—385 of them now deployed at 68 airports—have raised privacy and radiation-exposure concerns. And the pat-downs, which started Nov. 1, have drawn fire from travel groups, lawmakers, civil-rights advocates, and pilot and flight-attendant unions.

The fear is that Thanksgiving travelers—many of them students, families and older people who fly once or twice a year—will be unfamiliar with TSA procedures and slow to get through checkpoints. Full-body scanners require removal of wallets, belts, jewelry and everything inside pockets.

"With people getting partially molested at checkpoints, all that is going to be a real shock for them," said Greg Wells, senior vice president of operations at Southwest Airlines. "TSA will create an issue for us. It's going to slow things down."

Southwest will have employees with walkie-talkies at checkpoints to hold airplane departures if passengers are stuck in long lines.

Previously, TSA screeners just did a cursory check with the back of their hand, avoiding sensitive areas. Now, anyone who sets off a metal detector, refuses to go through a full-body scan, or has anything on his or her body that the scanner picks up will get the new, more-thorough pat-down procedure.

The changes close gaps identified both by would-be terrorists and by government investigators who covertly try to smuggle weapons through to test the effectiveness of screening, said TSA Administrator John Pistole.

"If you have two planes, one where people are thoroughly and properly screened and the other where people could opt out of screening, which would you want to be on?" he asked.

TSA says the body scanners, approved by the Food and Drug Administration, are safe because the radiation dose is minuscule—about what you get in a few minutes of flight at 30,000 feet. Images that show body contours are viewed by TSA screeners who can't see the travelers, and the agency says it doesn't store body images.

Fully Staffed Screening

Mr. Pistole said TSA will be fully staffed for the Thanksgiving rush. Instead of screening about 1.8 million people a day, TSA expects to be screening 2.2 million or more per day during the busy days of the Thanksgiving travel period.

Thanksgiving travel used to be squeezed into the day before Turkey Day and the Sunday after. But now, airlines and airports say Thanksgiving travel has spread out across 12 days as some people avoid peak days to get lower airfares and others turn the holiday into a week-long vacation. Planes will start getting crowded Friday, airlines say.

American Airlines and Southwest both say the Tuesday before Thanksgiving is now busier than Wednesday. The busiest day of the whole holiday remains the Sunday following Thanksgiving, but Monday is hectic, too.

"We all got smarter. The peak phenomenon is spread out, and it's good for everybody," said Susan Baer, director of aviation for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark airports.

Opening Up Airspace

To help relieve congestion and reduce delays, the Federal Aviation Administration said it is opening up some restricted military air space a day earlier this year. Starting at 6 a.m. eastern time Tuesday, commercial airlines will have several additional corridors for flights off the East Coast, plus additional routes across the Gulf of Mexico, into and out of Southern California and across New Mexico. The program ends at 6 a.m. eastern time Nov. 29.

For airlines, Thanksgiving preparations often begin as soon as the busy summer travel season ends. Vacation schedules are arranged so a maximum number of workers are available. Delta Air Lines says it has retired workers volunteer to come back for Thanksgiving in Atlanta and help direct customers and answer questions.

Routine maintenance schedules are planned to have the fewest number of planes in the shop during the holidays. Southwest will shut down its installation of Wi-Fi gear on planes so more spares are available, for example.

Extra Baggage Handlers

Southwest, the largest domestic carrier in terms of passengers, says it will have extra baggage handlers on duty because it expects an avalanche of luggage since it is the only U.S. airline that lets passengers check two bags without paying additional fees.

Workers who stack suitcases inside airplanes while on their knees get tired quickly and will need more-frequent breaks, and the Thanksgiving rush means extra hands will be needed in baggage-sorting rooms to avoid jams, said Southwest's Mr. Wells. "It's all hands on deck," he said.

Even the airline's strategy for cancellations is different. "We won't be canceling anything. We'll just run late to get everyone where they want to go," Mr. Wells said.

At Alaska Airlines, managers make sure that computers are up and running, maintenance is fully stocked with spare parts, airports have enough plastic bags for car seats and boxes for bikes, and that plenty of wheelchair pushers on duty.

"It isn't rocket science. It's a lot of attention to detail," said Diana Shaw, managing director of Alaska's Seattle hub.

United Airlines and others schedule workers differently during the holidays because the clientele is different. People who don't travel often tend to show up at the airport sooner, so more workers may be needed at check-in counters earlier, said Scott Dolan, senior vice president of airport operations.

Coloring Books for Kids

In Los Angeles, 150 airport employees, from custodians to senior management, will wear red vests and work the departures level for the third year. They direct travelers to check-in or security lines, answer questions like how long it will take to get through lines and try to relieve anxiety, even giving away coloring books and squishy airplane toys to kids and hand-sanitizer wipes, puzzle books and luggage tags to adults.

"It's all intended to relieve the pain and anxiety of travel," said Barbara Yamamoto, customer service director at Los Angeles International Airport and head of the Thanksgiving effort.

Boston's Logan Airport has a similar program called "BOS Team," with administrative staff working as greeters and line managers who pull people to the front when their flights are soon to depart. They carry yellow clipboards with a big question mark on them to make them easy to spot.

"They look for the lost face," said Brad Martin, deputy director of aviation who runs Logan's effort at Thanksgiving.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/111346/will-turkey-day-fliers-cry-foul


Are TSA pat-downs and full-body scans unconstitutional?
The Christian Science Monitor

As the debate about the Transportation Security Administration's screening procedures pings across the Internet, a growing chorus of critics is asserting that electronic imaging scans and "enhanced pat-downs" both represent an unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches.

"Enough is enough. I should not have to submit to a digital strip search or being groped by a glorified security guard," writes commenter vrwc1 in a typical post on cnet.com. "This is the largest violation of personal privacy we've ever seen."

The choice to get on an airplane, the argument goes, is not probable cause for such invasive searches, nor does buying a ticket constitute consent to be subjected to a "virtual strip search" and "groping," as critics call the two searches.

For the courts, however, it is a matter of balancing personal privacy rights against public safety.

"Are the conditions that you're consenting to so draconian and so unreasonable that there's a Fourth Amendment problem?" asks William Schroeder, a professor of law at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. "I don't think that argument is going to carry the day, given that people have hidden bombs on their bodies in ways that cannot be found through less invasive searches."

'You don't have to fly'At the heart of the issue is consent, says Professor Schroeder. Have people consented to this search, simply by buying a ticket? "I certainly understand why people are not altogether pleased about it," says Schroeder, but "you've consented. You don't have to fly – that's your choice."

Others, however, suggest that the searches overreach. In order to pass the Supreme Court's test for constitutionality, searches must balance a "reasonable" amount of privacy invasion against the likelihood of finding evidence of a crime.

In other words, it comes down to a cost-benefit analysis.

The "costs" of the scans have been reported from every corner of the Internet. Stories are emerging of TSA officers commenting inappropriately on scans, and of passengers reporting their pat-downs as "sexual assault."

What is not yet clear are the benefits.

John Pistole, head of the TSA, told a Senate committee Tuesday that pat-down techniques are so thorough that they would have detected the explosives concealed in the underwear of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day last year.

"It's more invasive than I'm used to," acknowledged Mr. Pistole, when asked by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D) of North Dakota if he had received an enhanced pat-down himself, during a Wednesday morning hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science, Transportation Committee.

After acknowledging his own personal discomfort with the search, Pistole stood by the procedure as a screening technique. "The bottom line is, we need to provide for the best possible security," he said.

Do full-body scanners work?But the value of the full-body scans, which are used 50 times more often than the pat-downs, are less certain.

"It remains unclear whether the AIT [scanners] would have been able to detect the weapon Mr. Abdulmutallab used in his attempted attack," says a March report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Italian security officials stopped using the scanners in September. "We didn't get good results from body scanners during testing," said Vito Riggio, the president of Italy's aviation authority, describing the scans as slow and ineffective.

British scientists found that the scanners picked up shrapnel and heavy wax and metal, but missed plastic, chemicals and liquids, reported UK newspaper The Independent in January.

"Some of these technological responses to terrorism really start to seem like placebos," says Susan Herman, President of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and law professor at Brooklyn Law School. "To the extent that people understand what the benefits are, and the invasion of privacies are, they can make more informed decisions about giving up their privacy for machines that make them feel better, but don't do the job of preventing any terrorist device from getting on an airplane."

Professor Herman says the scanners present a significant threat to privacy.

"This technology can go right up a woman's skirt," and it can reveal medical conditions via the presence of an adult diaper, a colostomy bag, or other personal medical equipment – information that individuals have the right to keep private, she adds.

The TSA has relented in the face of some complaints. It announced Tuesday that it will no longer screen children under 12.

Chris Calabrese, a privacy lobbyist for the ACLU, says "the balance seems to be missing here."

"Until it's restored, I think TSA is going to continue to hear these concerns," he adds. "This is pretty far outside the norm of what people expect when they travel, even in these days. We've certainly seen the normal shift over the past decade, but there's still a line, and both these procedures are on the wrong side of that line."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20101117/ts_csm/344044

[World Traveler]

If I want to be groped I will get married or go to San Francisco.

[Jaybee]

Another article....

Airports consider congressman's call to ditch TSA
By RAY HENRY and MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Ray Henry And Mike Schneider, Associated Press – Thu Nov 18, 9:45 pm ET

ATLANTA – In a climate of Internet campaigns to shun airport pat-downs and veteran pilots suing over their treatment by government screeners, some airports are considering another way to show dissatisfaction: Ditching TSA agents altogether.

Federal law allows airports to opt for screeners from the private sector instead. The push is being led by a powerful Florida congressman who's a longtime critic of the Transportation Security Administration and counts among his campaign contributors some of the companies who might take the TSA's place.

Furor over airline passenger checks has grown as more airports have installed scanners that produce digital images of the body's contours, and the anger intensified when TSA added a more intrusive style of pat-down recently for those who opt out of the full-body scans. Some travelers are using the Internet to organize protests aimed at the busy travel days next week surrounding Thanksgiving.

For Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida, the way to make travelers feel more comfortable would be to kick TSA employees out of their posts at the ends of the snaking security lines. This month, he wrote letters to nation's 100 busiest airports asking that they request private security guards instead.

"I think we could use half the personnel and streamline the system," Mica said Wednesday, calling the TSA a bloated bureaucracy.

Mica is the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Once the new Congress convenes in January, the lawmaker is expected lead the committee.

Companies that could gain business if airports heed Mica's call have helped fill his campaign coffers. In the past 13 years, Mica has received almost $81,000 in campaign donations from political action committees and executives connected to some of the private contractors already at 16 U.S. airports.

Private contractors are not a cure-all for passengers aggrieved about taking off their shoes for security checks, passing through full-body scanners or getting hand-frisked. For example, contractors must follow all TSA-mandated security procedures, including hand patdowns when necessary.

Still, the top executive at the Orlando-area's second-largest airport, Orlando Sanford International Airport, said he plans to begin the process of switching to private screeners in January as long as a few remaining concerns can be met. The airport is within Mica's district, and the congressman wrote his letter after hearing about its experiences.

CEO Larry Dale said members of the board that runs Sanford were impressed after watching private screeners at airports in Rochester, N.Y., and Jackson Hole, Wyo. He said TSA agents could do better at customer service.

"Some of them are a little testy," said Dale, whose airport handles 2 million passengers a year. "And we work hard to get passengers and airlines. And to have it undone by a personality problem?"

To the south, the city's main airport, Orlando International, said it's reviewing Mica's proposal, although it has some questions about how the system would work with the 34 million passengers it handles each year. In Georgia, Macon City Councilor Erick Erickson, whose committee oversees the city's small airport, wants private screeners there.

Erickson called it a protest move in an interview.

"I am a frequent air traveler and I have experienced ... TSA agents who have let the power go to their head," Erickson said. "You can complain about those people, but very rarely does the bureaucracy work quickly enough to remove those people from their positions."

TSA officials would select and pay the contractors who run airport security. But Dale thinks a private contractor would be more responsive since the contractor would need local support to continue its business with the airport.

"Competition drives accountability, it drives efficiency, it drives a particular approach to your airport," Dale said. "That company is just going to be looking at you. They're not going to be driven out of Washington, they will be driven out of here."

San Francisco International Airport has used private screeners since the formation of the TSA and remains the largest to do so.

The airport believed a private contractor would have more flexibility to supplement staff during busy periods with part-time employees, airport spokesman Mike McCarron said. Also, the city's high cost of living had made it difficult in the past to recruit federal employees to run immigration and customs stations — a problem the airport didn't want at security checkpoints.

"You get longer lines," McCarron said.

TSA spokesman Greg Soule would not respond directly Mica's letter, but reiterated the nation's roughly 460 commercial airports have the option of applying to use private contractors.

Companies that provide airport security are contributors to Mica's campaigns, although some donations came before those companies won government contracts. The Lockheed Martin Corp. Employees' Political Action Committee has given $36,500 to Mica since 1997. A Lockheed firm won the security contract in Sioux Falls, S.D. in 2005 and the contract for San Francisco the following year.

Raytheon Company's PAC has given Mica $33,500 since 1999. A Raytheon subsidiary began providing checkpoint screenings at Key West International Airport in 2007.

FirstLine Transportation Security Inc.'s PAC has donated $4,500 to the Florida congressman since 2004. FirstLine has been screening baggage and has been responsible for passenger checkpoints at the Kansas City International Airport since 2006, as well as the Gallup Municipal Airport and the Roswell Industrial Air Center in New Mexico, operating at both since 2007.

Since 2006, Mica has received $2,000 from FirstLine President Keith Wolken and $1,700 from Gerald Berry, president of Covenant Aviation Security. Covenant works with Lockheed to provide security at airports in Sioux Falls and San Francisco.

Mica spokesman Justin Harclerode said the contributions never improperly influenced the congressman, who said he was unaware Raytheon or Lockheed were in the screening business.

"They certainly never contacted him about providing screening," Harclerode said.

Anger over the screenings hasn't just come from passengers. Two veteran commercial airline pilots asked a federal judge this week to stop the whole-body scans and the new pat-down procedures, saying it violates their civil rights.

The pilots, Michael S. Roberts of Memphis and Ann Poe of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., have refused to participate in either screening method and, as a result, will not fly out of airports that use these methods, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington.

Roberts is a pilot with ExpressJet Airlines and is on unpaid administrative leave because of his refusal to enter the whole-body scanners. Poe flies for Continental Airlines and will continue to take off work as long as the existing regulations are in place.

"In her eyes, the pat-down is a physical molestation and the WBI scanner is not only intrusive, degrading and potentially dangerous, but poses a real and substantial threat to medical privacy," the lawsuit states.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101119/ap_on_re_us/us_airport_security_private_screeners

[SippinTea]

I fly fairly often and have never had a problem.

Now they have the x-ray type scanner at a lot of airports, the image is transmitted elsewhere and clearance is radioed back. No one is touching and the images aren't really identifiable

Even on the very rare occassion I was singled out for extra wand over or pat down its always been very professional and respectful

Same here. I fly relatively often and have never once had an issue with screenings.

I know there are horror stories floating, but part of that is sheer hype to TRY to frighten people and keep people from doing stupid things, IMO. And when you realize how many people try EVERY WEEK to get on flights with hidden weapons on their person, I'd have an attitude and try to scare people if I was a TSA agent, too!

Safety is no joke. And especially when you have the lives of every person on the flight at risk if you DON'T do your job thoroughly.

Yes, I think some things get carried way to far with screenings (thinking mostly of what you are and are not allowed to carry with you on a plane), but in all the times I've flown in the last year or two, I've never once had any problems with TSA agents.

[Sis]

I fly fairly often and have never had a problem.

Now they have the x-ray type scanner at a lot of airports, the image is transmitted elsewhere and clearance is radioed back. No one is touching and the images aren't really identifiable

Even on the very rare occassion I was singled out for extra wand over or pat down its always been very professional and respectful

This has just been put into place this  month. Listen to Fox News and you can learn all about it. Or most of talk radio has been talking about it this week. I fly often, too. But all this is new, so you can't rely on past experience. It has been proven to not help safety at all. It's just more control and loss of freedoms to your person. We have a fourth amendment that is supposed to guard us against unreasonable searches  without a warrant. And the police can't even surch the way they are doing now, at airports. 

But as I said, I ran into some of it last spring. Being singled out because I was wearing a skirt. At that time they only wanded me.

The stories about people being caught "every week" are spin from the government. The Muslims aren't that stupid. They will try something totally different next time. It is spin to get people to comply.

ADDED:

TSA says the body scanners, approved by the Food and Drug Administration, are safe because the radiation dose is minuscule—about what you get in a few minutes of flight at 30,000 feet. Images that show body contours are viewed by TSA screeners who can't see the travelers, and the agency says it doesn't store body images.

They have already been posting some of the "Funnier" ones online. They CAN store them. For our safety, of course.

I also heard on FOX that the Muslims can insert plastic explosives into body cavities and the screening won't find them. What next? Strip searches and digital cavity searches, like they do in jail?

What if someone is wearing a pad? Will she be pulled aside and have to show it?  This whole thing has gone way too far. I don't care how much they spin it. And it does nothing for safety. It does plenty toward having the population giving up freedoms to a government that wants to run things. To give up our freedoms one at a time in the name of safety is what's really going on.  And we have a huge population of young adults who are willing to hand them over and put the rest of us in paril.

[(R.I.P.) YooperYankDude]

I guess the alternative is simply to drive or take a train or bus when you want to go places...

I know when I was in the military after 9/11... if I was wearing a uniform or used my Military ID, or they saw me in their system as military... that I got all my baggage searched... and pat down. Seems like on every flight.  Couldn't figure it out, and I was one of the "good" guys... seems there would be more suspicious looking guys to check... usually right in front of me.

But they weren't "allowed" to racial profile anyone that looked like they were from the middle east... nope... let the guys who are prone to be bringing bad things on the plane, and grab the USAF guy right behind him.

As far as this stuff... not sure what to say. Either you take the chance, fly, and get there a WHOLE lot quicker... or drive. Fighting them is simply going to make you more suspicious... and could cost you your seat on the plane.

I have no doubt that there is reasoning behind it... just a shame that good Americans are the ones that will be targets... and that they cannot find a better way than the full body patdowns...

But on the topic of Talk radio... I like those guys... but they are first and foremost performers... and they make a lot of money getting people all hyped up. I trust some of what they say... but some of it is ridiculous, and causes more angst and fear than anything else.

I plan to fly before the end of the yr... I'll let you know how it goes... lol

Ohh... and not trying discount what anyone is saying... or belittle anyone's concerns...

[(R.I.P.) YooperYankDude]

So to protest... we'll start a national boycott of all Airlines (that'll improve safety on the already packed roads...)...   

[Sis]

We made plans long time ago, and paid for everything. Can't afford to lose the money on the airlines, and it would take us a few days to get where we're going by car. We are going to fly a lot less in the future, though. No more long trips. Just short trips around here, I guess, where we can drive to our destination.

The Muslims are up in arms at having their women groped and they want deferments for religious reasons. If they give in to this demand, it will be profiling only CHRISTIAN women, or women who choose to dress like women.

And yoop, what would you feel like when someone grabs your crotch, especially when they're the same sex? They won't grab your top, though. No thrill there.

[(R.I.P.) YooperYankDude]

And yoop, what would you feel like when someone grabs your crotch, especially when they're the same sex? They won't grab your top, though. No thrill there.

Eh now... I didn't say it wasn't wrong... I didn't say they were justified in doing so... that is why I said... either drive or take a train... if you dont want to be picked out of the group...

It is called boycotting... the Blacks did it during Rosa Parks time... and they were being treated like dirt as well...

But to go there actively knowing it is possibly going to happen... and then causing a scene by peeing on the inspector... isn't gonna help your cause, and will make you lose your seat on a plane.

- Had more typed out... but deleted it... Dont feel like getting into a row on this... I agree with the outrage... I just dont think causing a scene at an airport is going to help... if anything... it will make it worse for all...

This action by the TSA will result in civil unrest... and rightly so... but someone needs to come up with a way to make sure our planes full of passengers are not hijacked by some evil people.

[Sis]

I'm afraid too many people are complacent. They don't care. They're handing over rights. I hate their arguement, "If you don't like it, don't fly"  Every time we lose something that's the attitude. We have fourth amendment rights for a reason. But people are too willing to hand over their rights.

If you noticed, the spin is usually using fear to push something through. When abortion came through, they used fear to accomplish it. The promise was that ony women who were raped or those in medical distress would be able to have abortions.  You have to have sympathy for those poor women. They had movies and shows about women getting pregnant looking for abortions and having to go into dirty back rooms on dirty sheets to get them with a coathanger by some old woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. This was to instill the fear. They talked about it for a long time before Roe vs Wade came up. It was planned. (Truth is, most women don't get pregnant easily when they are experiencing extreme fear. The number is in the hundreths of a percent)   That's not the way the law was written. It was written to include anyone who would be mentally distressed if they had the baby. Anyone could claim that. for any reason.

Creating fear and playing on people's sympathy is how they have been doing it for decades. Fear makes people do what they wouldn't normally do. And they think it's in the name of safety. The government has been doing this for a long time. Littlie pieces at a time. But most of you weren't around to see it. It's easy for some (Not Yoop, but others) to say just give in to it or go someplace else, because they can't see the forest for the trees. Having lived through so much more of it, I'm like at the top of the tallest building looking and seeing what's going on. But as usual I'm wrong, wrong, wrong.

I do NOT want to see the perps being able to walk through and being profiled myself. Just like you, Yoop. Seeing the middle Easterner go through and because you were military, one of our protectors, having to go through the searches. At least they didn't grope you then.

[Sis]

Scott found this.

I see what they're doing. They are doing these sexual assaults, so we will be willing to have the full body scans without complaining. The lesser of the two evils. Here is one woman's story about going through the groping pat down. It's worse than I thought. I didn't realize they would go INTO your underwear and touch your skin!


Woman says her Lambert security screening was sexual assault


KMOV.com
Posted on November 18, 2010 at 11:32 PM

Updated today at 1:13 PM

(KMOV) -- More Americans are growing angrier, over what the Transportation Security Administration, admits are more intrusive security put downs at airports.

One woman is comparing her experience at Lambert Airport to a sexual assault.

Business traveler, Penny Moroney, was flying home from St. Louis to Chicago. Like all other airline passengers, she had to go through security first. When the metal in her artificial knees set off the detectors, she had to undergo more screening. When Moroney asked if she could go through a body scanner, she was told none were available.

A pat down was the only alternative.

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."

Moroney complained to the Transportation Security Administration, TSA, supervisor and then complained on the ACLU's website.

The national office is now monitoring what it calls a "flood of complaints" from across the country.

Edwin Yohnka of ACLU Illinois says there are no laws and no regulations that govern scanners and pat downs.

Moroney said she wishes there were full body scanners everywhere so that she could have avoided a pat down.

The TSA's response was that their officers' first priority is safety when asked if putting hands down the front of someone's pants is excessive.

The TSA said they don't comment on individual screening procedures at checkpoints.

Anyone who sets off the metal detectors is required to go through a physical pat down, but the TSA says they use a less aggressive touch for children under 12.

The government is currently adding more body scanners at airports across the country.


http://www.kmov.com/news/mobile/Woman-says-her-Lambert-security-screening-was-sexual-assault--109114934.html

[SippinTea]

Okay, so I think I was a tad too hasty with my last post. While I have flown quite recently, it apparently hasn't been since all this stuff has been going on. I've been doing a fair amount of reading in the few days, and this whole thing is completely out of hand.

Methinks I won't be flying anywhere until they get their act together.

And if enough people boycott them, you better believe the airlines are going to be screaming. They won't want the loss of business, and then maybe something positive will get done.

Buses are good. Trains are good. Road trips are great. Might cost us some time, but the alternatives are disgusting right now.

Hmm... wonder where the complaint contact info is. Might should go look that up. And then flood them.

[Amelia Bedelia]

I've flown since this went into place and didn't have a problem... even had extra liquids in my bag that they didn't notice (hand sanitizer in my bag rather than in my ziplock with all the others)

But even before this went into place people were complaining about screening procedures so I'm not sure what the answer is...

[Scott]

From what I've read and seen.... this is outlandish, over the top and in many cases legal sexual assault.

[Sis]

Excuse the directness of this, but two women were standing there discussing the string they found when grabbing a woman's genitals. She was standing right there while they were talking about how funny it was.

Another woman said they were so rough with her, she hurt for an hour afterward.

Another guy was told if he didn't submit, he'd have to leave. He chose to leave, then they caught up with him and said he had to submit to leave the building. If he didn't, they could impose a $10,000.00 fine on him. He said, "Sue me" and left. In other words, they will MAKE you submit no matter what.

If he had to submit to leave, they might as well let him fly.

We are living in a police state when these things can happen against our fourth amendment rights. We have no rights, apparently.

[Amelia Bedelia]

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2010/11/tsa-bumper-stickers.html

[Sis]

Funny but sadly too true.

[Sis]

In one case, they took a pliars and took out a woman's *AHEM* Rings from a private place. It is one thing to find out someone has them but who said they had to remove them, possibly causing damage. This amounts to surgery.

If you still think this is a joke watch this little girl being traumatized by the TSA. She hardly looks like a alcaida (sp) agent.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFoa0LsqVbQ

[BrothaJason]

Just came on to check this post and noticed it had 20 replies already hehe. But yeah all of this is just ridiculous, and lets not confuse any of this with real security. Its just more rights being taken away and people not caring, Bush started it after 9/11 and Obama has continued it. Terrorism is a good fear to fuel their own agenda whatever it might be.

Oh by the way if you do get scanned count on them keeping the porno pic and having it potentially sent and put out on the internet, how lovely eh? 

[Sis]

The more I think about it, the more I'm seeing that they won't care how many comlaints there are. After all, there are ONLY over 1500 complaints. That's nothing to worry about. For every communication from a consumer, you think they represent ten people. Nine of which are afraid to complain, or don't know how to go about it.

I'm thinking they probably don't want people flying. They're probably looking forward to people boycotting. All the better to control you with, my dear. You don't fly, we can keep track of where you are more easily. Especially if you're not flying out of the country.

They stand behind all these horrible things that are happening with their prepared spin statements.

And going through the full body screening doesn't guarantee you won't be groped. Several of those people are pulled aside for further groping, too.

Makes you wonder what horrible thing they have waiting next, doesn't it?

[BrothaJason]

Yes exactly. It makes you wonder if they are trying to condition people for the next step, whatever craziness that might be. This is what government does, and people need to wake up and say something about it and not just be like oh well it doesn't matter.

[Melody]

Nathan and I were talking about this last night.  I wonder if they aren't letting this become so dramatic so that they can do the Xray machines they wanted in the first place, but are expensive and frowned upon.  Now people will be willing to pay more to compensate the difference and compromise to being seen naked on a machine rather than physically molested.  I do think it's a manipulation and that they don't really care about all these abuse cases.

I wonder about the people they are hiring to do this.  Obviously they would be hiring alot more people, what kind of people are comfortable feeling up people?  Even if one thought they were lustful about attractive people, what about the obese, handicap, diseased ones?  Do they have to check between each fat roll?  Or aren't terrorists overweight?  It's all just a bit too weird how people are being roughed up, like they the patters are ex cons or something.