Hi Dean,

Thanks for discussing this with us. I'm wondering if you can explain why I'm seeing more and more accounts of people not allowed to have their witness, even if they ask for it. The most notable one is the infamous old gal wearing an adult diaper. From everything I could tell, her daughter just had to wait outside the door for her. I think Chaffetz' minor daughter was also separated from her mother to a private room.

I don't know the details or veracity of all the accounts I've seen, but they are numerous enough to make me believe it happens (between 5 and 10 instances since I started paying attention last winter). Sometimes the witness is denied, sometimes a witness isn't explicitly offered.

Thanks again.

No, I can't. I can only talk about what's officially supposed to happen, or what I personally see. The only time that anyone who's ever required a private screening with me requested a witness, I said...

"Sure, not a problem."

And then we all crammed into the room (the passenger, their witness, me, another TSO [who acts as our witness]) and proceeded with the screening.

Just an aside: I got hugged today. By a passenger. I'll tell that story later.

So since really any TSO want to answer this question maybe you can.

I dont want to be touched by a stranger at all. I was raped as a young girl.If I have to choose to be screnned or not to fly. I have to be choose the screnning since it would be a flight to my birth country and I cant miss that.

However if that comes up I would strip off all my clothes. What would happened?

You would be arrested.

I hate the fact that this is right, but it is right.

Tanja, what you have to understand is that TSA is NOT a reasonable, sensible or logical institution. It's the government-agency equivalent of a spoiled 3-year-old throwing tantrums and wanting everything MINE MINE MINE MINE NOW NOW NOW NOW NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

TSA wants to see you naked, but they insist that it's on their terms. One of those terms is that we don't force them to confront the truth of what they're doing. If you were to strip your clothes off, it would force them to admit that "yeah, that's what we wanted." So they insist on using hazardous radiation to see you almost-basically-but-not-quite-really naked. That way they can lie, to the public and to themselves, about what's really happening and still secretly get off on seeing you naked. The fact that the machines line their buddies' pockets is just icing on the cake and convenient political motivation to feed their egos.

If you refuse that, they don't consider it a reasonable exercise of your rights, but rather an insult to their authority. Authority, mind you, that they don't really have, but they think they have it and are willing to get their knickers in a twist over it. So they punish people for refusing by molesting them physically. Again, they refuse to confront the truth of what they're doing and so they use words like "resistance" and get really really defensive if people try to point out the anatomical terms that "resistance" really applies to. They're rapists but they don't want to feel like rapists.

As a rape victim yourself (an injustice for which, by the way, you have my deepest sympathy and compassion) I'm sure you've heard the explanation that rape is about power and control. That mentality is what makes TSOs rapists - they draw their amusement from exerting power and control over the bodies of travelers. Young and old, men and women, all classes and all races and all walks of life, they'll molest and abuse them all the same because none of those criteria matter - they're just little details to a TSO. TSOs care about exerting power and feeling powerful, so they'll molest anyone they can get their blue nitrile gloves on.

You taking your clothes off is an expression of your own control over your situation. THAT's what they hate, THAT's why they'll flip out and scream "indecent exposure" even though they're seeing more or less the same damn thing on their screens. They want what they want, but they want to get it THEIR WAY and not yours.

Hmm.

It's an interesting question, actually. There are situations in the screening process that allows for visual inspection in lieu of physical inspection (a la undergarment body piercings in sensitive areas of the body). Logically, this would seem like just an extension of that, and would even seem to be appropriate given the extenuating circumstances surrounding your past. It satisfies the screening requirements as I understand them to be, and is tailored to your own personal needs, which is something we're supposed to try to do.

I don't personally see how this would be a problem, and I could see it going like this:

1. It would be in a private screening area.
2. There would be two TSOs present - and, given the sensitivity of the issue, one of those present would likely end up being an LTSO or an STSO. Like any other private screening, you could obviously have a witness in there yourself, if you so choose.
3. The clothing would need to be physically inspected after the disrobing, prior to you putting it back on.

Note, however, that this is conjecture and logical deduction. If I were in charge, that's how I would do it (or, more specifically, how I would direct it to be done. Obviously, I wouldn't be one of the two in the room with you, given as how I'm not a female).

Does this work?
http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/massachusetts.html

These statutes don't apply to public videotaping, but to taping conversations without consent.

Would not the verbal interaction between a TSA worker and a passenger constitute a conversation ?

I don't know Massachusetts law. In most states, these are privacy statutes that apply to conversations for which there is an expectation of privacy.

IANAL, so can you help me understand how videotaping a conversation and audiotaping a conversation are viewed differently in the eyes of the law?

Gray area in Illinois.

See above.

Thank you for answering her question and the compassion that you showed in doing so. These answers, as I understand you, are not SOP, but how you would handle the situation. My next questions may or may not be able to be answered without revealing SSI, but here goes.

2. Would the LTSO or STSO that are required to be present also be required to be of the same sex? Would both TSOs have to observe the removal of the clothes? Would the person be allowed keep their underwear on, or to wear a drape or cover to cover up sensitive naked areas (breasts, buttox, genitals) like they do in a doctors office until the actual moment of examination?
3. Would the clothing have to be taken out of the private room to be examined, say to be tested for explosive residue?

I suspect the strip search is always a comprehensive strip, ie, if there's an anomaly in the chest region, the 'crotchal' area will still have to be 'cleared' even if there was no apparent anomaly.