Posted on 02/20/2017 3:05:56 PM PST by WXRGina
It was an excellent week-long trip my husband Keith and I took to Arizona to take the 250 Pistol Class from Gunsite Academy. The week ended, and it was time for us to fly back home this past Saturday, February 18th. While I have gone through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) regional airport checkpoints since its spawning after 9-11, I had not yet gone through a TSA checkpoint at a major airport. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is a major airport, and on Saturday, I was immersed there in one of those TSA "horror stories" about which I had previously only read.
My very dim view of the TSA has been shaped by all the reports of corruption, misconduct, molestation and sexual assault, theft, abuse of power and ineptitude by the TSA. To find these stories, you need only do an Internet search with any of those terms along with "TSA." In addition to all that, air travelers in the United States are now stupidly forced to remove their shoes because of one Muslim maniac.
Needless to say, as we stood in the moderately long line of the Sky Harbor TSA security checkpoint, I was not happy and only wanted it to be over. We finally arrived at the x-ray conveyor belt with all the gray plastic bins into which we had to put our shoes, belts, purses, bags, watches, cell phones, laptops and anything in our pockets. When flying, I always try to wear nothing that would cause the x-ray imaging machines to raise an alert. So, I wore no belt or any jewelry. I had nothing in my pockets. I only carried my small purse, and I wore blue jeans, a long-sleeved cotton t-shirt and simple leather boots. I removed my boots and placed them and my purse into two of the bins and pushed them on toward the x-ray screener.
I was directed into the – what I call a "rape scan" – body imaging machine. As you may know, we are forced to stand inside it for several seconds with our arms held up as if we're common criminals, and the machine does a circular spin around our bodies. When the scan was done, a black woman told me to step out of the machine. I'm guessing this woman was probably in her early thirties. She directed my attention to the human body outline image on a screen outside the machine, which displayed the supposed results of my scan. There were "warning" boxes superimposed directly on the crotch, one knee and one ankle area, which I instantly knew were bogus.
Because of those flags, she informed me I would be subjected to an enhanced pat-down. I numbly looked at the entirely phony warning box images on the screen, knowing that with the advanced imaging capabilities of that machine, it would not possibly have "seen" any kind of threat anywhere on my body, much less between my legs. Nevertheless, I stood there silently with a smoldering outrage welling inside me as this girl described the sexual assault she was about to undertake on my body.
I hardly heard what she was saying she was about to do, because I was so angry knowing that this was a fake result, either from the machine or from someone's arbitrary decision to subject me to this despicable, Fourth Amendment-crushing, far-beyond-unreasonable search. She finished her little speech by asking me if I preferred [my sexual assault] to be done in a "private room" or right where we stood in front of hundreds of onlookers. I was barely able to mumble a "here" with an indication of my hand gesturing down to the yellow footprint stickers on the floor where I was to place my feet.
She required me to assist her in my sexual assault. I had to lift my shirt to give her clear access to my waistband, into which she thrust her blue-latex-gloved fingers and ran them all around the front and back of it. She made me hold my pants in place from the top as she crouched down and firmly ran her hands from the top of my legs to the bottom, both front, back and sides. She firmly pushed and rubbed her hands between my legs, the entire area – THE ENTIRE AREA – from the front and back.
She finally directed me to hold out my hands, palms up, as she swabbed them with damp squares of white tissue, which she inserted into a machine that I assume "sniffed" for explosive residue. When it gave my hands the all-clear, she indicated that I was free to go.
At that point, I was fairly blind with rage. Shakily, gritting my teeth hard enough to beat the band, I went and retrieved my boots and purse from the end of the screener belt several yards away, where they had remained while I got the enhanced grope-down. I was glad no one had taken my purse. Keith had been moved along after going through security, and from his viewpoint was unable to see my belongings or what was happening to me.
Still seeing red, I slowly walked to a chair near the TSA checkpoint to put on my boots. I was shaking with rage, and my husband had to quickly talk me down from reacting to the powerful anger that was exploding in my mind. The sickening feelings of rage, helplessness and violation continued to roil in me for the rest of the day.
What can I do? File a complaint with the TSA? Yeah, right. Call my congressman? And get a nice form letter reply in the mail in a month or so? Yeah, no. I'm powerless here, as are the many other people who have been sexually assaulted by the TSA. Maybe you'd like me to tone it down a notch and call it "molestation" or merely "groping," but I know what happened to me, and in any other situation, it would be legally regarded as sexual assault. If an ordinary person did to me what that woman – by authority of bad law – did to me, he would go to jail.
The TSA should be dismantled. Airport security needs to be returned to the airlines and local airports. The federal government's takeover of airport security screening after 9-11 has only created yet another unaccountable, monstrous bureaucracy that continues to grow in corruption, especially under Obama's recent lawless reign. Free-born American citizens should not have to abide such degenerate despotism in the name of "security." The TSA has seized illegitimate power in its random imposition of unreasonable searches on innocent airline passengers. If the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution means anything, then the TSA must go.
Were they two different types of chairs? What do you mean they took it apart?
Well, you say that, but you weren't there, you didn't 'test' the machine, so you have no evidence that there was no evidence. If the machine wasn't tampered with, or faulty, then why did it indicate 'hits' ???
You were not sexually assaulted.
According to half the country/all the MSM/the DEMS , grabbing someone by the pussy is sexual assault. Even saying you would do it, whether you do or not, is a major no no.
Security scanning is not perfect.
If it gets 'hits' on 'nothing', then 'not perfect' is the wrong phrase. A more likely description would be 'very crappy'.
It is better than you and I get patted down 100 times than the threshold be set so low that a weapon is smuggled through.
You say that as if no weapons have ever gotten through. Tests of the 'procedure' have failed many times. Have you ever wondered why they search old men in wheelchairs, and 60 year old white women, yet don't search anyone dressed as a Muslim ?
And ask yourself, if you are so easily upset by something as minor as this, should you really let yourself be around firearms?
There was no need for a question like that. You are just behaving like a liberal who wants to use ridicule to win an argument.
OMG THey searched your vagina and rectum? I’ve never heard of such a thing! No wonder you’re upset. I just thought they swiped over the clothing. I’d definitely form a complaint and a police report if someone was searching my vagina or rectum.
I knew a guy (somewhat large, hairy, and intimidating) that wore one of those work style kilts and went commando when he flew.
from what he and other people who have traveled with him have said he has likely traumatized for life many tsa flunkies
Thank you, Exit. I will report this to the “proper authorities,” AKA the White House. :-)
I flew today and it sure did. Only had to walk through the magnetometer.
I wonder who educates these crews on "normal" medical implants and devices. I read a horror story a few years ago where the man had an indwelling catheter in his bladder, and the TSA disturbed it to the point that the bag leaked.
Think of all the folks with implanted devices of one sort or the other.
Good luck with your knee replacements. My husband had a hip replacement quite a few years ago, and then wondered why he hadn't gotten it sooner...the pain relief was amazing.
He has never had a problem with the TSA and his hip replacement, so cross your fingers and hope you get a TSA crew that's "educated" about joint replacements. :)
THAT'S your benchmark of how well someone should react to a personal indignity that has been thrust upon them by a politically correct atmosphere fostered by a bunch of cry baby liberal pukes that are too damned scared to offend a mooselimb by ACTUALLY (gasp) taking a CLOSE look at them?
And if that's your way of letting us know that you DID survive the first 5 minutes...well, then great, and I thank you for your service, but Basic Training is a cakewalk and we all that have been there know it and certainly know it is not an indicator of how well someone takes to being personally violated by a stupid son of bitch with a TSA badge.
2) Is certainly not a person with a clear enough thought process that I would want her backing me up in a gunfight
Okay...sounds reasonable...next time you get in a gunfight, we'll give you ten minutes to look around for the best person TO back you up.
And we'll just assume, 'cause you strongly inplied so, that you are the best there ever was in a gunfight, anyway, so what the hell, do it alone.
3) Not very capable of control of her emotions for an event that 10,000 people calmly handle every day.
Well, maybe 9,999...'cause it pisses me the hell off every time...for reasons I'll not dwell on, but involve the US Constitution, but the thoughts of an ill-educated butthead in a fake uniform with a tin badge on it...actually attempting to safeguard a flight of human beings, by feeling up MY pee-pee (as you put it), well, they intrude on my personal sense of well-being, and, I just think there might be a better way.
4) Not a person I want making shoot - don’t shoot decisions.
And who the hell appointed you to that lofty decision making position?
Do you approve of who gets to carry or not carry?
Are you the trainer of "gunfighters" and do you have the experience and knowledge to decide how one will or will not react "under fire"?
If you do, then please attach a big ass sign around your neck so that I'll know who to get the hell away from, the next time I'm standing in the line waiting for a pervert to feel me up.
If you have doubts about someone's "grit", then do as I would do...watch out for your own ass and don't worry about theirs, 'cause usually, if you take care of your's, theirs will be covered by default
But...accidents do happen.
Is she going to scream rape the next time someone bumps into her breast or butt while in line at Burger King?
Well, now, ya got me there...I don't know how SHE would react, but I know that if I were a female, standing in a BK line or something similar, and some pervert copped a feel...I wouldn't scream rape...but I might whisper it in the ear of the pervert, after I had grabbed a chair and beat his perverted ass to the ground.
There is a better way than these TSA dipshits.
We need to profile, we need better training for threat recognition, we need software that will give instant face recognition, we need, we need...but what we don't need is someone like you that would expend more energy ridiculing someone offended by the likes of TSA dipshits, than they will in actively working to change how it's done.
What we have now has grown from a well-intentioned homeland protection effort, into a blatant abuse of personal rights and self...and does little to nothing to really protect us from the determined jihadi, who is much better trained to NOT be detected, than the idiot TSA numnut is trained to detect him...period.
It was the same chair. They're called transport wheelchairs and are lightweight, and can breakdown into pieces quite easily if space might be a problem. The wheels comes off the main chair, the arm rests come off. The rest will just collapse with a tug on the fabric seat.
They're not substantial and durable for use in everyday life, but for transportation from one place to another, and short term sitting, they're handy.
I think you have a point.
I believe this TSA business is just that- a business, deserving of criticism- but, calling an in-public pat down a “sexual assault” is an injustice to real sexual assault, and what’s more, doing so is an irritating habit and tactic of the Left that amplifies distortions of language and events and REALITY.
Hate to see us conservatives fall into that habit on public forums. It’s okay in humor, but really... drop the drama, be pizzed, and stop there.
I don’t fly. I get to say “if you don’t like it, don’t fly”. To me it’s humorous that anyone would,... short of a death in the family.
It’s always okay if it happens to someone else until it happens to us. Then it is suppose to be a large deal.
Those who would give up liberty to achieve security deserve neither liberty nor security.
You would do well to discern the meaning of my column, kiddo. Hint: It has NOTHING to do with “creating drama” or drawing attention to myself.
Enjoy your tyranny.
I fly almost every week - the TSA “agents” couldn’t get a job as a shelf stocker at Wal-Mart. Most have IQ’s in the single digits. I could write pages of incidents I have witnessed. Young women crying their eyes out while the TSA agents “search” them. Old men with canes made to walk without assistance, people in wheel chairs screamed at because they can’t move. It is a National Disgrace.
Keep muzzies out and this won’t be needed.
You put yourself in the position of being groped for the sake of convenience, next time get in the car and drive.
I see that “HotLZ” is quite the N00b! Only here a few short days. Hmmmm...
FOOLISH!!! Seriously? Do you NOT see what you're saying?! No, I don't suppose you do.
No, not me. I read what Gina wrote. The TSA screener pushed her hand down Gina’s pants rubbing the vagina and rectum. And for what? If a woman is smuggling in her genital area, a cavity search is required. Nope, this type of brain dead flat handed rubbing of genitalia is an abusive practice which serves to create a cowed and submissive American public—which we sure as hell didn’t used to be!
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