Posted on 04/12/2017 8:41:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Little can surprise me in terms of the TSA’s waste, incompetence and sheer indignity, but this story may mark a new low.
It’s about Evelyn Harris, a 65-year-old retiree who was flying out of Washington, D.C., this past January when she committed the terrible terrorism crime known as wearing a pantyliner.
Harris went through the body scanner and thought she was free to proceed to her flight. A TSA agent thought otherwise.
“I started to ask if I had done something wrong or if this was ‘random,’ but before I could get a second word out, the TSA agent yelled at me,” Harris told The Washington Post in an interview. “She grabbed my throat hard, causing me to choke and cough. She yelled at me for coughing.”
“She then put her hands inside my bra and panties and groped my private parts with the front, not the back, of her gloved hand. Afterward, I worried that I may have been infected if she had groped someone else without changing gloves,” Harris added. “Her attitude was so threatening and hostile, that I was afraid to look at her face and name plate.”
After her ordeal, Harris filed a complaint. As the Post details, her concerns didn’t receive much sympathy from the TSA:
[T]he pat-down was legit, the investigator said. Intimate apparel has been a source of concern ever since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to bring down a plane on Christmas Day 2009 by detonating a bomb hidden in his underwear.
The investigator told Harris, she said, that “his own wife carried a panty liner with her and put it on after security, as this is something that could trigger a search.” Indeed, turns out all sorts of feminine hygiene products could be grounds for a search, according to the TSA.
It’s that last bit which really gets me: This is a government agency which says that basic hygiene products are all the excuse it needs to permit agents to stick their hands inside your underwear, in public, without a warrant or, it seems, much in the way of a warning. Ladies, just plan your hygiene needs around the TSA’s preferences if you don’t want to be molested.
Tales of TSA misconduct are a dime a dozen, but this is the first I recall seeing the agency affirm this level of groping is standard procedure. Anyway, here’s yet another reminder that the TSA still sucks and we’ve become way too complacent about it.
..........All brought to you by George W. Bush, Compassionate Conservative.
I am ashamed I ever voted for him.
Considering the choices at the time I voted for him gladly.....
However
I am ashamed I Never had A Better Choice When Voting.
What wasn’t addressed in the reply was the allegation that the TSA agent grabbed the passenger by the throat. This may have been hyperbole, but the article should have covered the followup. That type of behavior is not acceptable other than in a takedown situation and any agent who did that with a cooperating, passive passenger should be removed.
anyone who thinks we live in a free society should reflect carefully on that horrifying photo you posted
The TSA is why I gave up flying.
I will not submit.
TSA is part of Homeland Security and they work for Trump. Not suggesting this become one of the top priorities (which it is not), but hopefully the day will come when TSA is privatized with rigorous standards but no government employees or unions.
Another reason to drive.
Have they ever grabbed the underwear of a woman wearing a burka?
Inquiring minds want to know
I doubt that the TSA will make the same claim vis a vis the Muslims.
Fart when the TSA is down there groping around.
Thanks for posting this article.
In view of the recent United passenger being forcibly removed after he became disruptive, and the many arguments both for and against him; I thought it was strange that the whole country was focusing all this attention on this small minor incident.
While ignoring the many more worse personal and humiliating violations that tens of thousands of flyers face every day by the goons at the TSA (Touching, Squeezing and Assaulting).
I remember seeing this on the John Byner show in about 1980. It was a chuckle then. Now it's too close to reality to be funny.
(Censored nudity, in case that kind of thing bothers you)
Trump said in his acceptance speech at the Cleveland convention last July something about reigning in the TSA.
Instead, the TSA has gotten worse.
When the TSA first came about, wasn’t it the democrats that came up with the slogan: you don’t professionalize until you Federalize....or something like that as best as I remember...
Made them federal employees and then federal employee union members and then loyal democrat voters.
As my 19-yr old son would say, people with power or authority think they are invincible until you are sitting on their chest outside their place of residence, with both of your thumbs pressed into their eye sockets gouging out their eyes.
Of course using "profiling" to screen the most likely threats would be racist or some such thing... we wouldn't want to offend those who want to kill us.
"...consequences be damned..."
Inquiring minds want to know
= = =
This inquiring mind quit inquiring after about 2 ms.
Ah yes. The TSA. 7 billion dollars a year checking your shoes. The largest government make-work program since the Works Projects Administration in the 1930s. Employing the biggest collection of lowlifes and the hard core unemployable and giving these mopes health care and pensions.
A completely unaccountable agency, they answer to no one, proudly refuse to answer and questions and tell congress itself to piss off. And we haven’t the talent in congress to stand up to these sub humans.
Makes me want to go through the live with a hot load in my shorts and gleefully allow them to go groping. Well, I was just divesting myself of my gels! Wanna see me get rid of my liquids and gases too?
Oh I like this!! I’m stealing this line!
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