Reader Julie writes us about an experience she had flying out of Charlotte, NC. This is more bumbling Keystone Kops stuff than the normal outrageous stories we get.
Recently, I had to fly from Charlotte, NC to Amsterdam with my 3 year old son. My son went through the scanner without problems and the alarm went off with me. I’m five months pregnant and I had a dress on for comfort. I had no metal on me what so ever except for a bra which had a underwire. They then said I had to have a “pat- down” to find the metal. Two agents patted me down (one on each side) and a third man went through all of my belongings. During this “pat-down” it was determined that I had explosive material on me. I was scared to death and asked what it was and where was this material on me. They simply told me that was secure information and they could not tell me anything. Then, I was taken to a room to further investigation. I was not allowed to touch anything including my 3 year old son, who was left to run freely about the airport! After 45 mins, it was determined that I had nothing. I missed my flight and had to return the following day. Still wearing the same clothes from the day before, I checked in and went through security without any issues. Once at the gate, my son and I went to board the plane and I wasn’t allowed. I was on a ” Do not enter” list and my entire agenda was deleted. Crying, pregnant, tired and mentally exhausted from all of the hassel, I called my husband overseas, who is a pilot to help me out. He made some phone calls to the airlines and determined me being on this list was a mistake. I was allowed to fly. The passengers on the airplane clapped as I boarded and patted me on the back to say they were happy we could go home! Thank goodness. After all of this, I’m afraid to go back to the US and I have another trip scheduled soon. I wonder what is going to happen to me next. The pat down was horrible….They felt private areas with intensity till they my pelvic bone. I find this too far and too much and not too mention as a mother to have my child taken from me. I was horrified the government has this much control over me.
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Interesting story. Awful, and you certainly have my sympathies. Instructive for people like me about to fly with children. What happens if TSA makes a serious substantive mistake. Apparently, this is what happens. Very scary.
if they wouldn’t let you take your child with you to this other area. that is kidnapping. plus child endangerment on their part for not having an employee watching the child after telling you he couldn’t go with you. if I was you’d be filing charges against them. these new “security checks” are sexual harassment and personal invasions that should not be allowed.
I’m disgusted with the treatment that the TSA commits on visitors to our country.
A great way to protest while complying would be to sing the National Anthem while being groped. Opt-out of the scanner, comply with grope, after the grope has started in public, start singing! I think this would be great way to draw the attention of other waiting passengers and force them to think of what is happening in our “free” country. What news this would be if passengers are arrested/detained singing the National Anthem!
Never come back into the US. You are on many lists now as a potential terrorist. I’m not kidding.
If anybody takes you anywhere to search you for anythiing you have to right to have a lawyer present. You need to call the ACLU and press charges ASAP ro help prevent this from happening to anybody else. This was an illegal search.
That’s a horrific story. I’m so sorry you had to go through that! Thank you for sharing, and let’s hope we can stop this kind of abuse soon.
Please inform the TSA. They need to hear this.
The TSA doesnt’ care about feedback. Has anything but stonewalling and denials resulted from a TSA complaint?
The only true redress for these actions is to avoid TSA controlled transportation and to hound your state and federal representatives to defund and eliminate this useless agency.
cindy,
you really think that the TSA is going to care what the woman says???
i agree wholeheartedly that what happened in this incident was wrong, along with letting her child roam whereever….
what would have happened if the kid was kidnapped??? what would have the TSA done then???
The TSA’s ineptitude and abuses seem to have no limits. But only as long as you willingly submit to them.
Reader Julie wrote: “…and a third man went through all of my belongings.”
Giant question here — and I would seriously like an answer if possible: did MALE TSA agents perform the frisk?
“You have explosives on you . . . don’t touch anything! Oh, wait . . . you don’t. Our bad . . . oh, and when you come back tomorrow, you won’t be allowed to fly.” This is freakin’ crap; not only did they harass this woman, but you can rest assured she is now in a database as a “terrorist suspect”. The more I read things like the, the more I never want to fly out of the US ever. I’m half temped if I have to leave the country to drive to Canada and fly out from there.
Thank you for sharing your story. I am horrified. In 2006 when my son was 3 he was taken and put in a glass closet for 5 min. While they looked for the appropriate person to pat him down in his Spider-Man costume. Having your child taken from you for even a second is unacceptable!
(to the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner)
O, say can you see
in the dim airport light
how so rudely these folk
are invading privacy?
They would make us parade
through interm’nable lines
for irradiation
and virtual indecency.
Should we choose to opt out,
feel their hands all about
because they won’t take our word
on what’s not in our shorts?
No way we’ll tolerate this pathetic display
as ‘security’ while they take rights away.
—————–
Please disseminate and/or improve at will!
was she carry explosives between her skin and pelvic bone? how can you know besides a thorough pat-down!
So sorry to hear this happened!! I like the idea of singing the National Anthem while being groped….I must fly soon and will opt out of the nude scan. I wonder what TSA does if a woman is at “that time of the month”. I apologize for the visual, but it is a harsh reality….there was recently an older gentleman whose ostomy was compromised and the urine leaked all over him…he had warned the TSA agent in advance to no avail. These groping agents must be stopped!
Wheres our president , senator , congressman ? We need them now to represent us !!!! ISn’t the govt is for the people , this cant be democracy … everyone write to your representative !
It would not surprise me a bit to see the TSA soon demand that all passengers remove ALL their clothing and wear TSA provided thin cotton white mumus or bathrobes when boarding a plane. That way we could all look the same… like Muslims.
Pursue pressing charges. This is a violation of our rights as well as child endangerment.
What if your child had been kidnapped while on his own for 45 minutes? Heavy groping and serious errors like you and so many others experience is completely unacceptable. Itʻs possible also that youʻre now on other lists as a suspect and itʻs difficult if not impossible to get off.
Hideous policies, greedy past administration officials, poor training along with too many powerless poorly educated people is a travel disaster no other country has to live with, except possibly North Korea.
Please contact the ACLU, itʻs time for a class action suit.
@ANIMAL AURA : your comment is a slap in the face of every American Muslim who is concerned and traumatized , like so many of their countrymen .
,i guess American Muslims are not “real” citizens.From here it is a small leap to conclude that “Americans” have rights that can be denied to “Muslims,” because of “American” suffering.
I have a right to be in public anywhere (EVEN AT THE AIRPORT!) without being stripped or intimately groped without probable cause. What are airports some kind of normal-human-emotions-don’t-exist zone?
… even if there were the the most compelling of practical reasons …
There is an extremely practical reason to allow police to randomly frisk any young male (especially) they wish to. This would end all gang violence in the poorest neighborhoods and make Americans who live there feel much less like they are permanent prisoners in their own homes (I fully understand; I’m originally from the Bronx). But the Constitution has some very pointed things to say about it because we don’t want to live in a police state.
Imagine if Osama threatened America with an airliner brought down if we did not electronically strip search 3 million men and women every day all over the country and have strangers aggressively grope all the private areas of 100,000 men and WOMEN in public. Would you give in to that threat? Imagine after we gave in to such mass ugliness an airliner went down anyway — and Obama laughed and said I fooled you; I sent that bomber in from outside the country just like the last two — foolish Americans! (Or maybe he really found a 300 “martyr” — have to investigate if there were any obese Islamic passengers on the downed plane.)