TSA forces cancer survivor to show prosthetic breast

When will this BS stop

Cathy Bossi, who works for U.S. Airways, said she received the pat-down after declining to do the full-body scan because of radiation concerns.

The TSA screener "put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' " Bossi told the station. "And I said, 'It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer.' And she said, 'Well, you'll need to show me that.' "

Bossi said she removed the prosthetic from her bra. She did not take the name of the agent, she said, "because it was just so horrific of an experience, I couldn't believe someone had done that to me. I'm a flight attendant. I was just trying to get to work."

Musa Mayer has worn a breast prosthesis for 21 years since her mastectomy and is used to the alarms it sets off at airport security. But nothing prepared her for the "invasive and embarrassing" experience of being patted down, poked and examined recently while passing through airport security at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C.

"I asked the supervisor if she realized that there are 3 million women who have had breast cancer in the U.S., many of whom wear breast prostheses. Will each of us now have to undergo this humiliating, time-consuming routine every time we pass through one of these new body scanners?" she said in an e-mail to msnbc.com.

Marlene McCarthy of Rhode Island said she went through the body scanner and was told by a TSA agent to step aside. In "full view of everyone," McCarthy said in an e-mail, the agent "immediately put the back of her hand on my right side chest and I explained I wore a prosthesis.

"Then, she put her full hands ... one on top and one on the bottom of my 'breast' and moved the prosthesis left, right, up, down and said 'OK.' I was so humiliated.

Sharon Kiss, 66, has a pacemaker, but also has to fly often for her work.

"During a recent enhanced pat-down, a screener cupped my breasts and felt my genitals," she said in an e-mail to msnbc.com "To 'clear my waistband' she put her hands down my pants and groped for the waistband of my underwear.

"I expressed humiliation and was told 'You have the choice not to fly.' "

The remark infuriated Kiss, who lives in Mendocino, Calif. "Extrapolate this to we should not provide curb cuts and ramps for people confined to wheelchairs because they can choose to stay home ... This a violation of civil rights. And because I have a disability, I should not be subjected to what is government-sanctioned sexual assault in order to board a plane."

To read the full article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40278427/ns/travel-news

Fliers liken pat-downs to sexual assault

If you refuse to go through one of the Transportation Security Administration's new full-body security scanners at the airport, don't be startled if a TSA employee grabs you by the private parts, according to travelers who have undergone security inspections that they claim would be illegal sexual assault if they weren't being done by the government.

If you're lucky, you simply get waved through the metal detector. If you're not, critics say, it's a Hobson's choice: You can pose for uncomfortably graphic full-body images in the new scanners, more than 300 of which are in use across the country, or you can get groped by the government. "If they refuse that, they will not fly," said Dwight Baird, a spokesman for the TSA. Door No. 3 is the exit.

That means "we're going to continue to get more and more violated," said Jennifer Lynn Woods of Salt Lake City, Utah, who said "I looked like somebody just about to cry" after she was randomly chosen for what the TSA calls an "extended pat-down" at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix this week.

During her inspection — which Woods said took place in a small cubicle in view of other passengers — an agent patted up her legs from her ankles and cupped her genitals. Then, the agent pulled her elastic skirt band away from her waist and looked down her skirt, she said.

"By the end of it, I had my arms across my face and didn't want to have anything to do with it," said Woods, who said the "humiliating" experience left her feeling like she'd been molested.

"I think it's sexual violation," said Erin Chase of Atlanta, who was patted down when she flew out of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport last week with her young child.

"The TSA person proceeded to touch the outside of my clothing, my buttocks — including my private parts in the front — and touched in front of my breasts," Chase said. "I think it's sexual molestation all the way around."

Judith Briles of Aurora, Colo., said she is always pulled out of the scanner line because she has two knee implants, which inevitably trigger an alarm when she tries to go through. So she's already had several intimately personal encounters with TSA screeners

"They're doing full frontal, where they run their hands over your breasts — they will cup your breast — and they’re going inside your collar," Briles said. "If anyone pulled what TSA is doing, they would be sued and fired for just blatant sexual harassment."

Briles called the procedure "a joke" and said that "taking off your clothes for a full-body massage would have more integrity."

To read the full article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40257031/ns/travel-news

Fed-up fliers protest airport security measures

For 30 years, Marcia Miller has flown across the country to Toledo, Ohio, to join four generations of her family for Thanksgiving dinner. But scared off by newly ramped-up airport security measures — including full-body scans and, in some cases, “enhanced” pat-downs by TSA workers — Miller has decided instead to dine alone in L.A.

She is opting out.

“Am I really supposed to let a total stranger rub my private parts because I bought an airplane ticket?” said Miller, who runs the jewelry and fashion website, ILoveAccessories.com. “Would you allow your daughter to be patted down by a stranger and not feel like punching the person that did it? It leaves scars... just like a rape leaves scars.”

A grassroots group of fliers who say they are fed up with airport “feel ups” and who call TSA X-ray machines “porno scanners” are cooking up a Thanksgiving Eve revolt that, they vow, will turn the nation’s heaviest travel day into “holy hell.”

Fueled by two new websites — OptOutDay.com and WeWontFly.com — as well as by several awkward, security-point frisking videos that recently went viral, movement members are vowing to unleash a surreal spate of Nov. 24 disruptions just as millions of Americans fly off for annual family feasts. Atop the protesters’ tactical list: urging passengers to “opt out” of full-body scans, forcing TSA employees to instead administer “enhanced,” hand-sliding, pat-downs that can include feeling a person’s inner thighs and buttocks.

To read the full article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40242420/ns/travel-news

There are many more incidences out there. So many in fact it would take way to long to recount them. What I'm really sick of hearing is the talking mouths on television that keep repeating "as long as I'm safe, no problem".

Many problems with the new body scanners. The main reason why they are there is because that crook at TSA that use to be HLS director had a vested interest in the company. I've drawn my line and I will not summit to the new scanners or the enhanced molestations. My children will not participated in them either. This is all reactionary and not proactive. Next they will be telling you to bend over and cough.

Originally Posted by Dennis Hultman

Next they will be telling you to bend over and cough.

And just who are these TSA agents? I'll bend over for the doctor but I will be damned if I will let the bus driver grope my daughters before boarding the bus for school or take nude pictures of them. Same goes for the airport. They have already been caught lying about not being able to save the images. Some reports have come out that they are able to produce more realistic and graphic pictures that are being shown to the general public.

Heck, I just refuse to fly anywhere. If I can't drive there or take some other alternate means of transportation there, then I don't go there. If everyone is so afraid of planes being hijacked by terrorists, then just end the commercial airline business. THAT will stop that fear.

Actually, I'm amazed that the airlines aren't already out of business. You mean people actually ALLOW agents to grope or otherwise violate their significant other and/or children, just so they can use that product? There is nothing I can't do without if presented that sort of choice.

I mean what the heck is this crap where people are perfectly willing to sacrifice nearly every freedom they have out of fear and the desire for a false sense of security? If you want safety, then buy yourself a heavily fortified bomb shelter, climb in it, lock the door from the inside, and melt down the key. Have a pleasant SAFE life....

Oh, and get this. If you REFUSE the scan and the pat down, you can be fined up to $11,000! You can't just say "Thanks, but no thanks!", and walk back out the door.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/accent/...o-1059926.html

you don't want to pass through an airport scanner that allows security agents to see an image of your naked body or to undergo the alternative, a thorough manual search, you may have to find another way to travel this holiday season.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport.

That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest.

"Once a person submits to the screening process, they can not just decide to leave that process," says Sari Koshetz, regional TSA spokesperson, based in Miami.

Koshetz said such passengers would be questioned "until it is determined that they don't pose a threat" to the public.

To federal agencies hungry for fines, that's like throwing blood into the water to attract sharks. So of COURSE the intrusions will get more violative in nature! There's $11K in it for them if you refuse, so it's to their benefit if they make you WANT to refuse.

What the hell has this country come to?

Originally Posted by Dennis Hultman

And just who are these TSA agents? I'll bend over for the doctor but I will be damned if I will let the bus driver grope my daughters before boarding the bus for school or take nude pictures of them. Same goes for the airport. They have already been caught lying about not being able to save the images. Some reports have come out that they are able to produce more realistic and graphic pictures that are being shown to the general public.

Yep..... I have yet to figure out why the american public is putting up with this. Do you realize that if I walked up to a woman (or a man for that matter) out in the street and preformed the same "enhanced pat down".... I would be charged for sexual assualt. WTF... what give the gov the right to do that to us... and why isnt the american public screaming bloody murder.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Heck, I just refuse to fly anywhere. If I can't drive there or take some other alternate means of transportation there, then I don't go there. If everyone is so afraid of planes being hijacked by terrorists, then just end the commercial airline business. THAT will stop that fear.

Actually, I'm amazed that the airlines aren't already out of business. You mean people actually ALLOW agents to grope or otherwise violate their significant other and/or children, just so they can use that product? There is nothing I can't do without if presented that sort of choice.

I mean what the heck is this crap where people are perfectly willing to sacrifice nearly every freedom they have out of fear and the desire for a false sense of security? If you want safety, then buy yourself a heavily fortified bomb shelter, climb in it, lock the door from the inside, and melt down the key. Have a pleasant SAFE life....

Oh, and get this. If you REFUSE the scan and the pat down, you can be fined up to $11,000! You can't just say "Thanks, but no thanks!", and walk back out the door.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/accent/...o-1059926.html



To federal agencies hungry for fines, that's like throwing blood into the water to attract sharks. So of COURSE the intrusions will get more violative in nature! There's $11K in it for them if you refuse, so it's to their benefit if they make you WANT to refuse.

What the hell has this country come to?

Exactly..... Once they introduced the electronic strip search... I refused to fly. And if someone could find a time line.... I'd be willing to bet the ENHANCED pat searches didn't come about till folks started saying hell no to the electronic strip searches.

I'll be dammed if I allow someone to treat me like a criminal before I am convicted of a crime.

I'm with the Judge.