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3 Women Say TSA Screeners Groped Vaginas During Pat-Down
By
John Del Signore
Published Nov 22, 2010
Modified Apr 26, 2012
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By
John Del Signore
Published Nov 22, 2010
Modified Apr 26, 2012
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We're now aware of three separate incidents in which TSA screeners have allegedly touched travelers vaginas during the new "enhanced" pat-downs. To recap: A blogger in Dayton, Ohio says a TSA employee at a Dallas airport touched her breasts, buttocks, vagina area and "both of my labia"; an elementary schoolteacher from Washington says, "I didn’t really expect her to touch my vagina through my pants"; and today an ABC News employee claims she was subject to a "demeaning" search at Newark Liberty International Airport Sunday morning. This one's the worst:
"The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around," the ABC employee says. "It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist. It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was inappropriate." In response to an inquiry from Good Morning America, TSA administrator John Pistole explained, "There should never be a situation where that happens. The security officers are there to protect the traveling public. There are specific standard operating protocols, which they are to follow." Well, it's good to know that TSA screeners aren't actually supposed to go to third base during a pat-down. But do they know that? Here are a few more horror stories:
- A 61-year-old cancer survivor from Michigan says he was humiliated after a pat down broke his urostomy bag, leaving him covered in his own urine. "I was so embarrassed and so petrified of going out into the airport and people would see me and quote unquote smell me," Thomas Sawyer tells ABC. "My underwear had dropped to the floor and I'm standing there in front of them with my underwear and had to ask to pull it up."
- A flight attendant and breast cancer survivor says the TSA made her take off her prosthetic breast. "She put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' I said 'It's a prosthesis because I've had a breast cancer,'" Cathy Bossi says. "And she said, 'You'll need to show me that.'"
- And here's the story of the rape survivor who was reduced to tears by a humiliating, full-body pat-down.
As Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic previously noted, the TSA seems to be deliberately making the pat-downs as invasive as possible to discourage passengers from opting-out of the full body imaging scanners. During one recent airport visit, Goldberg asked a TSA screener if he was looking forward to conducting the enhanced pat-downs. "Nobody's going to do it," he said, "once they find out that we're going to do." Goldberg asked, "In other words, people, when faced with a choice, will inevitably choose the Dick-Measuring Device over molestation?" The screener replied, "That's what we're hoping for. We're trying to get everyone into the machine."
So are you ready to get back into the machine? Flying Pasties and Rocky Top Gear are here to help. Both companies sell underwear with strategically placed metal that will supposedly prevent TSA scanners from seeing your junk with the porno scanner. Rocky Top Gear's fig leaf metal design is also made with lead-free radiation-shielding material! And by the way, in case you missed it, here's a video showing how easy it is to invert the body scan negatives to reveal the individual's flesh-colored features. As the man in the video says, "All one of these TSA pukes has to do is get a hold of this picture and it goes presto-chango, from not being able to recognize a thing to 'Hey, I used to date that girl!'" UPDATE: Also, in case you missed it, this video's totally fake.
Tagged
air travel
full body scanners
pat down
porno scanners
tsa
tsa follies
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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