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Women Arrested For Refusing TSA Search of Children
CelticWhisper writes "A Tennessee mother was arrested for refusing to allow TSA screening clerks to subject her child to a body scan or patdown. This comes in the wake of a promise by the TSA Administrator to make repeated attempts at non-physical screening of children, after which another video of a child patdown surfaced. This event may signify a tipping point in the public's willingness to tolerate invasive and inappropriate security procedures at airports."
"Think of the children" actually gets people to listen.
Not the groping, not the invasion of someone putting their hands on you (think about those that hate being touched, or fear of germs, etc), or 3d images of your body for all to see.
Nope, its fear of pediophilia and children being touched.
We have come far.
Is everyone enjoying their freedom? You know that choice you have which you really don't...
The "think of the children" argument has managed to get all sorts of ridiculous legislation passed, so it's clearly an effective argument. It's about time we started using it to protect some of our rights.
From TFA:
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
The TSA scanners aren't comparable in any useful sense to cell phones or sonograms. (Cellphones are non-ionizing radiation and sonograms are pressure waves.) Is it any wonder that these guys don't get the benefit of the doubt?
Even the TSA workers aren't too happy about the possibility of getting cancer from the scanners.
http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/30/did-airport-scanners-give-boston-tsa-agents-cancer/
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Another word for not being properly subservient to our masters.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
She was accused of this. By people who had just lied to her. I don't think their accusations hold any weight. Or should not.
This woman should be applauded, her sticking up for the health of her children (those backscatter machine REALLY safe?) and their dignity (because "pat downs" are degrading). She was willing to get herself arrested to stand up for her children. We need more people like her.
Short version, she got her knickers in a twist and threw a hissy-fit without even a modest attempt at politely refusing.
How do you 'politely refuse' someone who's demanding to grope your children?
Okay, I get it- they screen children, the infirm, and the elderly not because they expect these people to be terrorists, but because it would be possible to use them as mules to carry the payload for someone who themselves would definitely be screened. Many of us understand this. Thing is, in the case of children, they need to have actual medical staff like RNs and MDs on hand to handle children and teenagers. One RN per security checkpoint, one Doctor to every four or five checkpoints or per terminal or airport, depending on the size of the terminal or airport. But, that would probably be expensive in an era when we're short on doctors and nurses. I suppose that they don't have to be especially good doctors, but since they're inspecting the body, having someone trained in the body probably would be a good idea.
The trouble is, they really, really need to find a better way to screen, and they need to understand that paying low wage workers to do the screening isn't helping. They need employees who actually care and are fairly intelligent people, and they need enough of them to offset the grueling nature of the job. That probably means a four-fold increase in the payroll, with 1/3 going to wage increases and the rest going to doubling the number of workers. They also need to institute their own Internal Affairs, complete with undercover placing (which could easily be safely hidden by the sheer size of the organization through the use of random gate reassignments for employees as well as transfers between airports and cities) to help stamp out the current problems.
When I went through security in London Heathrow, about a week after the Christmas Underwear Bomber attempt, and I accidently set off the metal detector because of a foil-lined wet wipe in my pocket, their security was quick and intelligent. They didn't feel the need to extend their patdown into a bag search, and once they found the wet wipe manually in my shirt pocket they wanded me quickly again, passed me, and gave me back the wet wipe. It took something like a minute for the whole process. Granted, they were smart enough to leave enough space in the airport for security, which is probably triple what we have in the US, but their employees seemed to actually care about what they were doing, didn't joke around in a way that made me uncomfortable, and treated it all as important but routine. I didn't get the "guilty until proven innocent" feeling that I get in our own airports.
I've heard lots of good things about El Al, as everyone on here talks about. I really wish that our policy makers would stop thinking that the technological approach is the way to go and start thinking about the human interaction approach. I'd bet that we could go back to simple metal detectors again if security actually made conversation with passengers instead of treating them like cattle to be mechanically put through the processes.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
And in an unrelated Slashdot story, it's the 40th Anniversary of the Stanford Experiment.
I am not a crackpot.
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
1. TSA officer tries to fondle/irradiate children
2. Parent refuses
3. TSA officer insists on fondling/irradiating children
4. Parent gets upset
5. Parent charged for being "belligerent"
Offences like "resisting arrest", being "belligerent", "abusing officer" and so on are generally total b.s. - one in a thousand arrests for these things would be legit, the other 999 being tools for wannabe fascist bully boys to prevent people from asserting their otherwise legitimate rights.
I think a good law would be that unless the person arrested had actually committed a real crime (one that doesn't involve any of these 'police' crimes) then there should be no power to charge them with offending the sensibilities of the authorities. Dealing with hostile people is your job if you're a member of the police, TSA etc.
Read Pynchon.
Being right is an absolute defense for being belligerent.
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
And?
That still does not make the TSA policy any less clear or enforced. Once you hand your drivers license over and boarding pass, and you pass through the little gate inside the checkpoint, you have passed the point of no return.
According to the law, and TSA policy you cannot refuse to complete the screening process. Note, I said complete the process. You do have the right to say that you will not subject yourself to A, B, or C, but there is no going backwards. You have to make a choice.
Failure to comply and attempts to leave the screening area, even to leave the airport, are offences that can allow you to be arrested. I know this personally. I did choose the pat down and crotch grab vs the 3D porno image machine.
Note, that I wholly disagree with the practice, but the fact they charged her with disorderly conduct is because they did not want to charge her with the other offence.
That is strategic on the part of the TSA. If she had been arrested for failure to comply with the screening or leaving quietly, there could be a court case. The TSA could be forced to hand over data under subpoena. They could lose and precedence would be established. When this case goes to trial she will be surprised that the screening measures will have practically nothing to do with her case, and the judge will more than likely not allow it to be presented as evidence, nor will the judge allow the TSA to be forced to hand over data and anything, and the whole thing might have everything to do with disorderly conduct. Basically, her court case will be about her behavior, and the airport and TSA will be irrelevant.
Same reason the IRS will usually choose to settle instead of going full on in court if they think they even have the smallest chance of losing. It is to deny the citizenry precedence in law to allow us to fight them effectively through the courts.
Don't be fooled because of the way she was charged. What caused the whole situation is that she did not want pornographic (that which can be considered obscene) images of her children and did not want her children touched and groped by another person. She had no choices her according to TSA policy and was backed into a corner. Golly jee willickers....... I can't possibly understand why she blew her top and got arrested for "disorderly conduct". You back anybody into a corner with zero options and that is what you get. Especially, when they feel their children are being harmed.
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
You know, if someone (uniformed or not) insisted on touching my daughter I'd be belligerent too, at the minimum. An arrest would probably be necessary as well. You can keep your false sense of security and freedom America, I'm staying the fuck out.
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
Considering they use the back of their hands, it wouldn't call it 'groping'. The media likes to incite the locals with such terminology but the pat downs are pretty benign. In this case she simply didn't want to put her child through the scanner. As far as I can tell from TFA, she never even got to the point where they offered to do a pat down instead.
Next time you are out in public, touch a woman in a sensitive spot with the back of your hand and see if she cares whether it was the front or back of your hand.
(and don't blame me if you get arrested)
If enough Americans had the balls this woman's got, we might have a functional fourth amendment.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
...Thing is, in the case of children, they need to have actual medical staff like RNs and MDs on hand to handle children and teenagers. One RN per security checkpoint, one Doctor to every four or five checkpoints or per terminal or airport, depending on the size of the terminal or airport.
Er, considering that quite a few parents would agree that any sort of patdown down by a stranger is more of a psychological impact than a physical one, how exactly is your solution going to help at all when the child is still standing in the middle of a damn airport with thousands of people around them, all impatiently waiting for the good "doctor" to get done with their screening?
Sorry, but in the big picture, even a lollipop ain't gonna help. This bullshit needs to stop. When attacking the obscenities against our Rights, it's best to go for the throat, or root cause in this case, which is questioning why in the hell we even need the continued "support" of the TSA.
Trying to figure out a more polite way to fondle my child in order to board an airplane is not the answer.
If a stranger wanted to touch my daughter's genitals after claiming that a sonogram uses radio waves, I'd get as belligerent as I would with any other pedophile. She'll walk, eventually, and probably get enough of a settlement to pay for the kid's college. If there were any justice in the world, the TSA goon would be in prison for attempted child rape (along with every single person involved in coming up with this plan.
I mean, c'mon. You create thousands of jobs that involve sexually groping children, and you're surprised when you end up with pedophiles filling those jobs because nobody else wants them? If it were a deliberate conspiracy to sanction, with government violence, the sexual assault of children, they couldn't come up with a better plan.
TSA says it will instruct screeners how to make repeated attempts to screen young children without invasive pat-downs. The instructions should reduce the number of pat-downs on children, TSA says.
Introducing the new, and improved TSA...NOW WITH 10% LESS GROPE! Fly the friendly Skies!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
What a complete non-sequitur. It doesn't matter if there are other options for travel... the TSA is a GOVERNMENT agency. Their actions are subject to review, criticism and most importantly CHANGE when they do not represent the people they serve.
Who the fuck cares about the semantics? What we have here is a bureaucracy that has decided it is smarter than the people it serves, which is a situation that should always be challenged by those who desire freedom.
FanFictionRecs.net
... we can't believe you let yourselves be driven to a point where you have to be strip-searched, molested and interrogated before they let you on a plane - and all that while maintaining an attitude of utter submission to your TSA masters.
Seriously, guys, you're the only ones doing this shit. You need to stop it, you're beginning to look silly.
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
(emphasis mine)
What. The. Fuck. I was told almost the opposite, but still wrong at BWI--that the mm-wave scanner was sound waves, not EM. How is this getting twisted? Is there some statement that the mm-wave is "as safe as a sonogram" and the agents are mixing and matching at will?
I don't expect the security screeners to be physicists, but they really need to know what the equipment they operate emits. At this point, I barely trust their magnetometer to not blast me with ionising radiation.
While I generally feel there needs to be more incidents like this to prove that the public shouldn't tolerate this any longer, I am also quite annoyed that women feel like their bodies are more sacred than men.
Former TSA screener here and I can say that I and many others do NOT enjoy screening people. (I'll never forget the time I had to do a pat-down of a one-legged man and found marijuana... in the area of the missing leg... I tried to let him and the marijuana pass through but another screener saw it... oh well) I can't help but feel as though I could have helped that woman and her child through screening. I feel kinda bad about the whole thing, but I also see it as a necessary step to rid the system of such measures.
And you know, the backscatter imagers should not need to save or even display images of people unless the machine's AI detects something deemed suspicious or inconsistent with normal densities and patterns found. I never got to see or use those things as I was long since out of the TSA before those things arrived on the scene, but as far as luggage screening goes, all items were screened and only opened if the machine says to check it. (There was one exception I witnessed -- the machine said to check some containers which we simply didn't check -- they were human torsos... no head, arms or legs.) I should think that in order to sanitize the backscatter imagine process, they should set the machines to not save any images unless the computer says to check further and after clearing, erase.
Still regardless of what they could do to make things better or easier, it would be better if this all just got reduced in scope and scale. Screening for obvious things would be more or less useless but I think that's just about as far as things need to go for now -- at least until an incident occurs. We have a reality here that people are simply failing to acknowledge. There are people in the world who are furious with the "people of the U.S." because of how the U.S. leadership behaves in the world. THAT is what needs to change. Anyone who claims it is "radical islam" and the differences in religion that causes all this are out of their heads. There are other world nations who haven't the slightest problems like these and those nations are "neutral" and still have healthy economies.
What we have are aggressive [read greedy] business interests in the U.S. who get the U.S. government to act on their behalf in ways that would be completely unacceptable if those things were to happen in the U.S. by other governments. In short, my U.S. government violates one of the most fundamental Christian ethics -- do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I'm not Christian, but my government leaders all claim to be and I would expect them to live up to those standards or stop calling themselves Christian.
Now we have a situation where the entire population of the U.S. has to be fearful because greedy business interests have interfered in the affairs of foreign sovereign nations. That may seem like a reasonable trade-off to those greedy business interests, but can the pedestrian population of the U.S. agree with this? I doubt it. This is the reality no one wants to talk about. "The Cause." Like most all maladies, it's often best to address the cause of the problem rather than merely addressing the symptoms.
I shouldn't answer an AC, but what the fuck I'm bored. the core of the matter is this ain't security, its classic security theater. You know this, i know this, hell everyone knows this.
I could write a long detailed explanation but I think it would be better coming from an expert, so I defer the floor to Mr Bruce Schneier who points out on the last test,and I quote "screeners missed 70 percent of knives, 30 percent of guns and 60 percent of (fake) bombs. "
So it doesn't work, you are potentially poisoning people with the scanners, and you're groping little kids. Did I miss anything? Oh yeah it lets the companies that makes the scanners and trains the TSA goons to make some nice grift off the USA gov, so it is all right then.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Sorry, there is no free choice if you are going to Hawaii etc.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Terrible analogy. You take positive steps that are considered consent to be searched possibly by pat down. Telling someone you will grope her isn't a positive action by the person to be groped. Buying a ticket with the knowledge that you will be searched. Arriving at the airport. Entering a restricted (sterile, secure whatever they call it) area. Getting in line for a search. All positive steps that signify a consent to be searched. Up until you enter the secure area you can not be searched without probable cause. Once you enter you have consented and cannot unilaterally revoke.
And as far as it being "groping" or "sexual molestation" those are criminal charges with specific elements to be met. TSA pat downs, if done right, don't meet those elements or it would be illegal. Go ahead, sue one of 'em. It will be thrown out of court on summary judgment. Not because it's a government search, but because a properly done pat down isn't molestation. Same goes for police pat downs.
Yes, IAAL.
I've been molested, and I find it to be damn near the same thing.
To a child under 10 intent matters little, and to a lot of people it matters not at all. Its the event that is problematic.
Most children would have difficulty even distinguishing intent.
It's not the children. It's not the elderly. It's not the pregnant women.
It's the people.
Nobody deserves the kind of privacy invasion that the TSA imposes in the US.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I personally don't fly unless my employer forces me to. My 2 year old daughter will certainly not fly since the porno scanners have been installed. She has flown twice before the porno scanners were installed. My family has chosen to drive to our destinations the last couple of years. The TSA is a joke. Right after 9-11 when President Bush announced the TSA and Patriot Act, I knew we were in for a knee jerk reaction which won't solve anything. President Obama is just accelerating the stupidity.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
On 07/09/2011 at approximately 1340 hrs I was dispatched to the central screening point at the Nashville International Airport for report of a passenger that was refusing screening. Upon my arrival, I made contact with the subject, identified as Andrea Abbott, who was involved in a verbal altercation with TSA screening agents. Abbott was being verbally abusive toward the TSA agents stating her daughter would not be screened. I advised Abbott that she and her daughter would have to be screened or they would be escorted by me out of the secured area of the airport. Abbott then became verbally abusive toward me as well as the TSA agents. Abbott stated she did not want her daughter to be “touched inappropriately,” have her “crotch grabbed,” or be further screened. Eventually Abbott agreed to allow her daughter to be screened by TSA. Abbott retrieved her cell phone and was attempting to film her daughter being screened. I advised Abbott to put her cell phone away. Again, Abbott was verbally abusive [Emphasis Added] . After her daughter was screened TSA advised Abbott would have to be screened as well to continue down the concourse. Abbott stated this was “bullsh!t” and became verbally abusive toward TSA and myself again. I advised Abbott numerous times she was disrupting the screening process and flow of passengers through the area. Abbott refused to calm down. At this time I placed Abbott under arrest for Disorderly Conduct (TCA 39-17-305). Ms. Abbot was loud in her speech and very belligerant therefore she was arrested for disorderly conduct.
The citizen was engaged in perfectly legal behavior, which the cop ordered her to stop. When she declined, he arrested her. This is why "disorderly conduct" is frequently referred to as "contempt of cop" by district attorneys.
One thing is that you shouldn't worry about the scanners. The airplane you are about to board is going to expose you to hundreds of times more radiation during the flight that the backscatter scanners. That's not to say whether or not they're healthy for a TSA agent to operate next to for 8 hours a day for five years, but for the traveler, they are simply not exposed to enough radiation to change their risk of harm in a statistically measurable fashion.
Of course, buying the scanners consumed $370 million dollars worth of OUR MONEY, over a dollar for every American, pissed away on a device that has prevented exactly ZERO terrorists from doing anything the metal detectors weren't already catching. That's ZERO value for our money. You would have gotten more utility and value from your money if you had wiped your ass with a dollar bill and flushed it.
That said, did you notice how the post you responded to used the word "contraband" instead of "weapons"? I don't give a greasy fart whether the guy next to me is carrying 10 pounds of cocaine. It's not my problem. I don't care about contraband. And you better not make me stand in a goddamn hour-long line to search for coke, because IT DOESN'T MATTER TO MY SAFETY. Contraband is a bullshit argument.
I also don't even care if someone boards the damn plane with a knife. I used to carry them on planes every time I flew, and strangely enough they didn't cause a terrorist incident. Knives are only dangerous on a plane if you're trying to shave in turbulence.
If someone wants to use a knife on a plane to threaten someone, he's going to have me and about a dozen other pissed off guys to contend with. I'll take my chances with a knife or even soak up the bullets in his gun before letting the plane my family is on go down in a crash for his fucking crazy cause. And that attitude is not mine alone. Another box cutter fueled 9/11 just isn't going to happen.
The TSA should be cut immediately by 50%, and the backscatter machines donated to some clever third world country engineering school to re-equip them as medical X-ray devices so at least someone can get some use from them.
As for the politicians who supported the USA PATRIOT act? They should never hold another term in any office in this country. They can go run for office in Saudi Arabia for all I care, but they're not American patriots, and don't deserve the flags they pompously wear on their lapels.
John
The irony is that any terrorist with half a brain is never going to attempt to get a bomb or weapon onto a plane again. The next big terrorist attack in the US will not be on an airplane. It may be at an airport though but it would be in the lobby or curbside maybe. Bombings in Mumbai today, all in outdoor public areas where the bomber never once had to pass any security screening or metal detector or road block, etc.
Security theater is the correct term for this. Because the TSA is in no way trying to make things safer for US citizens, and nothing they are doing is providing extra safety. Instead they provide merely the appearance of security and they allow lawmakers to go home during the elections and say "look, we're doing something!" If we really wanted to stop terrorism we'd do something to eliminate the causes of terrorism.
That's not only it. An adult can understand the whole scenario and then make a rational choice to be part of it or not. Children make no such choice, but are often, by measures beyond control of the parent, required to be with their parent when they fly. Sometimes people cannot avoid flying and bringing their kids, thus if opposition to the measure, swallowing a bit of their moral and personal belief foundation to overcome the TSA barrier and get to, for example, their father's funeral in time.
You can't say parents have a choice not to fly, and you can't expect everyone to agree with the idea of it.
Either you screen everyone, or screening is pointless.
The screening is pointless anyway, if the goal is to prevent a terrorist attack. The airport screeners were found to routinely miss knives and even firearms during the screenings in the last test.
Palm trees and 8
It seems your argument boils down to "it's legal so it's ok". I would like to point out that at one point slavery was legal. It was deemed ok, at least up until the point that the populace decided it was better to change that. It got so bad it essentially started a civil war.
What difference does it make that they 'only' use the back of the hand on the erogenous areas? Why should we give a flying fart if it's the front or the back?
How about if TSA 'only' sticks one finger up your ass to check for items, as opposed to using two if they thought you had an evil eye? The point is they should be using ZERO. It's a straightforward violation of unreasonable search and seizure and as well as freedom of movement.
The problem is that there are only two times when it's acceptable for somebody to touch my junk, if I get sick and need medical assistance or with my consent. Telling children that there are times when somebody can flash a badge and touch their genitals is not something that is acceptable to any reasonable person.
I personally won't fly because I care about my body and my rights apparently more than you do. These machines are known to be ineffective and all the TSA is doing is moving the vulnerability from a plane with a fixed payload to a security checkpoint with a lot more people.
TSA pat downs, if done right, don't meet those elements or it would be illegal.
"Illegal" is whatever the government says is illegal. Is this woman the only one left in the US with balls? Jesus Christ, what's wrong with you people? Are there no more real Americans left? Do you not care about freedom and liberty?
Shit, I'm getting old. When I was young we'd have rioted over this insane nonsense. Remember Kent State? No, of course you don't. You would have rooted for the National Guard murderers.
Meh. Pussies. Goddamn it, stand up to these assholes!
Free Martian Whores!
Better yet, how about we stop being a nation of cowards and accept the fact that nothing is safe? You;re in far more danger of being killed by a relative than by a terrorist!
Free Martian Whores!
naked scans of your child or groping of your child. Bin laden could not have dreamed of how successful he would have become.
The problem is that they already do profiling. There's no other way to explain why I have been "randomly" singled out for this treatment nearly EVERY SINGLE TIME I have gone through Mineta San Jose Airport (including this very morning). It has gone so far beyond what would be considered acceptable by any reasonable person that I am currently seeking legal representation.
Even before today, I was already so fed up that I'm doing the vast majority of my travel this year by Amtrak. Unfortunately, due to scheduling constraints, this one trip required me to travel by plane for one leg. I'm taking Amtrak for the return trip. Henceforth, I will not be traveling by commercial airlines anymore within the continental United States until the TSA is disbanded. If I miss family funerals, so be it. If I miss other special events, that's life. I refuse to be degraded and humiliated as a precondition for travel.
To the Tea Party, want to cut $43.6 billion in government pork? Dissolve the TSA, fire everyone, and cancel all outstanding contracts to Rapiscan and L-3 Communications. Also, add a permanent ban on all future government contracts across the board for these two companies. They're dirty crooks who manipulate politicians into putting our people at risk and forcing the public to give up its fundamental legal right to free travel within our nation's borders, and that is something that simply cannot be tolerated.
Finally, may Satan reserve a special place in Hell for everyone involved in trying to force any parent to choose whether his or her child should be felt up by a stranger or irradiated. If that is what safety demands, then fuck safety. If the only way to be safe is to give up our most basic moral values, our most basic freedoms, and everything else that makes the United States better than some shithole dictatorship, then what are we bothering to fight terrorism for? If that is truly the price of freedom, then the United States that we know and love died and was buried on September 11, 2001, and we're just waiting for the fat lady to arrive to sing Ave Maria and give the eulogy.
God help us all.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.