One time, I forgot to take off my watch before going through the metal detector, so I covered it with my hand, as they used to tell us to do pre 9-11. I was told to hold my arms out straight and go through again. They did not advise me to take my watch off. I don’t fly very often, so some of what is required is not habitual to me. Naturally my watch, which has a metal band set off the alarms. The TSA still didn’t ask me to remove my watch and go through again. Instead they pulled me aside and wanded me and patted me down. The wand was shoved up into my crotch, and the pat down got a bit personal. In retrospect, I think it was a TSA agent on a power trip. For those of you who are nostalgic for Bush, remember that he gave us Homeland Security and TSA.
I wouldn’t fly if you gave me first class, free tickets, and I got ‘favors’ from a beautiful stewardess the entire time.
The really sad thing about all of this is that TSA does absolutely nothing to enhance your safety. Any terrorist can simply wait in the airport employees’ parking lot, knock an employee out and steal their ID badge, stripe the card at the employee gate (which is almost never manned), and from that point on, they have full access to the tarmac, baggage area, and the planes themselves. All TSA does is raise the cost of flying...it’s a very bad joke.
We don’t fly much, 2 or 3 times a year but we have never had this stuff done to us.
Thanks for posting this! I am also a transtibial amputee and travel frequently. My amputation is recent (9/9) and on my first screening I was gropped heavily (3/10) during a pointless 30 min search that never looked at my prosthesis. Like Wendy, I figured the best thing for everyone was that I put my prosthesis through the x-ray and hop through, which I did around 50 times all over the country for over a year. Then a few months ago I tripped a metal detector twice and hoped over to secondary as instructed. There, while following TSA instructions, two police officers flanked me and said “come with us”. I objected, asked for grounds, and was td I was being arrested for charges “we’ll figure out later”! I was put to the ground twice (hoping on one leg with nothing but jeans and a tee shirt). I bailed out that night, went back to the airport, did exactly the same thing with the same possessions at thesame check point, and got on the plane. Turns out, you are not allowed to remove a prosthesis in a TSA check point — because it’s embarrassing! You must go through secondary! There are no signs and no-one has ever told me not to. TSA dropped it, but the police still have charges on me (resisting strewed and other bs) and I’m still waiting for a court date.
The first presidential candidate that promises the elimination of the DHS will get my full support.
There are much better ways to catch terrorists than punishing the flying public. The Israelis have been doing it successfully for decades.
“This insanity must stop.”
Part of stopping this insanity is to remember that it was Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY) who assured us that if airport security staff were made federal employees that they would be much more “professional.”
We must never forget that government is only power, and like fire a wonderful servant, but a horrible master. In saying this, George Washington was warning us to never allow government to think it is our master, which clearly the TSA does. We must put TSA on an ever-shorter leash until the relationship the citizen is return to his proper position with that agency.
from what I’ve seen here in Atlanta the TSA is job core for the under privileged who enjoy harassing the people who come through
ML/NJ
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
We're way past due to return to the basics of commercial air travel.
