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TSA Groper Files Suit Against Blogger

An anonymous reader writes "TSA employee Theldala Magee has filed a lawsuit against a blogger demanding $500k in damages for alleging a particularly invasive search involving multiple incursions of a finger into the passenger's vagina. The passenger, who likened the feeling to being raped, is being sued for defamation for supposedly sullying the otherwise good name of a checkpoint smurf."

19 of 699 comments (clear)

  1. Rough Decisions by TheRecklessWanderer · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's hard tho, when you can't decide if you want to work for the TSA or for McDonalds. On the one hand you get to alienate people by doing whatever you want to them in the name of security and in the other you get to spit on their burgers. What to do? What to do?

    --
    Mean what you say...say what you mean.
    1. Re:Rough Decisions by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Although mental acuity may be a forbidding factor, a mortician may be a better career for prospective TSA employees.

      My dad was a mortician (his license plates read "EMBALM" - seriously). He took great pride in his job of helping survivors through a difficult time and in making the deceased look peaceful and natural. He was a true craftsman when it came to sculpting prosthetic parts such as when a gunshot wound ruined a jaw, or cancer ate a nose. In his day, he was called in to send statesmen and business leaders to their rest.

      Hmmm. That ended up a lot more serious than I intended, and he would've teased me for getting so somber about it. The guy with the "EMBALM" plates liked to laugh a lot. Still, morticians tend to be extremely professional and respectful.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  2. Re:Theldala gonna to be gettin' PAID! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If Theldala Magee didn't want to be known as a rapist, she shouldn't have raped that woman.

  3. Re:Checkpoint Smurf? by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Obviously, you've forgotten Rapey Smurf.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  4. Is this suit actually filed? by mewsenews · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Despite the Slashdot headline, from reading the article all I can tell is that nastygrams were sent by both parties and it hasn't entered the courts yet. I'd like to see a judge get involved, to be honest.

    1. Re:Is this suit actually filed? by SleazyRidr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not just that you don't get your money back, once you enter the checkpoint, you have continue all the way through or get hit with a massive fine. Totally not consensual...

  5. Change We Can Believe In by Lazy+Jones · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So suing the TSA over this is a "non-starter" and even writing about it gets you sued by the molesting thugs... Why do the people in the USA put up with something like this? I thought you were scared witless by terrorists, not authorities, but I guess I was wrong.

    --
    "I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
    1. Re:Change We Can Believe In by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Terrorist, authorities, what's the difference in the end?

      I've actually seen authorities.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  6. If I ever take my family overseas by Quila · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I am driving to Canada and catching a flight from there. Within the country, I'm driving.

    I have daughters, and I don't think I'll be able to sit by and watch while they're sexually assaulted. Daddy would be going to jail.

    1. Re:If I ever take my family overseas by EaglemanBSA · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is why I don't fly anymore. Molest me, fine, it'll piss me off and I'll want to talk to a manager. Molest my kid, and I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.

      --
      Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
  7. "checkpoint smurf?" by chispito · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hate the TSA, and body scanners, and taking my shoes off as much as the next guy. But if the blogger was lying, then that is some pretty serious defamation of character that took place.

    --
    The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
  8. Re:This Article is Borderline Defamation by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Probably because enough of us have been patted down by the TSA to know it's all-too-plausible.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  9. Re:Gee no bias here. by PNutts · · Score: 4, Funny

    The point is that TSA workers don't have "good names". They're unknowns, no one knows them by name. In other words, checkpoint smurfs.

    That must be a bitch for the payroll department.

  10. Re:Gee no bias here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In fairness, one could stop reading after the first word of the headline, "TSA" to know what the article & comments will contain.

    Red meat for the masses means more clicks, more pageviews, more ad impressions!

    I went to Ms. Alkon's wikipedia page to find out more about her; I'm forced to roll my eyes and conclude "she's got a chip on her shoulder from moment one of any interaction."

    From wikipedia:

    In her daily life, and in her blog, Alkon has a number of campaigns. In her article, "Hello, Psycho" (entitled after the opening salutation of one of her respondents), she describes her anti-SUV campaign, which consists of placing small cards on the windshields of SUVs. The cards (which are her own composition) refer to the driver as a "Road-Hogging, Gas-Guzzling, Air-Fouling Vulgarian" and pointedly suggest that the driver is compensating for "an extremely small penis" by driving "such a monstrosity."

    I do not doubt that this particular TSA agent may have overstepped boundaries in this particular case. But I'm also pretty sure, reading about this self-professed behavior on Ms. Alkon's part, that she's also a drama queen just looking for some new controversy to embroil herself in, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if she was also deliberately provocative and confrontational, making the situation more tense than it needed to be, and blowing events out of proportion with histrionics.

    I know the white knights here who already despise the TSA will crucify me for saying it, but millions of people fly every fucking day. Yet this shit mostly seems to happen to self-important bloggers who have a history of engaging in nasty, vicious, spiteful little "campaigns," who are so broken up by the experience that they rush home and pound out 2000 words on their blog to generate some pageviews, extra bonus when they just happen to have a videocamera handy to record all the harrassment and abuse they're subjected to.

  11. Re:USA by JordanL · · Score: 5, Funny

    Indeed, our country is a hive of villainy. Steven Colbert is a fine example of one of our brightest minds, fighting off the chains of oppression and knowledge. We all eat nearly 1.5 kg of red meat a day and drive at least 75 km no matter where we're going. We urinate in our public places because we're not intelligent enough to use the toilets. Our nuclear missiles are secured with the key "1-1-1-1" because then we only have to remember one number. By law we must spend 20% of our income of shit we don't need and will never use. At least 30% of our food must come from inhumane sources. I'm frankly astonished that the benevolent European I hired to type this for me understands my speech, since I'm so illiterate and uneducated.

    You should probably never come. You might never get out.

  12. Re:USA by scamper_22 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's posts like this that should show you that Europeans are just as enlightened or ignorant as Americans.

    Do you really think that is the average person's experience at the airport? Do you really think Americans are nuts?

    Seriously, you think the US is some crazy place?
    I was born in Africa, have a very Muslim name, live in Canada now, and have been to the US dozens of times. Sometimes for work. Sometimes for play.

    You know what US border/airport security is like? It's pretty routine... apart from the whole taking off my shoes thing. But the personnel are pretty normal. No different than I've experienced in the UK or Holland.

    During my last trip for work in Florida, I left my shaving cream and toothpaste in my carry-on bag by accident. Normally I throw it all out. It got flagged in the scanners. The guy called his supervisor. They had me step aside, emptied the bag... found out it was shaving cream, cracked a joke... threw out my shaving cream, and I was on my way. Pretty regular behavior.

    I'm sure some people have had bad experiences. But people have had bad experiences in the UK, Canada, France... too. The US just isn't that nutty.

  13. Re:Theldala gonna to be gettin' PAID! by mr1911 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mod parent up.

    I'm sure she is hiding behind the "doing what they told me to do" defense, which is no defense at all.

    Before the TSA, sexual predators could only dream of an occupation where they got to fondle people without repercussion. Thanks to our security theater, they get paid to do it!

    --
    This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
    Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
  14. Re:Rape requires intention by DeadboltX · · Score: 4, Interesting
    If you read the blog post you would realize that there was no claim of sticking fingers inside vaginas.

    Four times. Back right and left, and front right and left. In my vagina. Between my labia. I was shocked -- utterly unprepared for how she got the side of her hand up there. It was government-sanctioned sexual assault.

    Right before that paragraph was this

    Basically, I felt it important to make a spectacle of what they are doing to us, to make it uncomfortable for them to violate us and our rights, so I let the tears come. In fact, I sobbed my guts out. Loudly. Very loudly. The entire time the woman was searching me.

    Sounds like a sensationalist blogger to me. I'm not saying she wasn't violated. But I don't give her much credibility for her over-dramatic scene

  15. Re:Theldala gonna to be gettin' PAID! by KingAlanI · · Score: 4, Informative

    "doing what they told me to do" defense ... is no defense at all.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Defense

    Very subtle Godwin. And one that's actually on-topic ;)

    --
    I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.