Posted on 01/03/2012 5:17:42 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
As I was reading an email string about tactics to get mainstream Americans aware of what the TSA is actually doing, it occurred to me that I have never told my entire story. So here goes.
My saga starts when I was four years old and had my right leg amputated at the knee. Fast-forward to 2004, when I had a spate of business trips to Washington, DC and Texas.
12/1/2004: I walked up to a DTW (Detroit) security checkpoint and announced I had an artificial leg. Without being wanded I was taken aside by two women to Concourse A, MacNamara Terminal, where the women took three cubicle panels that were leaning up against the wall and made a makeshift enclosure at the public entrance to the Concourse. The panels were not stable, so the screeners had to lean them up against one another.
When inside I was instructed to remove my pants. The screeners were about to instruct me to also remove my pantyhose, but since I was standing there pretty much naked anyway they swabbed the top of my prosthesis with a swab and told me to get dressed.
12/1/2004: return trip from Dulles. I announced I had an artificial leg. I again was not wanded, but was subjected to an extensive search of torso and especially my breasts. The toe of my right shoe was swabbed, but other than that my prosthesis was not checked.
12/12/2004: After my complaints, this time I called ahead to DTW and requested a supervisory escort. I was given one, Tyrone Stokes, who instructed the screener to conduct a “simple pat-down.” The screener did not wand me to determine where my metal was but I was subjected to a “Full Monty” pat-down – crotch, inside my pants, everywhere. The screener wanted to show Mr. Stokes, apparently, that she knew how to do it.
12/14/2004: returning from DFW. Announcement by me about my leg. This time I was wanded to determine the location of the metal. I was instructed to lift my pant leg. I was also subjected to an upper-body pat-down (no metal alarm there) and had my hands swabbed.
12/23/2004: Back again at DTW. This time I had printed a copy of instructions from the TSA’s own website. Made my announcement. I set off the regular metal detector but did not set off the subsequent wand. The screener did an upper body pat-down (no metal alarm there) but indicated that because the wand did not alarm around my announced prosthesis it would not need to be checked.
12/31/2004: Sky Harbor, Phoenix. Same announcement by me. I was wanded and my left shoe was swabbed (what’s that about? My prosthesis is on my right side). Once again the upper body pat-down (once again, no metal alarm there).
2/12/2005: Back at DTW. Announcement per usual. I was wanded — again the only alarm was between my right knee and ankle. Never mind: I got a thorough chest/breast “massage” anyway, along with hand-swabbing and prosthesis-swabbing.
12/14/2005: Back at Dallas-Fort Worth. This time, though, I told the screeners that they could check the area that alarmed but they could not check areas that did not. After over two hours of their trying to convince me to allow myself to be assaulted once again, to no avail, I was denied boarding. On 2/16/2005 my employer flew me home on the corporate jet but I was told that they “would have to think twice about putting me on a plane again.” So now you know what happened to THAT career . . . .
I didn’t fly for several years. I discovered, however, that all the folderol would disappear if I took off the leg, put it on the conveyor, and hopped through the metal detector. I made several trips that way. But that move required that I wear dresses. All sorts of screeners were upset with me. That tactic stopped when I read about a woman from Grand Rapids who received a full-on grope for the sole reason she was wearing a dress. I did try once to go through a MMW machine (millimeter wave scanner), but I got called over for a grope anyway. The word from the “back room” was to check my right thigh. The result was no right thigh but an upper body pat-down instead.
The last time I flew was October 2010. The TSA’s position of scanners or Full Monty is too much for me. I’ve done my share, and I will not be treated that way ever again.
I sued the TSA and got the Jesse Ventura answer that Federal District Courts did not have jurisdiction; the Appellate Court did. Try as I might, I never figured out how to appeal a ruling that wasn’t.
I was on the front page, Sunday edition, of the Detroit News and had the local ABC affiliate run an investigative report on my experiences, complete with a hidden camera crew that documented one of my flights.
One person cannot change the monster the TSA has become — it takes many. Therefore, I have turned to organizing those of us who understand what’s going on. We need to speak with one loud, persistent, forceful voice.
Now you know the story. This insanity must stop.
Thanks for posting.
I refuse to fly due to prostheses. My own family doesn’t even ‘get’ this. They think (none of them have a prosthetic of any kind) since they’ve never been treated as described in Wendy’s story that no one does; it’s all fantasy. They make fun of my refusal to fly. I’m so hoping that one of them gets the full treatment soon!
I remember when it first begin. When a t.v. reporter would stick a camera in the face of some idiot and said idiot would say, "I don't mind is as long as it will make me secure."
That's the case with most government regulation. I read somewhere that over half the cost of building anything is the cost of regulation and of acquiring the permits needed to be "leagal." My 82 year old father was doing some light carpentry and painting on a friend's two family a couple years ago when the assistant building inspector stormed in and ordered him to stop work because he didn't have a "construction supervisor license." He said that he wasn't supervising anyone and wasn't doing any construction -- just painting and trim -- so he didn't need one. The BI threatened to call in the cops to have him removed so he left.
The BI was wrong about needing a license to do finish work but he stopped work just so he could flex his bureaucratic muscles.
Oh, they’re going to be dealing with drivers also. They’ve recently asked for a budget increase so they can put more of their “VIPR” teams on the road. Their spokesman was quoted as saying the “Transportation” in their name doesn’t limit them to airports. Soon you will also be groped before boarding any public transportation, and possible at a TSA roadblock. We’re all frogs, can you feel the water getting warm yet?
I was recently “ordered” by a TSA agent to go through the X-ray device because I had a plastic comb and the paper bording pass in my shirt pocket. You would have thought I was attempting to rob a bank. Apparently this very expensive organization, reportedly with 6000 bureaucrats on DC, can’t even get their procedures consistent at different airports.
When did having to remove plastic and paper from your pockets start?
My wife has breathing problems. We just took a trip where she had to bring a portable oxygen machine on the plane. Her mother found this TSA hotline we called and they went out of their way to accommodate us. We had a personal agent escort us through check in and security. A wheelchair for my wife. Couldn’t have been more pleased with their help. I’m sure our tax dollars were paying for it but for a handicapped person like my wife it was well worth it.
Talk about adding insult to injury. If your own family isn't supportive and even makes fun of your refusal to fly there's a problem.
Any lawyers out there that know who has jurisdiction if the fed court doesn’t.
Does it have to be the fed court in DC, as opposed to the other districts?
However, I can get to several of my typical business trip destinations in a single day of driving. Given that we allow a day on either end of a trip for air travel anyway...it is pretty much a wash. In fact, I just recently let a family member use the last of the air miles I had accumulated. Thinking about switching my credit card from accumulating points to something else. So long airlines and TSA.
I have a client whose office is at an airport. The first time I visited their directions to their office were to go through the hole in the fence.
Inside their office were about 30 of those simple box cutters. To get from there to the airplane was a simple badge swipe by our single escort. No searches of our bags or anything.
We were under the terminal, 15 feet from several planes loading passengers. Went to the airport datacenter and then the passenger terminal all without any search whatsoever.
The people who work in the passenger terminal have to be screened. The people who work elsewhere do not get screened.
It started when the new scanners came in, which pick up those items. This is consistent policy, but you were just not aware of that because you didn’t read the signs.
The reason TSA concentrates on areas besides the prosthesis itself is because a terrorist could be using the prosthesis to distract the screener from screening for the true location of explosive materials.
ROFL
Did you report that?
Here is the problem. We are fighting terrorists on 3, possibly 4 fronts.
Rag head mudslimes are the obvious terrorists. Government terrorists TSA, ATF, DHS..., and the enemy within aka progressives who have to hide their communist/Marxist colors behind the progressive term. The 4th might be the media.
Unfortunately, we are not allowed to engage any of these enemies with any amount of force so we are fighting a war without weapons and without any chance of winning.
Because we allowed our government to step outside of its constitutional restraints there is absolutely nothing we can do to reign them back in. The progressives, long ago took complete control of the dumbocrap party and are well on their way in controlling the GOP. With essentially a single Government Party with a left and right wing even our votes no longer have enough force to return the country to the path the founders so brilliantly placed us on.
The US Supreme Court long ago became nothing more that a dumping place for political hacks that the president at the time figured would do his bidding. If you doubt this then try to explain how 9 alleged brilliant justices cannot agree better than 5-4 on most cases when the document they MUST use as a reference is actually very short (not 2000+ pages) and even comes with an operators manual known as the Federalist Papers.
The TSA (Thoroughly Stupid Agency)is NOT in the business of searching for terrorists. They are in the business of treating everyone as a terrorist. So, if you want to be treated like a terrorist Fly, if not drive. I will not fly until this stupid agency is disbanded.
Report what and to whom? I assume since we passed by TSA agents and Sheriffs deputies during the process that they were aware of the process.
Airport security is a joke, meant to provide the illusion of security and keep people buying tickets.
Laz is nibblin' at the edges of breaking his New Year resolution.....
I might do it.
But I won't post it.
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