Groping for fun and profit
Posted: November 21, 2010 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: just because | Tags: TSA horror stories, TSA pat down abuse |21 CommentsPolitico reports that the TSA and the Homeland Security Secretary are just fine with these procedures.
John Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, said several times Sunday that no changes are planned in airport screening procedures, despite an online backlash.
“Do I understand the sensitivities of people? Yes,” Pistole said to CNN’s Candy Crowley on “State of the Union.” “If you’re asking, am I going to change the policies? No.”
His boss, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, was asked on Bloomberg TV’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” if the pat-down procedures are working.
“Yes,” she replied. “And I think it is objectively better at helping us find the liquids, the powders, the gels that could be smuggled onto a plane and used to explode it. … Remember, the walkthrough metal detector was hugely controversial when it began, and now, of course, we don’t even think about it.”
Meanwhile, the ACLU is actively looking for TSA Pat-Down Abuse.
The ACLU is interested in obtaining information about the conduct of these searches. If you are denied the right to opt out of the body scanner machines or believe you have suffered from rough, rude, and humiliating manhandling and groping of breasts and crotch areas, sexual comments, and a lack of privacy, please contact us by using the complaint form linked below.
File a complaint with the ACLU
More and more outrageous stories are coming out in the press every day.
Here are some links to a view of these:
This time the defendant, Sam Wolanyk says he was asked to pass through the 3-D x-ray machine. When Wolanyk refused, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel told him he would have to be patted down before he could pass through and board his airplane.
Wolanyk said he knew what was coming and took off his pants and shirt, leaving him in Calvin Klein bike undergarments.
“It was obvious that my underwear left nothing to the imagination,” he explained. “But that wasn’t enough for the TSA supervisor who was called to the scene and asked me to put my clothes on so I could be properly patted down.”
It was clear to Wolanyk that TSA only wanted him to submit to a pat-down and if they were interested in ensuring the safety of all passengers they would have rifled through his clothes, carryon baggage and acknowledged that he was not carrying any illegal paraphernalia on his person.
ABC Action News; Tampa Florida:
Antonia Riggs Miernik reluctantly rolls up her left pant leg, revealing a scar that runs down her knee. When Miernik was 27 years old, she was injured in a car crash, and “basically destroyed the knee.” Now, she has a metal knee implant.One of the effects of the implant is that whenever the New Port Richey woman flies, she triggers the metal detectors at airport security. She says the normal procedure is that she is then subjected to a TSA pat down. She has experienced multiple pat downs since Sept. 11.
“I feel molested. I’d like to go take a shower with Lysol (afterwards),” Miernik said, describing the pat downs, which she said includes being “touched all over.”
Miernik said the worst experience she had came when her 7-year-old granddaughter was at the airport with her. When her granddaughter saw the pat down, “She went ‘Grandmama, they touched you on your special girl spots.’”
Is this really necessary?
UPDATE: Bostonboomer has found this at Politico that says Pistole may be open to some changes.
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peej
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So funny that men are getting all upset that their genital areas may be seen or touched. They think nothing of the same thing being done to women, but if it’s done to them, OMG!
It’s working? How many bombs and weapons have they netted with that tactic? The only success of which I am aware, groping toddles, grandmas, and ripping urostomy bags and prosthetics off the bodies of cancer survivors has proven that we aren’t racial profiling! Hurray for our enlightened government!
I was wondering that too. I think they will claim it’s working because they haven’t found anything! The mere thought is terrifying the terrorists. They will take their liquids powders and urostomy bags elsewhere.
The TSA screeners are paid a really lame amount. Their benefits are the feels and peek-a-boos. Besides, they are choosing the folks who pose no threat that they will actually have to deal with a truly dangerous, angry terrorist 🙂
I am glad that some of the DA’s in California have sent observers and said they would be prosecuting any TSA person that touches under the clothing or skin to skin, and apparently patting down is not grabbing and twisting breast or testicles or doing any reaching type exams.
Honestly, I think Bush II and Obama have taken this search without cause too far and many outside the US are planning to boycott as they don’t want their privacy/dignity infringed upon. Why not send the TSA top officials to Israel and find out what they do, instead of treading on our liberties to be free from unreasonable Search and seizure of our person.
I can’t imagine anyone but a perv would want to go to work day in and day out and do this job as it stands now.
Exactly.
These TSA “pat-downs” are really disturbing. I cannot believe that they are getting away with all these abusive searches. I mean, at what point can the police get involved; this is clearly way over the line. Like Dak said, it seems like child molestation to me. And the little quote above, about the little girl telling her grandmother, “‘Grandmama, they touched you on your special girl spots.’” That is just disgusting.
I can’t imagine trying to explain to a child why these folks get to do something that you’re not supposed to let any one else do to you!
Exactly, thank you!
I so want to Godwin on this but I’m containing myself.
We are teaching children to submit, they are being primed to be in a totalitarian society. What is the difference between an oppressive society and one that says they can touch any part of your body if you want to use a form of public transportation and since when did we give up probable cause?
These little children are being conditioned, we are conditioned as we no longer question WARS, the PEACE orgs are silent because they are afraid of being called racists, and we have ‘Jane Crow Laws’ via the Obama Stupak Executive Order and no one questioned it except The New Agenda and Terry O’Neil the president of NOW.
CNN is running with the ‘it’s necessary’ byline on the TSA scanning and groping and are making fun of it being sexual ‘wooo’ or some such sound. I don’t want to a ‘wooo’ or more of a yuk, with strangers touching me, when will they grope us when we enter a bus, or a mall?
I’d rather be blown up on an airplane with my constitutional rights in one piece for the good of my daughters than subject myself to some warrantless search by glorified mall cops.
Yes, they keep taking and taking with the story about protection, but what if they do what drug mules do, swallow or sew them onto themselves? What then, enemas, rectal exams, full body nakedness when boarding?
The good thing is that there is quite a grassroots uprising against this brewing. If it is sustained it may break the passivity which has paralyzed the American public for so long and get us going in the direction of effectively acting against the wars, the Jane Crow laws, the eroding of all our civil liberties, the stealing of elections, the destructive economic policies which steal from the poor to give to the rich and send our jobs overseas, and all the other bad things which have been happening.
which of course, all came to a head, because as you mentioned, most straight men are appalled when other men grab their junk … too bad that doesn’t extend to being outraged about women and children to the same degree
Yep. You nailed it.
Bingo. Pilots, of course, were hastily exempted from this assault. Flight attendants, of course, were not.
Tweet I just saw…so true…wth are they thinking?
lizzwinstead Chris Hansen should be monitoring the TSA.
about 7 hours ago via TweetDeck
to clarify he’s the “to catch a predator” show guy
Thanks, it took me awhile to connect the dots on that one!!!