Fighting TSA Harassment of Disabled Travelers

An anonymous reader writes "A man with a neurological disorder is currently pushing the TSA to release a full list of its policies and procedures after a series of incidents in which he was harassed while trying to fly. His condition requires medical liquids and causes episodic muteness, and the TSA makes his encounters very difficult. From January: 'Boston Logan TSA conducted an illegal search of my xray-cleared documents (probably motivated either by my opting out or by my use of sign language to communicate). They refused to give me access to the pen and paper that I needed to communicate. Eventually they gave it to me, but then they took it away in direct retaliation for my using it to quote US v Davis and protest their illegal search (thereby literally depriving me of speech). They illegally detained me for about an hour on spurious, law enforcement motivated grounds (illegal under Davis, Aukai, Fofana, Bierfeldt, etc). ... TSA has refused to comply with the ADA grievance process; they are over a month beyond the statutory mandate for issuing a written determination.'"

Comments

Re:My answer

[theshowmecanuck]

The U.S. is America.

Re:So do something about it.

[skiminki]

You want to get rid of the TSA?

Don't fly.

It's that simple.

No it's not. TSA is expanding to provide its services outside airports. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-elliott/the-tsa-wants-to-be-every_b_2393332.html

War on Diginity

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The TSA says they are all about the war on terror.
But their actions prove they are only interested in conducting a War on Diginity.

Groping children
soaking a man in his own urine
Arresting people for wearing watches with exposed gears
Arbitrary strip-searches
Detaining people armed with flash cards
Forcing mothers to drink their own breast milk
Forcing a woman to remove her nipple ring with pliers
Requiring women to remove their bras
Requiring a woman to remove the brace on her sprained ankle and then making her walk on it to prove it was sprained

The list of abuses is into the thousands. Every once in a while they get a taste of their stupidity. But it isn't anywhere near enough.

Re:My answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Direct flight to canada, preferably avoiding British Airways and Air Canada, you should be ok with Swish, KLM or Air France (if you come "close" to the US border the Canadian accepted to submit to US flight conditions, so you'd prefer an airline that takes the flights as north as possible.

If you go to South america you will find direct flight to brazil, and for any other south american country use the Argentinian LAN, Buenos aires is quite a good hub, and LAN tries do be cheap (not always the most reliable in timing though, but then ... it's kind of a regional thing).

For Central America you can use Mexico city as an hub, and AeroMexico goes direct from europe to Mexico.

And finaly you can use www.amadeus.net and filter out: all american airlines, and prefer direct flights, this should enable you to find your flight quite easely and even if you might see now and then a share code flight that goes through some US hub, it will be clearly marked, and you'll be able to compare the price difference, and decide if in the faster/cheaper/less hassle criteria one or two trumps three ...

  Cheers, and happy flights

Re:My answer

[Culture20]

And Germany likes to call its country Deustchland. People who don't want to cause waves when speaking German say Deustchland, not "Germany". In America, North America is a continent, South America is a continent, "the Americas" refers to both, and "America" is a shortened name for the United States of America, just like "China" is short for People's Republic of China. If you don't want to be confused when discussing America with an American, learn this instead of insisting their entire country is wrong for what they call their own country.

OP here.

[saizai]

I've tried to address some of the questions people raised @ http://saizai.com/tsa#FAQ If you have more, please add them as responses to this. I don't guarantee I'll answer 'em all individually, but I'll try to make sure the FAQ addresses all substantive issues raised. Cheers, Sai