TSA forces cancer survivor to show prosthetic breast

Originally Posted by Dennis Hultman

Not only that but for those that don't understand what these new "pat downs" are and refuse both scanning or the enhanced pat downs, TSA has confirmed that if you arrive at the screening section and refuse both you will not be allowed to leave the area without submitting to one or the other. $11,000 penalty and arrest if you try to exit the airport without the screening.

I was wondering about this. Thanks for the info. I have a real problem with this! Is it posted somewhere on the ticket that upon stepping foot in an airport that you must be scanned or molested? Are signs posted at all entrances to the airport?

We were thinking about flying down to visit relatives for the holidays, but I think we'll drive now.

Originally Posted by Melinda

I was wondering about this. Thanks for the info. I have a real problem with this! Is it posted somewhere on the ticket that upon stepping foot in an airport that you must be scanned or molested? Are signs posted at all entrances to the airport?

We were thinking about flying down to visit relatives for the holidays, but I think we'll drive now.

Hmmm.. I believe they wait until you are in the building and have crossed the line of no return before they bother with telling you the "fine print" of how you can be arrested as a terrorist if you so much as sneeze the wrong way.

Originally Posted by Melinda

We were thinking about flying down to visit relatives for the holidays, but I think we'll drive now.

The public needs to voice their displeasure with both words and their money.

Thank you!

I dont know if you have kids... but would you really want your child going thru one of these "enhanced pat downs".

I say let the outraged american public talk with their $$$. The airlines start hurting enough financially.... and they will squeel enough to stop the BS. I know it may take longer.... but I'd love to see everyone say screw it and drive.

I dont know if you have kids... but would you really want your child going thru one of these "enhanced pat downs".

My daughter is 21 now, but hell no, I wouldn't want any little kid to be put through one of those pat downs. I want grand monsters someday and the thought of telling them that it is ok if the TSA people touch them in places that are normally off limits (except to doctors) is scary.

(Before anyone has a full-on conniption, the smiley is for the title. I just LOVE it!)

By MICHAEL KINSLEY | 11/23/10 9:14 AM EST

In the past couple of weeks, as a result of new rules and new equipment just coming on line, the Transportation Security Administration has surpassed the Internal Revenue Service as America’s least popular government agency and a very symbol of … nearly everything: intrusive bureaucracy, incompetent government employees, the erosion of privacy, political correctness, sexual perversion, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, you name it. TSA employees are mocked as freaks and weirdos, or denounced as goons and thugs, or both. People are being encouraged to opt for a hand inspection rather than going through the metal detector or the new body scanners — either for reasons of alleged safety or just as a protest.

Ordinarily, I am an easy mark for arguments that safety measures of almost all sorts are excessive. I believe that people in general, and Americans in particular, are very bad at rationally assessing small risks of large bad outcomes, such as a terrorist attack on your plane. But in this case, TSA’s critics are having too good a time. And I have a special reason for gratitude to the agency.

For the past five years, as the result of an operation for Parkinson’s disease, I walk around with wires in my brain connected to two pacemakers in my chest. I’m not supposed to go through metal detectors, and nobody’s told me that these new machines are OK, so I avoid those as well. Instead, I have to ask for a “pat-down.” It usually causes a small fuss (smaller and smaller as more people get mechanical parts), which is slightly embarrassing. Especially when the airport is crowded and the security lines are long — and when are they not? — I worry that the people behind me are thinking, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, why doesn’t he just stay home?” (I know that cruel thought sometimes briefly crosses my mind when I’m behind someone in a wheelchair or other complication.) And I imagine the TSA people rolling their eyes and thinking, “Just what we need this morning: another one.”

But in my experience, the TSA people are unfailingly polite. I don’t mean almost always: I mean 100 percent of the time. Compare this with, say, the Postal Service. In five years, I’ve never had anything but a pleasant experience. (Well, you can’t honestly call the whole experience pleasant, but the TSA people have always — always, without exception — been pleasant and usually a bit apologetic.) And think of what they have to do and put up with all day: people’s smelly feet when they take off their shoes, repeating and repeating the same information about putting your cell phone in your carry-on and taking your laptop out, and then watching people get this simple instruction wrong, again and again.

For the most part, the critics have taken aim at the agency and its rules, not the humble employees. But there are jokes about what kind of pervert would want to spend all day looking at X-rays of the privates of overweight Americans and then have the wonderful opportunity to run their hands up your leg. Don’t flatter yourself: Your leg is no thrill. What kind of pervert is attracted to the TSA? The answer is a pervert who needs a job. I favor jokes in all situations, but it would be nice if TSA jokes were accompanied by a note that your intended target is the rules, not the folks who are just trying to enforce them.

The basic accusation is that what TSA does at airports isn’t security, it’s “security theater,” intended to convince people that they are safer even though they aren’t. Everyone — elderly ladies and blond, blue-eyed Finnish businessmen; babes of 6 or 7, U.S. Marines in uniform, celebrities of all sorts — gets put through the same security routine, even though the likelihood of any of these folks being a terrorist is close to zero. Some people say this is political correctness run wild. For fear of offending the small group of more likely suspects — i.e., Arabs, people who look like Arabs, people who wear unusual headgear and seem to be carrying a shoe box wrapped in duct tape and so on — everybody gets put through this laborious security process.

This everybody-gets-inspected policy may be misguided, but it’s not the fault of political correctness at work. It’s an example of the aphorism that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In the normal course of events, even a dedicated terrorist might not choose to dress up like Joan Rivers and sashay onto a plane. But if he knows that Joan Rivers and her lookalikes get an easier security screening, he will do his cross-dressing duty. Unfortunately, terrorists are not above using children to carry a bomb, or elderly grandmothers, or anyone else. If you lower standards for any group, you might as well have lowered standards for all of them.

One group about which the critics have a point is the cockpit crew. If any of them wanted to, he or she could presumably bring down the whole plane. It’s happened once or twice over the years. So what point is there in making sure they don’t have lotion bottles larger than 4 ounces in their hand luggage? It seems as though TSA is going to cave on this point but still draws the line at flight attendants. And why not? Flight attendants, you may have noticed, don’t actually fly the plane.

Then there are those new body scanning devices, intended to replace the metal detectors. It takes an X-ray of you which is studied by a guy in a room away from the security line. Aren’t X-rays supposed to be bad for you? Yes, they are. The dose of radiation from these machines is very small. One estimate is that you’d need to be screened 1,000 times to equal the amount of radiation you will receive simply by flying across the country once at 30,000 feet. But skeptics say, What if the machine isn’t working properly? What if you fly dozens or hundreds of times a year? What if you’re pregnant? What if you’re old? What if you’re especially susceptible to radiation? Even though the danger gets smaller with the dose, apparently no dose of radiation is too small to worry about, if you are so disposed. Why subject yourself to any additional risk, however tiny? And so on. With millions of people flying every year, even the tiniest overall risk could mean a tragic reality for someone.

So the tables are turned. Now it’s the TSA skeptics who are over-obsessing about tiny risks of large catastrophes, and the TSA’s defenders who are saying, Get real.

In the blogosphere, the TSA-phobics are egging one another on to boycott the body scanners and insist on a hand inspection or pat-down (even though they’re opposed to that, too). This will certainly gum up the works and make life even more like hell for TSA agents, if that’s the goal.

Since I have no choice, I’ve already experienced the new, improved pat-down and the TSA-phobics are right that it’s even more intrusive than the previous version. I’ve no doubt that it’s an embarrassment the TSA guy could do without, just as I could. He was apologetic as he slid his hands up my leg. “I’m supposed to keep going until I meet resistance,” he said. He’ll get no resistance from me.


http://www.politico.com/news/stories...522_Page3.html

And occasionally I get good service at McDonalds. I think that was a lot of wasted words. Lol, "humble" employees.

And occasionally I get good service at McDonalds. I think that was a lot of wasted words. Lol, "humble" employees.

I set off the metal detector just a few weeks ago at an airport. It was embarrasing and humiliating - and it was only due to a piece of clothing.
Humble my butt. Total BS.

One thing I have found ironic is that people that buy just one way tickets are suspects...as if a terrorist that's willing to blow himself up would mind paying a round trip ticket.

For disabled, airport security hassles are old hat
By DAVID PORTER, Associated Press David Porter, Associated Press – Wed Nov 24, 3:02 am ET

NEWARK, N.J. – For air passengers already fed up with being hauled off to the side of the security line for a pat-down or facing aggressive questions about bulky clothing or odd items in their luggage, advocates for the disabled have this to say: Welcome to our lives.

For the disabled and infirmed — many forced to go through security lines in wheelchairs with ample hiding places for contraband, wearing prosthetic limbs that could harbor drugs or explosives or lugging oxygen tanks that could really contain god-knows-what — the added discomfort and inconvenience that many travelers are now experiencing is something they've put up with for years.

"I didn't mind; it wasn't really that bad," 89-year-old Marquerite Aswad, who uses a wheelchair, said Tuesday after arriving at Newark Liberty International Airport from Fort Myers, Fla. "It was a lady, and she didn't pat me very hard. She said, 'You look like a nice woman; I don't think you're hiding anything in there.'"

Since the new airport security screening procedures began Nov. 1, stories of travelers with disabilities or medical conditions being humiliated, perhaps inadvertently, by Transportation Security Administration agents have made headlines: A bladder cancer survivor from Michigan had to board a plane covered in urine after agents tore open his urostomy bag during a pat-down; a flight attendant and breast cancer survivor in North Carolina said she was ordered to expose her prosthetic breast to two TSA staffers.

Those highly publicized confrontations appear to be the exception, not the rule, and advocates say they have not heard an outcry from disabled travelers, who are used to intrusions and in fact view the new rules as a teachable moment.

"It's just one more thing for people with disabilities to think about when they're flying," said Phyllis Guinivan, of Wilmington, Del., whose 23-year-old son has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. "The fact that the general public is going through this may help their understanding of the kind of barriers people with disabilities face every day."

Matthew Albuquerque, vice president of Next Step Orthotics and Prosthetics in Manchester, N.H., said that even before the new procedures, his clients often were asked to remove their prosthetic limbs. He said he has been hearing horror stories since security was increased after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Imagine being forced to take part of your body off and put it off to the side and hop over to someone to be patted down. This has been going on in the disabled community for a long time," he said. "If there's anything I'm glad about with the current circumstances, it's that it's brought a light and awareness to the whole thing."

Screeners have never been told to ask travelers to remove a prosthesis, but travelers sometimes do so without being asked because they think it's required, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said.

According to security protocols listed on its website, the TSA assures travelers its agents "will not ask nor require you to remove your prosthetic device, cast, or support brace."

Screeners are authorized to conduct an explosive trace sampling on a prosthesis that could require a traveler to lift or raise some clothing; travelers can request a private screening, which TSA says it "will make every effort" to have conducted by two agents of the same sex as the traveler.

For Guinivan, speaking to The Associated Press by phone from her home, the concern for her son goes beyond pat-downs to worries that his wheelchair may get damaged or that he will have trouble sitting between two passengers on the flight.

"Our expectation when we fly is to be prepared for uncomfortable situations," she said. "A lot of the things people with disabilities experience every day, the general public is now having to deal with."

Eric Lipp, a partial paraplegic, said he had no problems when he recently took four flights over two days, though he definitely noticed the pat-down he received was more aggressive.

Lipp, executive director of the Open Doors Organization, a Chicago-based nonprofit group that focuses on accessibility in travel and tourism, said that TSA agents should get more training in how to treat people with disabilities in a respectful manner, but that he does not object to the new policies.

"It might be a little more intrusive now," Lipp said, "but it's expected."

___

Associated Press writer Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101124/...urity_disabled

Placards, kilts part of plans for scanner protests
By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Michael Tarm, Associated Press – 1 min ago

CHICAGO – Holiday travelers dismayed by airport body scans planned protests at bustling airports Wednesday, while the head of the nation's transport security agency urged passengers to comply with searches to reduce the possibility of delays on one of the busiest travel days of the year.

A loosely organized effort dubbed National Opt-Out Day plans to use flyers, T-shirts and, in one case, a Scottish kilt to highlight what some call unnecessarily intrusive security screenings. Others feared holdups: More than 40 million people plan to travel over the Thanksgiving holiday, according to AAA, with just more than 1.6 million flying — a 3.5 percent increase in fliers from last year.

Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole told ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday that his agency is "fully staffed" to deal with problems, but that travelers should expect delays because of the planned protests at airports across the country.

"I just feel bad for the traveling public that's just trying to get home for the holidays," Pistole said, noting that TSA screeners "just want to get you through."

Robert Shofkom wasn't too worried about delayed flights, maybe just strong breezes.

The 43-year-old from Georgetown, Texas, said he planned for weeks to wear a traditional kilt — sans skivvies — to display his outrage over body scanners and aggressive pat-downs while catching his Wednesday flight out of Austin.

"If you give them an inch, they won't just take in inch. Pretty soon you're getting scanned to get into a football game," the IT specialist said.

Shofkom was momentarily disheartened when his wife informed him Tuesday that the Austin airport doesn't yet have body scans. But he decided to wear the kilt anyway, a show of solidarity with fellow protesters who have taken to Facebook and other websites to tout plans for similarly revealing travel outfits.

One Internet-based protest group called We Won't Fly said hundreds of activists would go to 27 U.S. airports Wednesday to pass out fliers with messages such as "You have the right to say, `No radiation strip search! No groping of genitals!' Say, `I opt out.'"

"If 99 percent of people normally agree to go through scanners, we hope that falls to 95 percent," said one organizer, George Donnelly, 39. "That would make it a success."

If enough people opt for a pat-down rather than a body scan, security-line delays could quickly cascade.

Body scans for passengers chosen at random take as little as 10 seconds. New pat-down procedures, which involve a security worker touching travelers' crotch and chest areas, can take 4 minutes or longer.

Speaking on CBS' "Early Show," Pistole urged travelers to "be prepared" for the scanners, and reassured them that the images can't be relayed elsewhere.

"If you go through (a screener), it's a blurred image seen by a security officer in another office. The images are not capable of being stored or transmitted," Pistole said.

The full-body scanners show a traveler's physical contours on a computer in a private room removed from security checkpoints. But critics say they amount to virtual strip searches.

About 70 airports nationwide have more than 400 of the refrigerator-sized imaging units. Only around 20 percent of travelers are asked to go through them, but passengers cannot opt out of both the scan and the pat-down once they have been randomly selected for the enhanced searches.

Officials say the procedures are necessary to ward off terror attacks like the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane last Christmas by a Nigerian man who stashed explosives in his underwear.

Several travel companies, including Travelocity, planned on-site monitoring at airports Wednesday to try to gauge where and why delays happen. But with a vicious storm already hindering travel in Western states Tuesday, determining if weather or protests are behind delays across the vastly interconnected air travel system could be nearly impossible.

The weather was shaping up to make travel difficult outside of the Northwest, too. Severe storms could delay air travelers and drivers from St. Louis to Tulsa, Okla., and heavy rain was also forecast in a stretch of the country from Ohio to eastern Iowa. Windy conditions were expected in New England, which could also create potential snags for air travelers.

At a main checkpoint in Atlanta on Tuesday, a few passengers asked to step through a scanner grimaced before walking through, while others seemed more bemused than annoyed.

Out of 30 asked to go through during a half-hour period, just two opted for a pat-down. Karen Keebler, 54, of Atlanta said later that her main concern was the low-level radiation. The TSA says the scans emit very low radiation and aren't a health risk.

"I just think the less radiation the better, and if you can opt out, you need to," she said.

Wednesday's planned protest is the brainchild of Brian Sodergren of Ashburn, Va., who constructed a one-page website early this month urging people to decline scans.

But public interest boomed only after an Oceanside, Calif., man named John Tyner resisted a scan and groin check at the San Diego airport with the words, "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested." A cell-phone video of the incident went viral.

Tyner's words became famous, spawning online sales of T-shirts, bumper stickers and even underwear emblazoned with the words, "Don't Touch My Junk!" A Google search of the phrase on Tuesday registered 4.2 million hits.

Saturday Night Live jumped on the controversy last weekend, with a minute-long skit equating the TSA with a dating service. The skit ends: "It's our business to touch yours."

Pilots and flight attendants also had complained about being subject to body scans and pat-downs. On Friday the TSA said pilots could avoid the more intense screening. TSA spokesman Nick Kimball confirmed the same for flight attendants Tuesday.

Both groups must show photo ID and go through metal detectors. If that sets off an alarm, they may still get a pat-down in some cases, he said.

Publicity or no, some predicted little fallout from the planned protest, with many travelers at airports Tuesday deriding the effort and saying the stepped-up security measures made them feel safer.

At New York's LaGuardia Airport, traveler Ted Shaffrey, cited the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as justification for more invasive screening.

"Tell all the people whining about getting patted down to remember 9/11," he said. "They're all whine-bags."

Marc Gruber, eating lunch at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport, agreed.

"I think there ought to be two flights," said the 53-year-old from Jacksonville, Fla., "one for people who want to be scanned and one for people who don't want to be scanned."

___

AP writers Ted Shaffrey in New York; Cara Rubinsky and Kate Brumback in Atlanta; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; and Tony Winton in Miami contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_airpor...FjYXJkc2tpbHQ-