N965VJ

Passengers shocked by new touchy-feely TSA screening

August 24, 2010

Airline passengers from coast to coast are decrying the Transportation Security Administration’s more aggressive body searches, calling screeners’ new front-of-the-hand, slide-down technique not only invasive but an example of Big Brother run amok.

Rob Webster said he was subjected to a head-to-toe body search that “did not miss an inch” and even included a “probing and pushing” of his genital area when flying home from Las Vegas to Seattle last week.

“If anybody ever groped me like that in real life, I would have punched them in their nose,” the 50-year-old said. “It was extremely invasive. This was a very probing-type touching - not just patting over all your areas, but actually probing and pushing and seeing if I was concealing something in my genital area.”

Mudfish

I believe this is the third day in a row that the Boston Herald has published a similar type story about the TSA. Finally a major newspaper who gets that this is a disgrace.

doober

Also found on linked page:

Patdowns won't stop terrorists.

clrankin

People just need to start filing charges for sexual assault against screeners. Those should stick, as that's exactly what the perverts are doing.

coachrowsey

People need to start(or attempt) filing charges. I would've called for an leo

N965VJ

I forgot to mention this earlier:

The TSA screeners used the palms of their hands to search her face,

Seriously? Is the TSA now practicing phrenology?

This pseudoscience is based on the false assumption that mental faculties are located in brain "organs" on the surface of the brain and can be detected by visible inspection of the skull. The Viennese physician Franz-Joseph Gall (1758-1828) claimed there are some 26 "organs" on the surface of the brain which affect the contour of the skull, including a "murder organ" present in murderers.

neko

I've seen them feeling and searching through women's hair: making them take it out of a chignon or ponytail and then taking pieces and separating them and feeling through them - even for women without super long hair.

Savvy Traveler

I didn't think so at first, but there might actually be some merit to filing a sexual assault charge. I am not a lawyer, but here's my thought process:

You don't discover you're selected for the WBI under after the ID checker in most cases, right? So you're already part of the "screening process", which TSA says you can't back out of, at that point. Assuming you decline the WBI machine and tell the screener you do not consent to the "enhanced" pat down, they would then be touching your private parts without your consent, and after you attempted to leave the situation (assuming you told the screener you wanted to leave instead of being screened and he denied you the opportunity to do so).

TSA isn't real law enforcement, so they couldn't make the argument that a police officer could, specifically that there was some legal justification for a detailed search. I'd love to see some of us try to file the charge and see if it goes anywhere.

TerminalBliss

Wow...so now you're a prosecutor as well. Please tell all of us that are not so enlightened, with respect to MA statutes, how the administrative searches conducted by TSOs using the palms down method meets the elements of MA or any other state's sexual assault statutes.

TB

doober

Now there's perversion for you.

essxjay

And that would be my tipping point. The TSO wouldn't even get across the DY...T finish line before I'd insist on summoning airport police to escort me out of this sicko's reach. Don't care how much fare would be forfeited in order to preserve some dignity.

Boggie Dog

I would suggest that a TSA checkpoint is federal property and federal law would take precedence.

Flahusky

As described in the linked article above the 'Palm Down' method were his genitals were manually manipulated by a non-medical professional constitutes sexual battery in the state of Florida.

TSA actors are NOT exempt as defined by Fl. Statue794.011 sub section 4 paragraph (g)

It would be interesting to see how the test case plays out in court. Anyone have time and $$ to play the game?

doober

From the Statute:

Well, the TSA certainly promotes "coerced submission" doesn't it. Would love for someone in FL to file suit.

oldjonesy

If I was going to get an invasive search, ~ almost ~ to the level that prison imates get, then I would probably have second thoughts about NOT going through the nude scanner.

That might be the rarionale for this?