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In response to a lawsuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit ... ordered the TSA to give the public a 90-day comment period, which the agency did not do when it launched the scanning program. The TSA began the comment period online in March, and so far it has been getting an average of 26 comments a day — nearly all of which blast the TSA and the scanners for a variety of reasons .... To add your comments, visit www.regulations.gov and type in the case code TSA-2013-0004.

Every time I say “Just when I thought the TSA couldn’t stoop any lower”, the TSA goes and does something that proves that yes, they absolutely *can* stoop lower. On February 9, Nathan Forck and his wife Annie, along with their three children, were at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport on their way to Orlando for a family vacation to Disney World. The Forcks’ three-year old daughter, Lucy, has spinal bifida and is confined to a wheelchair. They got through the TSA security checkpoint quickly and without incident but as they were getting ready to walk to their gate to board...

We all hear the news reports – laptops, tablets, jewelry, cash, and more… stolen from passengers by sticky-fingered TSA agents. Thefts became such a problem that even the TSA had to step up to the plate and take action.In recent years, the TSA has fired over 400 agents for allegedly stealing from passengers in our nation’s airports.Thanks to ABC News and a Freedom of Information Act request, the TSA is releasing the names of the airports where those employees worked. Predictably, many of our nation’s busiest airports also rank at the top of the list for the number of TSA...

If news about the TSA agent stealing an iPad from a tourist or the TSA agents forcing an injured Marine to remove his prosthetic legs made you mad, this one will leave you absolutely fuming. On February 2, TSA agent Christopher Wilkie, a nine year employee of the TSA and resident Long Beach, NY was arrested for hitting his 75-year old mother. Wilkie, age 42, was arrested near his mother’s home after a witness saw him strike his mother while they were inside a car. He was charged with third-degree assault on a person over 60, second-degree harassment, second-degree threatening...

Long security lines, ever changing rules about what is and is not allowed, manhandling pat-downs... Thanks to the TSA, air travel is unpleasant enough as it is and now we have to worry about TSA agents stealing from us? And there's no way to NOT have them go through your luggage.They go through your checked baggage and rifle through your carry-on. You have no choice but to submit to this if you want to be able to board your flight.So what is a law abiding air traveler to do in order to protect his or her belongings from the very...

I knew that, by and large, TSA agents were a dour, rigid lot with no respect for freedom and human dignity, but until I heard about this latest incident, I didn't know that they were soulless too. In July of last year, Indiana resident John Gross was flying out of Orlando International Airport on a return trip to Indiana with his grandfather's remains in an air tight glass container clearly marked "Human Remains". This shouldn't have been a problem, folks. TSA has rules about this sort of thing and those rules state that crematory remains are allowed in a carry-on...

It looks like the powers that be at the TSA might have finally gotten something right. In 2011, the TSA began what would be close to a year long investigation into lax luggage screening procedures at New York’s Newark Liberty International Airport. Hidden cameras at the airport showed dozens of TSA agents doing a half-assed job screening checked baggage and failing to physically search flagged luggage altogether. This same investigation, which originally began as a probe to investigate numerous allegations of items being stolen from checked baggage inside one of the screening room, also found incidents of TSA agents sleeping...

Transportation Security Administration officers “humiliated” a Marine who lost both legs to an Improvised Explosive Device by requiring the wheelchair-bound Marine to stand and walk. They also had him remove both his prosthetic legs, according to a letter from Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-California). In his complaint to TSA Administrator John Pistole, Hunter described the Marine as being “humiliated” by the TSA’s actions, based on accounts of the incident last week in Phoenix, Arizona. “The individual escorting this Marine asked the TSA officer which of the two checkpoints to enter and received the response, ‘either one,’ only to be told moments...

Claire McCaskill @clairecmc Today in my airport screening, test on my hands was positive. Got private, more aggressive pat down. OMG. #veryuncomfortable A routine airport screening turned absurd today when TSA officials gave a sitting U.S. Senator an aggressive security pat-down. What exactly was on Sen. McCaskill’s hands that could have caused TSA such concern?

"Look what one agent did to his own 75-year-old mother "Some might consider it one of the most important jobs in America after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: Protecting the nation’s airports, airplanes and citizens from would-be terrorists hell-bent on mass murder. But the TSA screeners patting you down and combing through your belongings don’t have federal law-enforcement training, may earn about as much as a McDonald’s shift manager and are not required to possess a high-school diploma or GED. In fact, they might even be criminals. If recent news reports are any indication, many Americans can’t even trust...

Newsmax Toddler TSA Incident: Girl in Wheelchair Cries During Search Friday, February 22, 2013 10:55 AM By: Michael Mullins VIDEO A wheelchair-bound 3-year-old girl on her way to Disney World became distraught when she was patted down by a Transportation Security Administration agent apparently looking for explosives. The Feb. 9 incident at the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport was partially captured on a cell phone video. It shows the toddler, Lucy Forck, of Osage Beach, Mo., crying, "I don’t want to go to Disney World," as a female TSA agent hovers behind her, instructing the girl's mother to put away her...

Forck family was flying from Missouri to Orlando, Florida for vacation Three-year-old daughter, Lucy, was detained for further testing ahead of family's February 8 flight Stuffed animal 'Lamby' was confiscated Lucy suffers from spinal bifida and is in a wheelchair TSA later admitted girl should never have been threatened with patdown The parents of a toddler with spinal bifida are outraged after TSA officials forced their daughter to undergo a series of additional security measures ahead of their flight to Disney World. Nathan and Annie Forck were flying out of their home state of Missouri on a February 8 flight...

A family’s run-in with Transportation Security Administration screeners at Missouri's Lambert-St. Louis International Airport as they were heading to Orlando on vacation was caught on camera, and is raising questions about airport security rules. Annie Schulte said it all started when TSA agents asked to pat down her 3-year-old daughter, Lucy, who is disabled and in a wheelchair. The agents also wanted to screen Lucy’s wheelchair. Schulte recorded the incident on her cellphone. In the video, Lucy begins to cry and says, "I don't want to go to Disney World." -snip But the family said the final straw was when...

After screening 637,582,122 passengers in 2012 (around 1,746,800 a day), here are some of the more dangerous, scary, and downright unusual items our officers found in 2012. This post is a reflection of the outstanding work our officers are doing in the field thanks to their vigilance and attention to detail. More at site...

An airport screener with the Transportation Security Administration at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport is the latest TSA officer to be fired for stealing from passengers, following an ongoing ABC News investigation into theft within the agency. Reggie Edwards, 52, was charged with larceny under $50 after allegedly stealing $36 from a passenger's suitcase on New Year's Day. ... Edwards joins a growing list, now numbering nearly 400, of TSA officers to be fired for theft since the agency was incepted in 2003.

Immature: A former TSA officer has revealed that he had witnessed his co-workers laughing at the nude X-ray images of passengers going through full-body scanners A former Transpiration Security Administration (TSA) agent-turned-anonymous blogger recently revealed that his co-workers routinely make fun of passengers' nude body images while reviewing them in backrooms. The unnamed ex-TSA officer, who writes for the blog Taking Sense Away, received a note from a reader which said: 'Tell us, please, what really happens in that private room and why the TSA does not want it seen in public or recorded.' In response, the blogger wrote that...

The Transportation Security Administration is under heavy fire after publicly exposing the breasts of a teenage girl during its controversial “screening” procedures. TSA Blasted for Exposing Breasts of Congressman's Teen Grandniece The New American 28 November 2012 The Transportation Security Administration is under heavy fire after publicly exposing the breasts of a teenage girl during its controversial “screening” procedures. Of course, passengers routinely complain of TSA abuse and molestation — some 17,000 formal complaints have been lodged against the widely ridiculed and despised unconstitutional Homeland Security agency just since 2009, documents show. The latest scandal, however, has turned into...

CLEVELAND, OH - a Transportation Security Agent has been arrested on a warrant for the rape of a northeast Ohio boy he had been mentoring as a big brother. ... arrested at the airport in Newark, NJ. He had gone to work for the TSA in Germany

Your suitcase has been tagged and whisked away for a TSA security check before being loaded onto a plane en route to your final destination. How safe are the belongings inside? The TSA has fired nearly 400 employees for allegedly stealing from travelers, and for the first time, the agency is revealing the airports where those fired employees worked. Newly released figures provided to ABC News by the TSA in response to a Freedom of Information Act request show that, unsurprisingly, many of the country's busiest airports also rank at the top for TSA employees fired for theft. Sixteen of...

@DLoesch TSA said I was covered in explosives, took me to a private room and touched my vagina. So how was your day?

A former TSA worker has pleaded guilty to stealing over $500 in cash from a man who complained about the TSA’s invasive pat down procedure, with the TSA agent admitting the theft was a punishment for the man’s lack of obedience. 60-year-old John W. Irwin pleaded guilty to one count of grand larceny following an incident in November 2011, during which a man asked that he be given a pat down rather than face a body scanner due to a medical condition. When TSA agents ordered the man undergo the pat down in a private room, he complained but agreed...

A number of years ago, a TSA agent named Pythias Brown accidentally left a camera out of some luggage he was screening. Not wanting to be reprimanded for his mistake, he decided to avoid any problems by secretly taking the camera home. This event opened his eyes to how easy it was to pocket passengers’ belongings, and he began to steal more and more items in increasingly brazen thefts. After stealing over $800,000 worth of items from passenger bags over a four-year period, he was finally caught when he tried to auction off an easily identifiable camera belonging by a...

Cops Nab Alleged TSA Thief, Hundreds Already Fired By LEE FERRAN, MEGAN CHUCHMACH , RANDY KREIDER and BRIAN ROSS Oct. 6, 2012 A TSA employee working in a Los Angeles airport could become the 382nd worker fired from the security agency for allegedly stealing from travelers, a years-long problem highlighted in a recent ABC News investigation. Los Angeles police released a statement late Friday saying a passenger came to the authorities after he said money had been taken out of his wallet while he was going through airport security at Los Angeles International Airport. After a brief investigation, police arrested...

TSA scrapes bottom for good agents? (Associated Posers) -PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania – The Transportation Safety Administration admits that finding people who want to pat down and strip search grandma and the kids is a recruiters nightmare. “We have advertised on pizza boxes and offered to ignore certain transgressions in one past, such as drug use, in order to find these screeners” said a spokesperson for the TSA who wanted anonymity. In a statement to Associated Posers, the TSA said, “Every single TSA employee undergoes a comprehensive background check, which includes criminal history. An allegation alone does not warrant dismissal or...

A Catholic priest who was defrocked for allegedly sexually abusing young girls was hired by the Transportation Security Administration before his background check was complete and has worked at Philadelphia International Airport for the last 10 years. Thomas Harkins joined the TSA in 2002 after resigning from the priesthood the same year. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the TSA hired the former priest before completing a background check. The Diocese of Camden revealed to the TSA in 2003 as part of the background check that Harkins had been removed from his ministry in the diocese because of allegations he had...

Before I get accused of painting everyone who works for TSA with a broad brush, I'm not. The majority of people working for TSA are just following orders and doing their jobs, I know this. Others however, like this guy, aren't simply doing their jobs to "keep us safe" but get to rummage through your stuff and feel you up anyway.  A convicted TSA security officer says he was part of a "culture" of indifference that allowed corrupt employees to prey on passengers' luggage and personal belongings with impunity, thanks to lax oversight and tip-offs from TSA colleagues. "It was...

A convicted TSA security officer says he was part of a "culture" of indifference that allowed corrupt employees to prey on passengers' luggage and personal belongings with impunity, thanks to lax oversight and tip-offs from TSA colleagues. "It was very commonplace, very," said Pythias Brown, a former TSA officer at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey who admits he stole more than $800,000 worth of items from luggage and security checkpoints over a four-year period. "It was very convenient to steal," he said. Brown is one of almost 400 TSA officers who have been fired for stealing from passengers...

An investigation into frequent thefts at American airport security screening checkpoints resulted in a stolen iPad being tracked to a TSA officer's home, using Apple's 'Find My Phone' iCloud service. In a sting operation conducted by Brian Ross of ABC News, iPads and cash were left behind in airport security checkpoints. In nine of the ten airports visited, passengers were asked to return to pick up their belongings, which were clearly labeled with their name and contact information. However, after an iPad went missing in Orlando, the news organization tracked it back to the home of TSA officer Andy Ramirez,...

DALLAS ― After the Republican National Convention, Rep. Ron Paul’s family and aides were allegedly detained and interrogated in Clearwater, Florida yesterday. Paul’s family and aides attempted to depart for Texas when eight Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents refused to allow their passage. According to Lew Rockwell, Paul's former chief of staff, agents first questioned the pilot’s credentials, then insisted the passengers and plane be searched for explosives. TSA agents did not cite any specific threat, but insinuated the Paul family was a threat to Mitt Romney, claiming the nominee “might be nearby.” The pilot reminded

Can the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) pull you out of line without any rational reason, quiz you on where you are going and why? And if you choose not to answer, does that make you “hostile?” One newspaper writer from the Midwest found out the answers to those questions on Monday when he experienced the TSA’s new “chat-down” while waiting in line at airport security.

From sleeping on the job to running prostitution rings off the clock, agents in the Transportation Security Administration have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. But TSA Deputy Administrator John Halinski shrugged off critiques of his employees at a hearing this week, saying Americans shouldn’t expect more from their airport screeners than they would from the average guy on the street. “If you have an organization of 60,000 people, that’s like a city,” Halinski protested, when asked if Americans were right to be unhappy with the TSA. “You’re always going to have crime in a city. You’re always

VALERIO BRENTWOOD — A Londonderry man who worked for the Transportation Security Administration was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in state prison after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a young girl. Dwayne Valerio, 45, pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault on Friday, leaving it up to a judge to hand down a sentence. Assistant County Attorney Patricia Conway asked for consecutive 10 to 20 year prison terms on the two charges. A judge agreed to her recommendation after a hearing on Friday in Rockingham County Superior Court. Valerio was arrested March 25, 2011, after an...

FORT MYERS, Fla., June 21 (UPI) -- The Transportation Security Administration said an agent was groped by a woman who was unhappy about her pat down at a Florida airport. Carol Price of Bonita Springs is facing a misdemeanor battery charge after she allegedly groped a TSA supervisor at Southwest Florida International Airport, WZVN-TV, Fort Myers, Fla., reported Thursday. John Mills, Price's defense attorney, said his client was showing the supervisor the inappropriate way she had been touched by a TSA agent. "It was a customer complaint of an extremely inappropriate search," Mills said. Mills said Price is a former...

Dana Loesch ✔ @DLoesch Chris just set off TSA "alarm." Additional "screenings" required. Unreal. 10 Jun 12 Reply Retweet Favorite Dana Loesch of Breitbart.com and CNN and her husband, Chris Loesch, were stopped by the TSA today when catching a flight home from Netroots Nation. Dana gave a running account of the TSA’s “handling” of things via her Twitter feed.

Clearly, our country faces terrorist threats, but young children, the elderly, Nobel Prize winners and mustached television talk show hosts should not be our focus. If the current TSA procedures are not changed very soon, innocent Americans may be killed, sacrificed at the altar of political correctness.

NEW YORK (CBSDC) — Even a Nobel Peace Prize winner can’t avoid a pat-down. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger got searched by a Transportation Security Administration employee while going through a security checkpoint at LaGuardia Airport in New York Friday, The Washington Post reports. Kissinger, who was in a wheelchair, was told by a TSA agent that he needed to be searched. “He stood with his suit jacket off, and he was wearing suspenders,” freelance reporter Matthew Cole told the Post. “They gave him the full pat-down. None of the agents seemed to know

Fox News host Geraldo Rivera caused another controversy today by claiming that he was 'manually raped' by a Transportation Security Administration officer (TSA).Making the serious accusation on 'Fox and Friends' this morning, the 'Geraldo at Large' host said that the incident happened on a recent trip to Afghanistan.'I got manually raped by a guy,' said Rivera.'This guy, it seemed to me, was getting off on it.'Causing co-host Gretchen Carlson to raise her hand to her mouth in mirth, the flamboyant broadcast journalist had been asked to comment on the recent removal of a toddler from a plane who was branded...

SALT L AKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - A Colorado teen is upset with screeners at Salt Lake City International Airport. The type one diabetic says TSA agents were abrupt, rude and were responsible for breaking her $10,000 insulin pump. A pump she has to have to survive. Savannah Barry is mad and on a mission. She wants travelers to be warned before they walk through TSA security. "They need to get with the program and have some education across the board for TSA." After participating in a DECA conference in Salt Lake City with several classmates last week, Savannah,...

Senator Rand Paul has issued a press release in which he vows to lead the charge to “end the TSA” and put a stop to the needless and humiliating groping of toddlers and grandmothers. Earlier this year, Paul was detained by the TSA after refusing to submit to an invasive pat down after already having passed through a body scanner. The incident prompted national headlines and caused the Senator to miss his flight. “It’s time to END the TSA and get the government’s hands back to only stealing our wallets instead of groping toddlers and grandmothers,” says Paul in the...

VIDEO: News report that the tyrannical TSA is hiring so rapidly that can't perform the background checks of the new goons they're hiring fast enough. Their solution? 'Hire them anyway! Screw the background checks!'...

Mother Of Child With Cerebral Palsy Says TSA Treated Daughter "Like Osama Bin Laden" A TSA agent at JFK "started screaming at me and cursing me and threatening me," says a Long Island man who used his cell phone to videotape what he describes as an unnecessarily "aggressive" security screening of his developmentally disabled daughter. Dr. Joshua Frank, a Long Island pediatrician, is the father of Dina Frank, a girl with cerebral palsy who walks with crutches and leg braces. She can't pass through metal detectors for this reason, and is usually patted down by security agents, a procedure that...

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – The Transportation Security Administration is once again the subject of national scrutiny, this time after aggressively screening a 7-year-old female passenger with cerebral palsy which caused her family to miss their flight....“They make our lives completely difficult,” her father, Dr. Joshua Frank, a Long Island pediatrician, told The Daily. “She’s not a threat to national security.” Frank taped the encounter, which ended when a supervisor inspected her crutches and let them pass. But agents followed up and insisted upon doing a full inspection of Dina. Ultimately, the family missed their flight.

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – The Transportation Security Administration is once again the subject of national scrutiny, this time after aggressively screening a 7-year-old female passenger with cerebral palsy which caused her family to miss their flight. Since Dina walks with the aid of leg braces and crutches, she cannot pass through airport metal detectors, and must instead submit to a pat-down by TSA agents.

As head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from 2005 to 2009, Kip Hawley was the public face of an agency despised by millions of Americans. Today, he says that hatred is understandable because the agency’s approach to airport security is “broken,” arguing that it should forgo standardized procedures and a focus on prohibited items in favor of increased flexibility and mitigating risk.

Feds: Crooked TSA Screeners Arrested in Drug Trafficking Scheme By JASON RYAN and LEE FERRAN | ABC News Multiple airport screeners have been arrested for allegedly taking handsome bribes to look the other way while loads of illegal drugs slipped through security at Los Angeles International Airport, federal officials announced today. Two current and two former officials at the Transportation Security Administration were arrested in the last 48 hours in connection with at least five incidents from February 2011 to July 2011 in which on duty screeners took payments of up to $2,400 to allow suitcases filled with drugs to...

U.S. Rep. Francisco Canseco said he was assaulted by a TSA agent at the San Antonio International Airport. The Texas Congressman said the security agent went too far during a pat-down earlier this month. "The agent was very aggressive in his pat-down, and he was patting me down where no one is supposed to go,” said Canseco. “It got very uncomfortable so I moved his hand away. That stopped everything and brought in supervisors and everyone else." Canseco told the KENS 5 I-Team the agent said he too was assaulted when Canseco pushed his hand away. According to TSA, neither...

Full title: Weeping four-year-old girl accused of carrying a GUN by TSA officers after she hugged her grandmother while passing through security A four-year-old girl was apparently subjected to a humiliating ordeal after she hugged her grandmother while she was waiting in line. The girl was accused of having a gun and declared a 'high security threat', while agents threatened to shut down the whole airport if she could not be calmed down. Terror threat? Four-year-old Isabella was subjected to a full body pat-down and accused of carrying a gun in an airport In her terror, Isabella tried to run...

The out-of-control Transportation Security Administration is past patdowns at airports – now it's checkpoints and roadblocks. Ever since 2010, when the Transportation Security Administration started requiring that travelers in American airports submit to sexually intrusive gropings based on the apparent anti-terrorism principle that "If we can't feel your nipples, they must be a bomb", the agency's craven apologists have shouted down all constitutional or human rights objections with the mantra "If you don't like it, don't fly!" ... now TSA is invading travel by other means, too. No surprise, really: as soon as she established groping in airports, Napolitano expressed...

We Must Assure Our Skies Are Both Safe and Friendly Kip Hawley, the Transportation Security Administration's former administrator, fails to acknowledge a November 2011 congressional report documenting that the TSA has become a bloated, 65,000-person bureaucracy larger than the departments of Labor, Energy, Education, Housing and Urban Development, and State, combined ("Why Airport Security Is Broken—And How to Fix It," Review, April 14). It has spent $57 billion since 2002, $2.7 billion of which was spent on training. Yet half of the people it has hired and trained have left the agency. With the highest attrition rate among the federal...

DALLAS – A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) official has been charged after being accused of stealing eight iPads from luggage at Dallas/Fort Worth International airport, KXAS-TV reported. Clayton Keith Dovel, a baggage inspector, has been charged with theft by a public servant and has been suspended by the TSA. "The unacceptable behavior of this individual in no way reflects the dedication of our nearly 50,000 transportation security officers who work tirelessly to keep our skies safe," TSA said in a statement obtained by the station. One victim of Dovel's alleged thefts is University of Texas at Arlington student Borna Maira,...