petaluma1

That's what I've always advised: don't refuse the search but do refuse to go to the back room.

Tizzette

petaluma1

Apparently the woman in question went through the body scanner that picked up an "anomaly" in her crotch area, which triggered a patdown during which the sanitary product was felt. How many women go through body scanners every day wearing a sanitary product? How many of those are picked up by the scanner? How many gropes are done as a result of the scanner "anomaly?" How many of those who are groped are sent to a back room to expose their sanitary product? The response is very few. Perhaps what triggers a demand to go to a back room (which should always be refused) is the thickness of the pad being worn.

Boggie Dog

I would like to see TSA's SOP on how to do this search. If it has happened once, it has happened many more times going unreported.

chollie

I agree. I'm also curious how the procedure for clearing women's sanitary products compares with clearing adult diapers, some of which are certainly bigger/thicker than women's sanitary products.

I suspect the answer will be that the scanner can't tell the difference between a moist wad of cotton/manmade fabrics and 'dense organic matter that probably is a bomb'.

Perhaps in some cases the 'anomaly' is the result of a screener deliberately or accidentally selecting the wrong gender on the scanner.

I'm sure some women have smuggled things in their bras and hygiene products at prisons, hence TSA's obsession with the private parts of a woman's body. However, men regularly try to smuggle astonishing (to me, anyway) things like cellphones and even a charger in their anus. Why does TSA pay so little attention to what people might have concealed there?

Boggie Dog

ETD is suppose to be used to detect hidden explosives. Sharps are of no real threat to the overall safety of the aircraft.

So what exactly is TSA trying to accomplish?

chollie

I can understand that if TSA doesn't like people taking snacks, they try to change pax behavior by hassling everyone who carries snacks.

I don't understand how they think harassing women wearing adult diapers or breast prostheses or sanitary products is going to result in those women changing their behavior.

Boggie Dog

With TSA operating behind a cloak of secrecy, perhaps better stated, behind a cloak of non accountability, I can easily believe that some mid-level suit dreamed that women were going to introduce contraband hidden in their "resistance". Then this protector of the airways convinced some other mid-level suits that this was an imminent threat. The protectors of the airways committee drafted an updated SOP and zippety doo dah local screeners have a new mission to, well you know what they're doing. Aviation Security, TSA Style!

chollie

Meanwhile, smuggling of contraband in another bodily orifice actually does go on regularly in our prisons, but somehow TSA has the inside scoop and knows that no terrorist of either gender would ever dream of smuggling something through the checkpoint concealed in that orifice.

Of course, that would mean they'd have to focus on men and women equally.

Loren Pechtel

The metal detector can't detect explosives. They're more concerned with a bomb than any weapon you could put in your underwear.

chollie

If rubbing her crotch with their hands or a wand and then testing the gloves/wand wasn't good enough, they could have asked her to loosen her pants so they could put their hands or the wand directly on the product and then test the results.

It sounds like they wanted a visual examination of the product (ugh). I guess we all should be grateful they didn't insist on taking it back to the checkpoint to run through the xray like they did the back brace of another female pax.

BTW...has anyone ever heard or known of a male who was taken for a backroom inspection, whether or not they complained about it? Any children?

Former Congressional Representative Jason Chaffetz went ballistic when his young teen daughter was taken for a backroom inspection while her mother was getting the full blue-glove special and didn't realize what was happening to her daughter.

petaluma1

Didn't the Pellegrino en banc decision say that "TSA screenings are not consensual"?

saizai

None of TSA's screening, except ETD, can detect items in a bodily orifice. This search couldn't either; this was about a pad, not a tampon.

They should be. But ETD can detect non-metallic explosives, in underwear or elsewhere.

What you are describing is an even worse sexual assault than what they did.

I've not heard of a cis male one, nor a child. I have heard of issues from multiple cis women, trans men, and trans women, however.

And yet Chaffetz - who was *head* of the House Oversight & Government Affairs Committee, with power to subpoena TSA - didn't do a damn thing about it.

Yes, it did.

However, there's a widespread circuit split about it. Some say it's based on consent; some that it's based on notice. It's mostly an academic distinction; I don't know any case to date that would turn on it.

In any case, this is pretty standard stuff for 4th Amendment searches, especially cops. Don't resist, don't assist, and don't consent. Then you can argue about it in court later, and they can't say that it's your own fault for being "voluntary", or deny that they forced you to do it.

Here e.g., the grandma has a worse case because she's the one who took her pants down. TSA can claim that they were just "asking", or that she misinterpreted them, or whatever. It happened without recording, because it was in private room. No neutral observer. Sucks.

Whereas if they were the ones who undid her pants and pulled them down, her saying "I don't consent but won't resist" and keeping her arms folded, in public, TSA would be unquestionably on the hook for it.

Just like cops, if they have the right to conduct the search, they can do it without your cooperation. If they don't, they can't. Always force the issue.

If a government agent is asking you to do something (open your door, empty your pockets, whatever), it's because they can't force you and want you to give up that right "voluntarily". At least, that's what they'll argue in court, and they often win that one.

chollie

Sai, I admit I grovel for TSA. That said, I believe that if I were to say "If you want my clothing 'adjusted', I will stand still while you 'adjust' it, but I will not 'adjust' it for you", I would get told that I was interfering with the screening process and I either do as I'm told or I won't be flying.

There was an episode in (where else?) PHX where a woman who had encountered problems before showed up in a bikini in a wheelchair. TSA claimed she had an unresolvable 'anomaly' of some kind on her rear, IIRC, and refused to clear her. She was told to come back the next day and try again (point being, they've made you miss your flight).

saizai

Legally? I'm fairly certain that merely declining to do their job for them, especially when explicitly saying you're not going to do anything to stop them from doing it, is not any kind of interference.

Practically? They might violate the Constitution yet again. Wouldn't be a first. But it's also not that common. And the very fact that you are afraid of it, to me, means that they have already done a grave wrong - that's called "chilling effect", and self-censorship is one of the most pernicious ways that fascism operates.

Do you want to be actively assisting the subversion of civil rights? https://s.ai/copcards/manifesto