TSA Blasted for Exposing Breasts of Texas Congressman's Teen Grandniece

The New American ^ | 28 November 2012 | Alex Newman

[VitacoreVision]

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 an international firestorm for the embattled bureaucracy, largely because the then-17-year-old victim was the grandniece of Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas). More than a few analysts noted that countless regular Americans suffer similar abuse and humiliation every single day; virtually nothing is ever done.

Now, though, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are crying foul while demanding investigations. Rights activists from across the political spectrum, meanwhile, have jumped on the opportunity to rein in the federal abuses once and for all.

According to official documents obtained by reporter Scott MacFarlane with an Atlanta TV news station, the girl was traveling to Australia on a trip with her classmates at Southwest Christian School in Texas. An internal investigation by TSA noted that after being selected for “secondary screening” and a so-called “pat-down,” which critics regularly equate with sexual molestation and assault, the screener "removed minor passenger from the corral." Yes, the report uses the word corral, defined as an enclosure or pen for domesticated animals.

The girl was not offered a “private screening,” the report noted, though passengers often prefer to be screened publicly anyway to ensure that there are witnesses to the controversial procedure in case of extraordinarily inappropriate fondling or other incidents. As the teen was enduring a “pat-down of the stomach area,” the top of her dress came loose and slipped down to her stomach, according to the internal investigation at least, revealing her breasts to everyone in the vicinity. Analysts suggested the dress had actually been pulled down, a far more plausible scenario.

Surveillance cameras caught the humiliating event on film, but TSA claimed the footage was not good enough to determine whether its screener had “properly conducted” what commentators said sounded a lot like “sexual assault.” The girl’s chaperones, according to the report, became “visibly upset” about the event and notified her parents. On the following day, her father filed a formal complaint.

The incident happened at the international airport in Los Angeles (LAX) some two years ago. However, it came to light only in recent days after journalist MacFarlane obtained the internal TSA report about the investigation using the Freedom of Information Act. When the findings were publicized, outrage quickly ensued.

News of the scandal has since gone viral, attracting headlines across America and beyond. Major press outlets from the United Kingdom to Iran have also covered the resulting uproar. Meanwhile, countless victims of TSA abuses took the opportunity to vent their fury in online comment sections over the lawless but routine violations of the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.

Rep. Hall, describing the incident as “brutal” and saying his grandniece had been “badly mistreated,” called on the TSA to fire the screener responsible for exposing his relative’s body at the airport. The 17-term congressman from Texas is also seeking a proper federal investigation of the incident, according to news reports.

“We have no desire to revive a painful event of the past, one that we abandoned any effort for litigation for privacy reasons,” Hall said in a statement quoted in the press. “We did not want to hurt our niece any more than she had already been hurt.”

Other lawmakers have also entered the fray. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), for example, contacted the massive screening bureaucracy to ask for a review and to express concerns about “potentially invasive screenings.” Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters of California, whose district includes LAX, also complained to TSA about the suffering and humiliation endured by her colleague’s young relative.

It is also not the first time lawmakers have had unpleasant experiences with the TSA. Earlier this year, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) missed a flight to Washington, D.C., after being detained by screeners for refusing a full-body pat-down. The incident happened at the Nashville, Tennessee, airport when a so-called “naked-body scanner” found some sort of alleged “anomaly” around the conservative senator’s knee.

Sen. Paul’s father Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a hero to millions of Americans for his devotion to liberty and the Constitution, has been a foe of the TSA and its lawless abuses from the start. “Why is the TSA permitted to abuse the rights of any American traveling by air?” the congressman wondered in his farewell address this month. “Victims of TSA excesses never consented to this abuse.”

Last year, meanwhile, a congressional report determined that despite squandering close to $60 billion in taxpayer funds on the TSA, screening is based on “theatrics” and has failed to catch a single terrorist. Passengers and crew, the investigation found, are actually the most effective line of defense. Ironically, perhaps, the explosive report said air travel is no safer now than it was before September 11, 2001.

The out-of-control agency has become “an enormous, inflexible and distracted bureaucracy, more concerned with human resource management and consolidating power,” according to the report, released in November of 2011. “Today, TSA's screening policies are based in theatrics. They are typical, bureaucratic responses to failed security policies meant to assuage the concerns of the traveling public.”

This week, a stinging investigation by Charles Kenny, a fellow at the Center for Global Development and the New America Foundation, found that the TSA actually makes air travel less safe. Still, despite the facts and the growing surge of public revulsion, the Department of Homeland Security continues purporting to usurp new powers for itself, with the TSA still seeking to expand its “mission” far beyond the confines of “corrals” at airport terminals.

In typical fashion, the widely loathed screening agency attempted to blame the teenage victim after the latest scandal exploded into the global press, claiming the girl’s dress being too loose was the problem — not the molestation. “We regret that the incident of more than two years ago was one that caused embarrassment to the young lady; however, an investigation concluded that the event was accidental,” TSA claimed in a statement cited in media reports.

According to the official report about the internal investigation, the bureaucrat responsible for disrobing the girl was “counseled on the expectation of our agency for professionalism and customer service.” By “customers,” TSA was presumably referring to its hapless victims who are lawlessly forced to submit to the violation of their rights in order to board an airplane, and more recently, sometimes even a bus or train.

Aside from the wanton violations of Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed, unalienable rights, the TSA has also refused to respect federal court decisions. In August, for instance, a U.S. appeals court demanded that the agency promptly explain its brazen failure to obey the law and a judicial order issued a year earlier.

With Americans across the political spectrum becoming increasingly outraged by TSA abuses, some state lawmakers are taking action. In Texas, for example, a bill to criminalize the “screening” procedures as sexual assault was passed overwhelmingly as Democrats and Republicans united to protect the rights of Texans.

Now, the celebrated Texas Travel Freedoom Act, HB 80, recently pre-filed by state Rep. David Simpson, aims to put an end to TSA lawlessness in the Lone Star State once and for all. Activists, however, are hoping to end the abuses nationwide, and with a congressman’s grandniece becoming the latest high-profile victim, analysts say achieving that goal just got a big boost. Indeed, the entire unconstitutional Department of Homeland Security is increasingly in the crosshairs, too.


Related articles:


TSA Makes Travel More Dangerous

Court Orders TSA to Explain Lawless Use of Naked Body Scanners

Texas Bills Would Nullify NDAA's Indefinite Detention, TSA's Intrusive Screening

TSA: Airports Are Only the Beginning

More Lawmakers Demand TSA Probe

Congressional Report: TSA Useless Despite $60 Billion

Getting Rich from the TSA Naked-Body Scanners

Theft, Pedophilia, Murder Among TSA Employees’ Crimes

Sen. Rand Paul Blocked from Flight for Refusing TSA Groping

TSA Agents Charged With Grand Larceny

TSA Policies May Desensitize Children to Sexual Abuse

Grandma, 84, Strip Searched by TSA, Says U.S. in “Big Trouble”

The TSA and Its Whole-body Scanning

Report: Homeland Security Compiling TSA Enemies List

Texas Officials Groped by TSA As Anti-Groping Bill Makes Comeback

[RedMDer]

Support Free Republic
FReepathon Day 60.

[RitaOK]

LOL! Australia. You are quite right, so I would have to be counted as one who would not be going to Australia. ;.)

[American in Israel]

For what the TSA costs, there could be an armed air marshal on every flight.

True, there would be a great increase in security, but then who would train the sheep to stay in the pens?

I mean, come on, what's important here?!

[Monorprise]

There is no escuses to remove a lady’s shirt in public.

Theses TSA agents need to be brought up on charges.

[tcrlaf]

“TSA needs to be abolished”

Yeah...
Good luck with that.

TSA is by FAR the largest employer in my medium-sized airport, and went on a massive hiring spree in July, obviously to boost Obama’s employment numbers.

Now, they have so many people that they sometimes OUTNUMBER passengers at some times of the day.

[Candor7]

All male passengers should slide a Polish sausage into a sock and put it their pants front pocket, see what happens then?

The TSA is a fascist organization. They need to have a focused security like Israel has, based on historical incidents of terrorism. The approach used by TSA ( search all equally regardless of whether they conform to stereotypical terrorists) is unconstitutional and wrong, invasive, molestation body searches without probable cause.

Fascism needs to be destroyed in America, no matter what form it takes. The TSA needs to be destroyed, period.

Obama fascism, good read:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html

[OriginalChristian]

There was a secure passage between terminals A & C long after 9/11. This current inconvenience is temporary and has to do with the restoration of the main terminal building from danage sustained by a tornado that directly hit the building a couple years ago. I have been flying into and out of STL since 1993.

[fieldmarshaldj]

In case you haven’t seen it, South Park lampooned this last year. It’s worth watching...

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s16e01-reverse-cowgirl

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

Thanks for the info. The story I got was from a uniformed officer, but it didn’t make a whole lot if sense to me.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

I hear you but the concept is simple. In keeping with Benjamin Franklin’s warning, I refuse to surrender my liberty for security. It is that simple. Doing so, I deserve neither.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Absolutely true. It is all for show, but also I am convinced we are being conditioned to be cooperative to our new Masters. This is all about breaking people down to surrender to government officials. Surrender freedom. Surrender privacy. Surrender property. This is all conditioning.

Sounds crazy but I have no other logical conclusion for stripping babies and 80 year old frail white grandmothers. Just conditioning to accept our oppressors.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

May love Jeb but sure as hell won’t vote for Jeb. I’ll never vote for a “Bush” again ever. I never liked royalty and I won’t have royalty in my nation.

[Don W]

I *declined* the scanner and was told that unless I went through same, I would “NOT GO ANYWHERE BUT JAIL” unless I did. This despite the commonly known assertion that you can SUBMIT to a search that exceeds what a murder “suspect” is SUBJECT to INSTEAD of the scanner...

As a non-American, I was FORCED to undergo this personal invasion, since I had to get back to work. Quoting sections of the Bill of Rights (I carry a small copy of same) merely got the thugs angry.

I fear that we have opened an avenue of abuse that only general disobedience and disdain can correct. I don’t know how to start this aforementioned event, but if anyone here does, count me in.

[Hot Tabasco]

I go to airports specifically for the pat downs.......

If you get there early before the lines, the screeners will take their time......

[OldPossum]

I vow not to fly again, either. ANYONE I want to see or ANYTHING I want to do is within driving distance.

This has been my policy since 2000, even before 9/11. I became convinced air travel was unsafe (confirmed the next year) and the advent of TSA proved that air travel entails personal humiliation that I am unwilling to accept.