This is a guest post from Vicki Moore, who blogs at Drunken Atheist.

By now, you’re probably well aware of the ridiculous things that have been banned from flights since 9/11. Though the TSA has been easing up on the bans, some items are still subjected to the specific screener’s judgment. Google turns up a myriad of horrible accounts from passengers discussing ridiculous items that TSA screeners have refused to allow onto flights. Depending on the circles you run in, this may not be a shock to you. For some time, crafters have been advising one another to not bring knitting needles onto a plane and many smokers have begun carrying cheap lighters for fear these items will be confiscated.

Breastfeeding communities have also been battling this issue of TSA subjectivity. Breast milk is currently considered a “liquid medication,” and is allowed onto flights. Despite that, quite a few nursing mothers have told accounts of being forced to “pump and dump” (using a breast pump and then discard the milk). Nursing mothers have legitimate reasons for bringing milk onto a flight; some moms do not breastfeed in-flight and working moms often pump throughout the day to prevent complications.

Earlier this year, lawyer Stacey Armato was a nursing mom to her seven month old son. At the time, she commuted weekly between Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) for work. On her regular flight home, she was hassled by TSA officers at PHX regarding breast milk she was bringing home for her son. She was told to “pump and dump” by screeners but was luckily able to get the manager on duty to double-check. She boarded her flight with no other issues. After returning home, she lodged a complaint with the TSA and was told to print out a copy of the breast milk rules.

The following week, she encountered the same TSA agents at PHX, which is when things got nasty. Armato has a detailed account of her second run-in with TSA posted here. To briefly summarize, TSA screeners attempted to put her breast milk through an x-ray machine. When she tried to show the screener the specific rules about breast milk, she was pushed away from her bags and the officer called for backup. Phoenix PD was dispatched out to airport and it is important to not that she was not arrested during the hour long incident. After stalling for 20 minutes, TSA screeners forced her to repackage her breast milk, scolded her for not watching the TSA agent test it, and blatantly told her they weren’t going to follow their own guidelines. When everything was done, she missed her flight and was humiliated by the whole process.

That about sums up her experience, barring one disturbing detail. Within the body of Armato’s account, she embedded four YouTube videos containing security footage from the TSA. Each one features her standing in a glass box in the middle of a security checkpoint. Creepiness aside, I’m a bit confused. If we accept the premise that the TSA is “keeping us safe,” then doesn’t it seem a little counter-productive to place a passenger into a glass box in the middle of one of the most traveled portions of the airport? If Armato and her deadly breast milk were truly a risk to airline security, then wouldn’t this be the best place in the airport for her to ignite her diabolical breast milk bombs? There is no justifiable reason for the TSA to detain her in full view of other passengers. Armato did nothing wrong. She had packaged her breast milk properly, followed the TSA phone rep’s advice and clearly was not a threat to anyone around her. She followed the rules, played the game, and was still needlessly detained for roughly an hour. Cynical folks like myself think this is less about security and more about making an example of those who don’t comply.

This is what we’re talking about when we use the term “security theater.” The same mentality that treats a nursing mother like a criminal for bringing breast milk onto her flight is the same one that treats a nervous flyer like a criminal because they might want to grab a smoke before flying or knit a scarf while they’re on a plane. I’m willing to bet money that there are no MacGuyver wannabes whipping together bombs using breast milk, hollow aluminum knitting needles, and lighters. Making passengers scared to get onto a plane for fear that their legally allowed belongings will be confiscated doesn’t make us safer. The policies and the way they are arbitrarily enforced makes me more uneasy than I previously was about boarding a flight. Maybe I’m alone, but that doesn’t seem to be consistent with the agency’s tagline of “your safety is our priority.”

30 Responses to Humiliated by the TSA for Citing their own Rules

  1. [...] out my first guest post over at WeWontFly.com. Thanks again to George Donnelly for giving me the opportunity to gripe about the government to a [...]

  2. Jason K says:

    The official TSA Response makes no mention of any details or the fact that the passenger was verbally and physically humiliated. ‘Blogger Bob’ also had a another quick posting immediately after this ‘apology,’ ensuring that the latter gets buried and not seen by anyone taking a quick peek.
    https://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/tsa-response-to-tsa-breast-milk.html

  3. Alix says:

    I’m not a huge fan of the whole accomodate my every whim Breast Feeding movement, but that is so not the issue here. TSA has become this massive organization of thigs who selectively enforce their own rules at their whim. This has to stop, at what point in time do we stop allowing ourselves to be victimized by these people.

    • As a feminist and a woman, I can’t shake the gut feeling that some of these accounts involving women are occurring because they think we’ll comply more or that we’re easier to pressure/threaten. (Obviously, I’m not trying to argue that men aren’t being hassled by the TSA. There are more than enough accounts from men that disprove that idea.)

      I don’t know, like I said, it’s just a gut feeling and I realize I could be totally wrong here.

    • Cindy says:

      We make it stop by refusing to fly unless it is a family emergency or for your job. It is painful. We will spend four days traveling to Atlanta and back by car for Christmas this year. This will cut back our vacation time there but we are not going to fly until the scanners and gropers are gone. We are not the only ones. Nobody is going to admit that ticket sakes are down any more than they admitted that they shut off the scanners the day before Thanksgiving.

      People can peacefully resist but only if they are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to effect that change.

  4. zhaliberty says:

    Have you ever seen the big garbage cans in the screening area? They are filled with hundreds of “potentially explosive liquids” that are bundled together and THROWN in a very sensitive security location.

    If they truly thought they were potentially dangerous, why would they treat them so carelessly?

    • TomDean says:

      Those big garbage cans have special powers, kind of like the magic light they shine on IDs. The garbage bin magically disables all bad properties of the things tossed into it. Just like the magical metal detector makes bad people into good people, but now it is slowly loosing its effectiveness, so they have introduced the Nude ‘oscope, which has increased magical powers that can find the bad guys even better.
      Yes, thanks to the folks at the TSA, we are all so much safer.

    • Related: I drove myself nuts with trying to find out whether or not the glass cages are blast resistant. I couldn’t get any confirmation either way, which leads me to believe they aren’t. I have to laugh and make snarky jokes about it or else I’m just going to want to blow my brains out. I hate to sound like a broken record, but seriously, how does any of this crap actually keep anyone safe?

  5. [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vicki Moore, Sinclaire Chase, cjr, indyK1ng, Maggie Reef and others. Maggie Reef said: RT @WeWontFly: Now: Humiliated by the TSA for Citing their own Rules https://bit.ly/eaWQe4 #wontfly #tsa #fb [...]

  6. JPin says:

    What’s even more ridiculous is that they made her pour the breast milk into separate, smaller containers, but she DID take the entire amount of breast milk on another flight afterwards.

    Something else that few people are aware of is that TSA “Officers” have NO law enforcement authority. The uniforms and “badges” are merely used as a psychological facade.

    • “What’s even more ridiculous is that they made her pour the breast milk into separate, smaller containers, but she DID take the entire amount of breast milk on another flight afterwards.”

      LOL, RIGHT?!?!?

      Don’t worry, I’m sure that she was given special blastproof Ziploc bags to repackage the breast milk in. /sarcasm

    • Bohica says:

      JPin is right. The TSA are not sworn law enforcement peace officers. This is why they had to call in the Phoenix PD. The difference between regulators and law enforcement officers is partially the authority to make an arrest.

    • Cindy says:

      Yeah if they had any real authority they probably would’ve arrested John Tyner lol. The badges are ridiculous.

  7. Antixngrope says:

    You are definitely not alone. I wouldn’t be surprised if part of these TSA “agents” training involved intimidation tactics designed to scare us into the body scanners. No one wants to be fondled but, many of us will endure this treatment so as not to be radiated. Any decent agent would not want to perform an intimate pat down especially since “patting down” or, feeling up, wasn’t originally part of their job description so, being that having to to so is awkward and humiliating to passenger and agent, it’s no wonder they make examples out of the non conformers.
    Under this current security nightmare we are all guilty until proven innocent but fortunately we have the right to remain not silent. UNfortunately too many of us are scared or intimidated by the whole thing and content with the belief that it’s a “Small price to pay” and the, “There’s not enough radiation entering our bodies to do any damage, big Sis says we’re perfectly safe”.
    No matter how naive some of us are we are ALL still innocent here and our innocence is being stripped and scanned.
    Meanwhile the terrorists are laughing and winning at the expense of “The peoples” humiliation and degradation.

    • Lynn N. says:

      I have to disagree with one statement that you made …..

      “Any decent agent would not want to perform an intimate pat down”

      On that note, they also can say, “NO! I won’t do this to another human being! I don’t have that right because it says so in our Constitution!”

      If all the TSOs got together “en masse,” and refused to comply, what would happen to the new policies? I can see how this would be an effective way of stopping the groping of our groins, and especially our children and grandparents!

      The question, though, is how to we reach their sensibilities? They are apparently on a power trip that is bigger than all of us. :-(

  8. LeRoy Trusty says:

    Here is what bothers me about this incident, they basically told her that they were waiting for her. Hold on a minute. So they were not looking for potential terrorists but they wanted to make an example of a frequent flyer. That is where they crossed the line.
    This incident is no different than the woman that had the hassle because she wore a sports team shirt that the “agents” did not like.
    “They” are waiting for the big breasted woman, the old cowboy, the cripple, yeah…

  9. concerned citizen says:

    I want to suggest that this whole incident is only one more example, among many others, of a crackdown on free speech.
    Because this woman had “the nerve” (oh my) to complain to them that they were not following their own rules about medical liquids, they in turn had *the nerve!* to single her out, harrass her and make an example out of her.

    The ACLU has reported that people who complained or objected are the ones who have received the worst of the TSA abuses.

    Look at the fact that Meg McClain was singled out and humiliated, that other reporters have received the “random” selection to be patted down or irradiated.

  10. NewYorkDan says:

    My family are in the United States because Hitler (on one side of the family) and Stalin (on the other side) chased them out of their original countries. A police state begins with threats, harassment and intimidation from government towards innocent citizens, and usually ends in horrific atrocities. What began in Germany as “Show me your papers” wound up with the mass killing of six million Jews.

    This nonsense with the TSA represents the “Show me your papers” phase. With reports like this one, it appears that we’re already heading towards becoming the kind of police state that my great-grandparents were fortunate enough to have escaped. I have deeprooted, serious fears for where this is all headed. And all it takes for this to lead us there is for us to do nothing. We must always protect ourselves from those who would oppress us, or we will find ourselves living the nightmares of fascism right here in America.

    One of my students, a “conservative” who listens to Rush Limbaugh and watches Glenn Beck, has a name for the ACLU: “Anti-Christian Lawyers Union.” So by that title, can we assume that the TSA’s intimidation, retaliation and humiliation, which the ACLU opposes, are “Christian” acts? I don’t think so. Christ would not have liked any of this at all. No decent person would ever put a woman into a glass cage for daring to stand up for her rights. Anybody who would treat the innocent like this is NOT fit to protect us from breast milk bombs at the airport.

    Why were those agents not arrested?

    • Cindy says:

      That is exactly what I want to know. There are regular cops at the airports. Why hasn’t even one of them done the right thing and arrested somebody for groping a child?

      This is exactly my fear. It is not just what is happening at the airports. It is illegal wiretaps and monitoring of cell phones and text messages.

      Did you know that the state police in North Carolina want to know what licensed drivers in the state have prescriptions for drugs like Vicodin and Ambien?

      This whole trend is just terrifying. The time to stop it is right NOW before it gets worse.

      • NewYorkDan says:

        Did you know that our medical records are open books for the government? When I took my wife to the emergency room last year, they ran medical tests on her as part of the diagnostic process. They would not share with me the results of this testing. But if a government agent ever asks for those results, they will be turned over without question. So now they have doctors and other medical personnel gathering info on us that they can access more readily than our oun spouses. The legislation that does this is called HIPPA and, surprise surprise, it is “intended” to preserve our privacy.
        This, coupled with the TSA and the phone wiretaps and the monitoring of our online activity and the surveilence of city streets and the monitoring of our cars via GPS… It all adds up to a very scary loss of privacy. What exactly are they doing with all this information — gathered largely without our knowledge or consent, some of it gathered illegally? I am not paranoid, but because of family history as described above, it has me very concerned for where we are headed in this country. I do not wish to live in a police state, or to be chased out of North America by a Hitler or a Stalin.

        • Cindy says:

          Every kind of information imaginable about us is being collected, stored in a database and sold. The government has access to Everything. It shocks me that people do not see what is happening. Our government is years behind technology. For more information on this subject look at EPIC’s website. Really scary.

  11. Doug Terry says:

    As one who has had a lot of experience around police officers as a reporter, and earlier as a teenager who was an “enthusiastic” driver, I can tell you that the way this woman was treated is more or less standard, American police mentality. It goes like this: you give me any trouble, or any sign of disrespect, and you are going to get it five times back in your face. If you give me any more trouble after that, I am going to do my best to either arrest you or provoke you so that I can arrest you. It doesn’t matter if you have been a law abiding, good citizen all your life.

    There are hundreds of psychological studies of how regular situations can easily and quickly escalate into “me against you” kind of warfare and the TSA should be training its underpaid employees how to BACK DOWN from a confrontation rather than step it up. The entire operation should be conducted like a service business, not a police interrogation and confrontation. In the years since 9-11, people have wondered to me in conversations why I have been so opposed to what the TSA is doing. Anyone who goes through a situation like this, or sees it happening, will be singing a different tune.

    Most people just assume that something like this will never happen to them, the same way they react when they see an African-American citizen get off death row after ten years when cleared by DNA evidence. As a man, I am mentally set up to endure many different things, especially when traveling in a foreign country. I am less tolerant in our own country, because we have a Constitution with specified rights and, of course, because I live here. If we think of these things as potentially involving our children, grown or otherwise, and our wives and best friends, then the whole thing become a little different. Most men would be enraged to have their wife treated in such a manner and would want to protect her.

    If we should ever fall into a police state situation, we now have the apparatus in place at the nation’s airports and a lot of people with experience in implementing it, day by day. This is one of the larger, longer lasting problems with treating everyone like an escaped prisoner.

    Doug Terry at https://terryreport.com

    • concerned citizen says:

      Hello Doug and all,
      I have another angle to offer about this. However, your experience has my genuine respect, Kuddos! And you are probably right. That said, here is also another possible explanation for what I will call a crackdown on free speech at the airports, using TSA as the tool. I have spent seven years reading the texts of some of the post-911 Congressional bills, read the ACLU’s website up and down and looked at FBI documents on their website, checked the Congressional voting scorecard, written many articles and previously served on the local County ACLU Board.

      The ACLU has reported to its members that those who complained at the airports are the ones who have been targeted by the TSA (and in essence, punished) the most (though that word “punish” was not the one the ACLU chose to write. Yet they said it, in different words). The lady in the video above, to note, had complained about the TSA randomly violating its own rules and merely asked that her breastmilk not be radiated, for the sake of her kid. Yet they punished her by locking her up in a glass cage, forced her to miss her flight, and harrassed her in additional ways. Note that people such as Meg McLain, CNN reporters, and other Press people appear to be selected for these “random” radiation scans and searches. “Interesting”.

      The broader war on terrorism shows much the same pattern of cracking down on free speech and vocal people, while pretending to target terrorists and “keep us safe” (nothing could be further from the truth).

      The No-Fly List topped an incredulous one million people more than a year ago. On that list were the names of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Patrick Leahy, and other (no partisan statement intended, just fact) Democrats who just so happened to be vocal against the Patriot Act.

      The Patriot Act may in fact be part of the problem. According to the Center for Constitutional Rights: https://www.ccrjustice.org/…/ccr-wins-great-victory:-key-provision-patriot-act-ruled-unconstitutional -

      “A district court judge declared an important provision of the USA Patriot Act unconstitutional because it is so vague that it ‘could be construed to include unequivocally pure speech and advocacy protected by the First Amendment.’ ”
      The CCR continues:
      “Our clients sought only to support lawful and nonviolent activity, yet the Patriot Act provision draws no distinction whatsoever between expert advice in human rights, designed to deter violence, and expert advice on how to build a bomb. We think the Constitution demands that the law recognize the difference between furthering human rights and furthering violence.”

      Does that say it all?

      Next came an FBI Memorandum directing the police to crack down on peaceful activists. The memorandum calls the act of photographing police violence an “act of intimidation”. See the parallel? How TSA agents have been asking people to stop taking photos, not allowing the transparency of photos in the private rooms used for enhanced pat-downs, and trailing people who use their cell phones to record their criminally violating acts of probing people in a sexual way? YOu can see the FBI memorandum here:

      https://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-slams-classified-fbi-memorandum-directing-law-enforcement-engage-protest-supp

      Be not fooled. That word “Terrorist” in the Patriot Act (and probably also in the above FBI memorandum) is quite intentionally an “over-broad” definition. The ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, Gun Owners of America, National Lawyers Guild, and dozens of entities of all stripes and colors—-all agree that this definition in the Patriot Act is “over-broad”. This is not an accident, of course. Tell me how this does *not* apply to the airport scans and pat-downs?

      See the ACLU’s client list below of those spied on by the FBI (very much related to the airport “random” selections, don’t kid yourself): Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Food Not Bombs, The National Lawyers Guild, the ACLU, the Quaker anti-war group American Friends Service Committee (a Nobel Peace Prize winning entity), Codepink, religious groups, peace groups, environmental groups…. all appear on the FBI‘s spylist. The ACLU documents a list about one mile long of these and other organizations who they are defending against FBI spying:

      https://www.aclu.org/cpredirect/18706

      The power-crazed FBI has even gone crazy chasing bird watchers and joggers in shorts:

      https://www.rightsmatter.org/multimedia/

      What does this have to do with “random” airport searches? Everything. We need to keep our eye on those free speech oppressing TSA agents and their higher ups. And we need to track their patterns (who are they selecting “at random” ? and how are they treating those who speak up?) and expose it publicly.

      • concerned citizen says:

        PS Also, in response to someone above who had “a beef” with the ACLU, please know that having served on the local County Board previously, I am not in the least bit offended. I believe that people need to speak their opinions freely, and also know what the comment refers to. That’s okay, the matter was misunderstood, and people are free to do that as well as to disagree even if they did not misunderstand. I hope nobody feels the need to sweet talk me in any way because I happened to reveal my prior connection to the ACLU. When I served on the Board, I always wanted to hear from people about what could be improved. That is the only way to do things well. Speak your minds, friends, and know that we are all in one common cause together! Thank you all for your care and concern.

    • Cindy says:

      Terry:

      Thus issue is something most people do not understand. Most people have little contact with the cops so they have no idea what goes on. Unfortunately, we have had many, many contacts with the police due to a mentally I’ll family member. If people knew what I know and had seen the things I have seen they would never sleep well at night ever again.

    • Cindy says:

      Every member of this family understands that they are to use an audio and/or video recorder if there is any contact with the cops. The only way you will ever make a complaint against a cop stick is if you can prove it. They are always believed in a court of law,even if they are lying in their teeth.

  12. [...] Peters RT @jasonfriesen: Phrase of the day: "Diabolical breast milk bombs". https://wewontfly.com/humiliated-by-the-tsa #wontfly #tsa [...]

  13. TN Granny says:

    This was just shameful! Those TSA asses ought to have to eat an irradiated lunch in a plastic box while we all laugh and jeer.

  14. NewYorkDan says:

    I just read the ACLU website, which has extensive reporting on the TSA issue. They claim to have had over 1,000 complaints about mistreatment of air passengers under the new TSA policies. This is all within the past month or so. And, not all abuses are reported to the ACLU. Some abuses are not reported at all. Over one thousand complaints to a single organization in a month is a strong indication of how far-reaching this issue is.

  15. [...] nursing mother was repeatedly challenged by TSA agents for packing breast milk (considered a liquid medicine) in her carry on baggage. While laws [...]

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