DHS on the Hot Seat: Invasive Groping at Airports by TSA Employees Escalating, Pilots Revolt Against Being Scanned Because of Radiation (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on November 9, 2010
Privacy invasion: Full-body scans at airports are like a 'virtual strip search'... this is a female body scan, which has likely been stored. Now groping will be part of TSA security checks.
Airline travel keeps evolving — it’s gone far past removing your shoes, dumping your drink, and passing through body scanner machines in airports, X-ray scanners that are invading law-abiding citizens’ privacy, revealing naked bodies and that data not being destroyed, as was promised by Department of Homeland Security.
Now people will be officially patted down (aka “groped”) in the airports by TSA employees. This is a new Homeland Security/TSA procedure scheduled for launching this Friday — it’s not to be confused with the lewd groping some TSA employees were already doing to airline passengers PRIOR to the new government mandate. Not to mention bizarre “drug pranks.”
Big Sis, this is getting out of hand.
Pres. Obama, however, during his India trip, said he’d look into ending airport “turban frisking” to appease Indian leaders and to not offend Sikhs by being disrespectful to religious symbols such as TURBANS. So, feeling up Grandma’s chest is OK, but searching for weapons or bomb detonation devices concealed in a turban is now disrespectful.
Crikey.
From WTVR News, CBS 6, New TSA Pat-Downs Like Groping, Passengers Say:
RICHMOND — Get ready for tougher security checks at Richmond International and other airports across the nation.
A new invasive “pat down” procedure goes into effect Friday. The new procedure will allow TSA agents to use the front of their hands to search the entire body of passengers, including the breast and genital areas.
Some R-I-C passengers say this may be pushing the limits, considering passengers must already take off their shoes and go through full body imaging or x-ray machines.
Passenger Bob George says, “It just keeps getting worse and worse. I just think it’s too much. Basically they’ll have your taking everything off in a few more years!”
At airports, like R-I-C, where there are advanced full body imaging machines, passengers will be required to submit to either the full body x-ray or the full body pat down.
Some passengers like Blanca Alberta say they don’t mind the extra security measure. “I just want to be safe, so I think it’s ok. I have no problem with that,” says Alberta.
The airlines are also tightening up on reservations. Starting Monday, it will be mandatory for passengers to give their full name, as it appears on a government issued I.D. Passengers will also be required to give their birth date and gender.
From Prison Planet, TSA Groping Out Of Control:
TSA abuse in airports is completely out of control with more and more cases of security workers groping women, fondling children, abusing naked body scanners, and interrogating passengers emerging every week, and yet the government’s answer to the epidemic of oppression is to hand TSA thugs more power with which to harass American citizens.
The story of Infowars employee Michelle, who along with her child was sexually assaulted by TSA staff after refusing to go through a naked body scanner, has gone viral on the Internet after it was picked up by the Drudge Report, a website leading the charge in the backlash against airport oppression at the hands of the TSA that has now led to the world’s largest pilot’s association boycotting the use of naked body scanners.
Michelle’s traumatic experience represents just the tip of the iceberg.
The launch of naked body scanners, which were hastily installed in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt despite the fact that they would not have stopped the attack, has only worsened the levels of abuse dished out to passengers.
The body scanners were vigorously promoted by people like former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and others who stood to reap a financial windfall from their implementation, despite the fact that scientists at Columbia University and the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, along with other scientific bodies, have all warned that the devices increase the risk of developing cancer.
Stories about TSA officials abusing the use of the scanners have become commonplace.
44-year-old Rolando Negrin beat his supervisor with a police baton after he had cracked jokes about Negrin’s small manhood when he walked through a naked scanner as part of a training exercise at Miami International Airport. The story underscored the fact that authorities had been lying all along about the claim that the scanners did not show sensitive details of genitalia.
The aggressive campaign on behalf of governments and the media to sell the public on invasive body scanners has been accompanied by the reassurance that the devices do not show details of genitals, an obvious attempt to counter the fact that the machines represent a virtual strip search as well as violating laws against child pornography.
Despite assurances from the TSA that the scanners do not show the shape of genitalia, sample images from their own website clearly display the outline of the penis. In addition, after nearly a year of authorities lying in claiming that the technology used in airports did not allow the naked images to be saved or transmitted, it emerged that police agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service, who were using the same systems, were storing naked body scanner images. The TSA’s own documents also confirmed that the machines must “allow exporting of image data in real time” and provide a mechanism for “high-speed transfer of image data over the network.”
Indian film star Shahrukh Khan told a BBC talk show that naked images of his body from the scanner were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London. Heathrow denied the claim but Khan himself never retracted the story, and had no apparent motive for making it up.
From Los Angeles Times, Airport security: TSA changes pat-down technique but offers few details:
The Transportation Security Administration is changing the way it performs pat-down searches during airport screenings, but officials aren’t saying exactly how.
“TSA is in the process of implementing new pat-down procedures at checkpoints nationwide as one of our many layers of security to keep the traveling public safe,” said a statement posted Friday on the TSA website. It continued:
“Pat-downs are one important tool to help TSA detect hidden and dangerous items such as explosives. Passengers should continue to expect an unpredictable mix of security layers that include explosives trace detection, advanced imaging technology, [and] canine teams, among others.”
TSA spokesman Nico Melendez declined to comment on the new procedures.
From InfoWars, World’s Pilots Reject Naked Body Scanners Over Radiation Danger, Privacy Breach:
The largest independent union of airline pilots in the world is urging its members to boycott body imaging machines currently being rolled out in airports all over the globe, citing dangers of excessive exposure to harmful levels of radiation during the screening process.
The president of the Allied Pilots Association, which represents 11,500 pilots, many of whom work for American Airlines, has urged members of the union to revolt against the devices.
Captain Dave Bates voiced the union’s concerns in a letter published by The Atlantic late last week.
Bates asks that members be aware “that there are ‘backscatter’ AIT devices now being deployed that produce ionizing radiation, which could be harmful to your health.”
The move follows the detention and suspension of an American pilot who refused to be scanned.
Captain Bates suggests that pilots refrain from being put through the scanners and if necessary opt for a pat down by TSA officials instead.
“We already experience significantly higher radiation exposure than most other occupations, and there is mounting evidence of higher-than-average cancer rates as a consequence.” Bates’ letter states.
From CBS 13, Indian Minister Asks Obama To End Turban Frisking:
An Indian lawmaker from Punjab said Tuesday she had asked President Barack Obama to put a stop to the U.S. border practice of frisking Sikh turbans.
Sikhs worldwide have long protested the American security measure as discriminatory and unnecessary in a world with machines for body scanning and metal detection.
New U.S. guidelines put into effect two weeks ago no longer require air passengers to remove turbans if doing so makes them uncomfortable, the U.S. Transport Security Administration said.
But they may still have their turbans patted down — something Sikhs say is happening increasingly amid global terror alerts. And in some cases women are asked to unpin their hair. Religious groups say it is a form of racial profiling.
The U.S. president said he would have a “close look” at the issue, parliamentarian Harsimrat Kaur Badal said Tuesday after the two spoke during an honorary dinner Sunday in New Delhi when Obama was visiting India.
“I’m very hopeful for a change. It sends a really negative message to Sikhs from the moment they step foot on American soil,” she said.
“It is a humiliating experience. For us it’s like telling us to remove our clothes,” she said.
The turban — along with a comb, a sword, a specific undergarment and a metallic wrist bangle — are part of the required dress for Sikh men, according to the religion, which is a mix of Hindu and Islam founded in the 15th Century in Punjab. Sikh women are forbidden to cut their hair.
Men have long accepted they cannot carry a sword aboard planes, Badal said, and so have modified the religious requirement by carrying pendants or blades embedded in their comb “as a symbolic symbol.”
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