Originally Posted by
eyecue
6 years ago? Your testimony is doubtful unless you took notes.
It varies by state, but the statute of limitations for sexual assault is generally between five and ten years (it can be longer if there is DNA evidence).
Even if the suggestion that a woman's report of a sexual assault is "doubtful" because it is 6 years old was not disgusting of itself (it is), it is false -- in some states it would still be valid testimony under law.
Originally Posted by
bdschobel
At the risk of seeming to have completely lost my bearings -- or raising suspicions that my Flyertalk handle has been hijacked -- I also listened to that woman's account with serious skepticism. I don't doubt that male screeners have patted down females; I've seen it myself. But the notion that any woman would allow a total stranger to do to her what that woman described -- or even that a Federally employed screener would do that, knowing the risk that he could be charged with sexual assault and fired -- makes the scenario unlikely at best. I suspect that she was at least exaggerating the circumstances. But none of us was there, so we'll just have to rely on our own judgment as to what likely happened. It was very convenient that one of Alex Jones's employees just happened to have such a hideous experience and was willing to recount it on his radio show. Very convenient indeed.
Bruce
I tend to agree that this seems exaggerated and the association with infowars does not reinforce confidence of the highest standards of journalistic probity (is that enough fancy words to be lawyer-proof
But it is definitely the that case male screeners do physical searches of female passengers and that the TSA does not have a policy absolutely forbidding this.
Moreover, casual sexual harassment of young women -- selecting young women for the strip-search machine, male screeners oggling the girl-on-girl pat-down, (non-)random gate searches -- is a serious ongoing problem.