Reader Carol shares her story and inspires with her resistance.
This week I was subjected to the new pat down procedures. I am business traveler who flies 2 or more times a week and have been through pat downs before as well as the full body scans in Chicago. I was subjected to this assault after clearing the metal detector with no alarms and wearing only a dress and hose. The pat down was conducted in an open area in full view of all the other passengers and I ended up with my skirt up around my thighs while the agent felt my crotch under my dress. See why I call it an assault?
As a regular traveler throughout the world including hot spots like the Middle East, I very familiar with “enhanced” security procedures but I have never felt as violated in any other country as I have been in my own. If I am pulled for this pat down again, I will opt to leave the line and not travel. I am sure that will go over well with my current employer, one of the largest US airlines.
Karen in Dallas. Do these people have no decency?
I flew to Dallas from Oklahoma City several months ago and I am rather endowed, there were 2 obviously masculine women doing the pat downs. The TSA agent at the belt checking my bagage going thru the scanner there said “oh boy these to people over her are fighting to see who is going to pat you down” I said how was I chosen for a pat down, she said “they like the way you look, so just step over there and see who won!” Probably not the worst story but very embarrasing and totally humiliating, they had to of course feel my breasts on the outside of my clothing but still it was very demeaning!
Deborah’s story. Good people will have the decency to stand up for their fellow human beings and protest this insulting security theater.
I’m very upset with whats going on with the new security. I have to travel often and have been openly groped by security in front of business men who were waiting in line. Some of these guys looked away as I was getting my body checked, others watched and had definite smirks. Please there has got to be a better way and I don’t feel that its using the body scanners, I feel its degrading and humiliating, especially if I’m the one thats being singled out and dont know why. I would wonder if some person behind the counter just wanted to see me naked for some thrill. How can you guarantee me that my rights as a human being are not be violated?? I don’t think you can and thats my problem with this. Please do something about this. Thank you
15 Responses to Carol in Chicago: “I ended up with my skirt up around my thighs”
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Fire the pervert freaks, John Pistole and Janet Napolitano. Say no to the antfarm. https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/welcome-to-antfarm-world-%E2%80%94-sociopathic-modality-at%C2%A0the%C2%A0airports/
Carol’s story is in direct conflict with TSA John Pistole’s testimony before Congress just a few days ago. Carol should not have had to go through a pat down, according to Pistole’s “testimony” to the Senators.
The other two stories also should have been offered a screening private room, or else people need to know they can demand one. Also, by law, they should have their belongings brought with them to the private room, and the pat downs should be handled in just as persistent and timely a manner as the radiation scanner inspections are being done.
I don’t like these procedures one bit. I’m a lawyer and feel as though we have ZERO Constitutional rights in airports. That’s a crock. I don’t want to submit and fly under these conditions. That said, I can handle it if I absolutely have to, but I draw the line at my wife and children.
If Reader Carol works for an airline, then she must communicate her experiences to her management, Human Resources, and upper management because other people feel this way also. In the end, it will end up hurting the airlines because at this point, I don’t want to fly unless I have to.
I am more afraid of the TSA and the government than I am of terrorists. We shouldn’t have our freedoms abridged because one idiot was unsuccessful and foiled by PASSENGERS.
Also, they shouldn’t allow any matches or lighters — that would be a simple solution. Then they can’t light their “junk” on fire.
Plastic explosives require detonators, not matches. This fact makes both the singed pubies bomber and the shoe bomber bogus frauds.
Follow the cascading frauds: the singed pubies bomber was bogus, he was no danger to his family jewels let alone the plane, his powder explosives wouldn’t have been detectable by the porno scanners (which ignore undense materials, such as cloth) anyway, yet the porno scanners are forces on us. What’s going on here?
Hey TSA, here’s your future: FAIL. Bwa , ha, ha, ha, ha.
Fire the pervert porno freaks John Pistole and Janet Napolitano — unAmerican POS’s.
I just heard Obama is backing them up. God, we elected him before we had any idea he was crazy.
The solution is simply the EMD Safety Bracelet. (Google that!) TSA will go back to metal detectors if everyone has to wear the tazer.
Couple thoughts reading all these accounts of TSA searches. Why is our govt hell bent on leather to examine all these citizens while our border with Mexico goes without enough security? Send the TSA airport screeners down to the southern border.
Why are the airlines silent? Have they been bought out? Something stinks in the airline network when they would have no comment while their law abiding customers are being frisked and arrested.
I’m one of the “once a year” flyers and the first airline that gets a backbone will have my money. Otherwise, we will drive.
What these people are really after is some attention. How pitiful the lives of these juvenile attention seekers must be! That they would prefer to take their chances and allow terrorists wearing explosives to board an airplane rather than submit to a full body scan (the pat down is just the alternative to the scan) says it all. Obviously they must not have much of a life so that is why they want to inconvenience others who do. How sad!
Read the fourth amendment. What the TSA are doing is illegal. Are you okay with that?
Our Founding Father Ben Franklyn said, “Those who would sacrifice liberty in order to secure security, deserves neither.” Just because you don’t mind being zapped with x-rays and photographed naked, or aggressively groped, is no reason to expect others to be so submissive.
Thats like was happened to me but my skirt wasnt raised, my jeans and pantys were lowered. You see I was coming out of the security scanner when a man said he saw something suspicous in my full body image and would have to give me a pat down. He started at my toes and went up my legs under my jeans as high as he could go then he went to the top of my jeans, in a private room with 4 other male TSA agents. And he began lowering his hands down my under wear touching my vagina with his bare hands. I reached down to tell him to stop. With this he told me Im doing my job now stand still and this will be easier for us both. I didnt stop so he had two of the 4 other male TSA agents in the room hold my arms still. Then he lowered my pants and panyhose and pantys down completely revealing my now uncovered vagina to all of the men. I was bout 21 and they were all bout my age. Then he procedeed to go 360 degrees around my buttocks and then open my vagina area. Revealling my inner vagina parts. Then he rubbed each part. Finnally after at least 1 minute of that and all the males laughing he went up my belly. lifting my shirt as he went along then he lifted my shirt and bra all the way up revealing my breasts. then he rubbed his fingers along as if he were doing a breast check for breast cancer. Then he pushed and poked and proded my breasts putting me in horrible pain with my breasts uncovered. and my vagina still uncovered with my jeans at my feet and my shirt at my sholders. Then he touched my hair and face and arms. Finaly he stopped with that. and he left but the two men were still holding my arms up high and the other two men came forward. They each did the same thing this tim not bothering to pull my pants up or shirt doown they just went up my legs and to my vagina. the first man did this gently but the second man did this hard coming at my vagina in full force. leaving me in scorging pain. then the second man pulled my vagina open this way and that and poked each one of my parts. Then he went around my waist 360 degrees and hit my vagina with his fist opening my vagina and closing it for all the men to see. At this i was a mess because i couldnt move my arms or wipe my face. They were all laughing and i was practically nude in the private office. The then went up to my breasts and he pulled them and pushed them and hit them and messed with my nipples for at least 5 minutes still not bothering to cover my privates. Then the two men traded spots with the other 2 men and they did the same thing. I was at least 20 minutes until i was able to go and barely get on my way out. But first they opened the door for the public to see my privates for 20 secnds. I felt totally betrayed, mad and embarassed and sexually harassed. finally they let me put my clothes back on but not until they too had been inspected while the public was staring at my privates and then the first guy came back and said, now have you learned your lesson, dont mess with the TSA. I was a mess and worst i found out the first dude hadnt left he had just gone into the shadows and video taped the whole thing. I tried filing a report but one i said harassed by the TSA the courts would have nothing to do with me. IT was horrible i am still getting over it. I will never fly again.
Anon, if your story is true, you should press charges, skin on skin is a felony.
Annonymous….OMG I can’t believe that 4 men would totally do that to you with all those people outside of that door!!! Abuse of power by people who make $10 an hour! What low lifes. You need to contact the police immediately. The police where the airport is located. Tell them all of the details. Tell them any of the names that you remember. Give them full descriptions of these scumbags.
Contact the ACLU. Contact your Congressman and Senators. Contact the TSA (not that they will do anything) Contact Hillary Clinton. Contant Janet Napolatano. Contact Barack Obama (not that he will do anything either). Contact your local newspaper. Contact all of your local newspapers. Contact the Washington Post. Contact the New York Times. Contact any other strong newspaper you can think of. I know that this was hard, but your story must come out. The TSA must be exposed for what they are. I think that this is not a one time happening. It would not surprise me that, once your story is told, that more women will come out to tell their story. And the TSA will then have to act against this “pat down” molestation against women, children, and elderly people.
It is a crime to touch people in their private parts, we have taught our children all of their lives. Now the government has given themselves the “right” to undo all of our teaching. Sorry, wrong. If I ever fly again, and someone dares to touch me anywhere near my clitoris, vagina, or my breasts, I will call the police for molestation. And I will prosecute. I don’t care if I am fighting the Federal Government. And their rules. Someone touches me inappropriately, it’s wrong, even if it is a rule. I was molested as a child. I will not be molested as an adult.
These new TSA procedures are a clear violation of our constitutional rights not to mention bordering on sexual assault. The only way to get anything done in this country is with money. If someone would start a movement for all Americans to designation only one day a month as a no fly day, until these policies are changed, it will work. The one thing that is a certainty in this country is that money talks!
I had to travel last month for business, although I have managed to re-arrange my work life so that I almost never fly any more. (I used to fly at least monthly and sometimes weekly, until they started making air travel increasingly miserable, post 9/11.
This particular trip was unavoidable, and I cannot drive from the Midwest to LA. Departing from Indianapolis, I submitted to their stupid scanner (unaware that I could refuse — will never do so again), only to have the obviously lesbian TSA goon tell me that I had moved and blurred the image, so she would have to pat me down. It was just humiliating, and infuriating.
To make matters worse, the bullying TSA attitude seems to have infected airline personnel as well — I experienced multiple snarling incidents with airline people. Air travel is to be avoided at all costs now, whereas I used to rather enjoy it.