Posted on 08/19/2010 10:16:10 AM PDT by Notary Sojac
At what point does an airport search step over the line?
How about when they start going through your checks, and the police call your husband, suspicious you were clearing out the bank account?
That's the complaint leveled by Kathy Parker, a 43-year-old Elkton, Md., woman, who was flying out of Philadelphia International Airport on Aug. 8.
A female Transportation Security Administration officer wanded her and patted her down, she says. Then she was walked over to where other TSA officers were searching her bags.
That same screener started emptying her wallet. "He was taking out the receipts and looking at them," she said.
She says she asked what he was looking for and he replied, "Razor blades." She wondered, "Wouldn't that have shown up on the metal detector?"
In a side pocket she had tucked a deposit slip and seven checks made out to her and her husband, worth about $8,000.
Her thought: "Oh, my God, this is none of his business."
Two Philadelphia police officers joined at least four TSA officers who had gathered around her. After conferring with the TSA screeners, one of the Philadelphia officers told her he was there because her checks were numbered sequentially, which she says they were not.
"It's an indication you've embezzled these checks," she says the police officer told her. He also told her she appeared nervous. She hadn't before that moment, she says.
She protested when the officer started to walk away with the checks. "That's my money," she remembers saying. The officer's reply? "It's not your money."
At this point she told the officers that she had a good explanation for the checks, but questioned whether she had to tell them.
"The police officer said if you don't tell me, you can tell the D.A."
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Everybody I know thinks the TSA is a festering pile of crap.
Without respect to age, sex, religion, or political party (yes leftists think it is an f.p.o.c too).
And yet there seems to be no end of people who are interviewed in airports who will cheerfully say “Oh goodness yes, I’ll be happy to submit to a proctological exam and be forced to vomit up the contents of my last two meals, if it will make us safer.” Where the hell are they cloning these fools??
What happened sounds to me like a violation of a TSA policy that went into effect Sept. 1, after the American Civil Liberties Union sued the agency on behalf of the former campaign treasurer of presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Annoying as they are at times, good for them.
Hmmm... law suit? Pay day?
Well, they were almost sequential.
Exactly. Everyone went nuts when they were concerned that Bush would launch a variety of criminal actions with information gained in the eavesdropping on US to foreign phone calls. But now they are using TSA screening process to look for crimes to prosecute.
This is clearly an illegal search. They are perfecting the system to keep citizens from fleeing the country with their wealth. It is truly ironic that our government cannot keep something as large as a human being from crossing our borders illegally but they spend billions looking for tiny inanimate objects.
4th Amendment. ‘nuff said.
Typical Philly. I hate that airport...and since the area is home base, it’s the one I have to leave from.
TSA for the most part are okay...but there’s been more than a handful of really really bad ones. And for the folks coming to the area for the first time, don’t expect much in the way of helo from the transportation workers, i.e., train conductors. I’ve heard them give people wrong directions, muddled through the announcing of stops, etc. I always take on the role of assistant and/or ambassador for visitors. Honestly, if I were visitng for the first time and come up against what I’ve seen, I would never return.
Apparently they backed down (probably when the incident came to the attention of somebody at TSA who had three working brain cells and realized “durrrr... we might get sued”).
TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said the reason Parker was selected for in-depth screening was that her actions at the airport had aroused the suspicion of a behavior detection officer, and that she continued to act "as if she feared discovery.
But why call police? Davis said, "Because her behavior escalated."
Sounds like there may be more to it then just some TSA person being too nosey.
I would want to know more about what the behavior detection specialist suspicious, though we likely will never know.
Just another reason why I will drive rather than fly if I can avoid it. It has gotten just too intrusive going through the airport check in. And don’t even think of carrying large amounts of cash, it will be taken from you, part of that war on drugs thing which is what they were doing to this woman.
However, it's not likely to happen since I have not flown since 2005 and plan to never fly again.
I had a similar experience at Philly airport in June 2009. They found a Swiss army knife on one of my carry-on items. Interesting since I’ve never owned one. I still think the TSA officer planted it just to show off for others.
An law firm should take on this case and systematically destroy the PERSONAL lives of all the cops and TSA goons involved.
I always get nervous approaching the checkpoint when I relize my wife was the last one to use that particular bag.
Never been there. Thanks for the heads up. Won’t be going either.
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