Originally Posted by calikak
But after her experience, she is very, very upset (there really aren't words to express this kind of thing) and isn't sure she wants to have to relive the experience, which is what it takes to bring a lawsuit or file a formal complaint. I can't say that I blame her.
It was TSA that performed the search. Because of the factors I mentioned, she had an SSSS on her boarding pass. When the screeners scanned her passport again, and saw that she had been born in another country and that her last name had been changed, that was when things went downhill quickly.
Somebody should probably direct this poor woman to some sort of counselor to deal with the after effects of this abuse. The ACLU or some civil liberties group might also be interested in taking her legal case pro bono if it is as extreme as it sounds.
She should seriously consider ensuring that any checkpoint video is preserved, although my guess is that this would have occurred in a non-video "private" room and it may be too late anyway.
Retaliating against the people who did this with legal, criminal, and or media publicity may very well make her feel better and would do a public service. The media may be willing to keep her anonymous.
I think immigration/customs has to have a sign-off from a pretty high-level supervisor to do cavity searches, if I recall correctly. I've never heard of TSA having the authority to do such things. However, tt is inevitable that this sort of thing will occur, even in isolated incidents and without sanction by official policy, given the TSA's general tolerance for overzealous screeners/checkpoints with shoes, jewelry, clothes, patdowns, cross-gender secondaries, etc.