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TSA: Sorry About All That Holiday Granny Stripping!
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jan 18, 2012
Modified Jan 18, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Jan 18, 2012
Modified Jan 18, 2012
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The TSA, flush with change from your pocket, has finally gotten around to apologizing to the elderly women who were strip-searched at the JetBlue terminal at JFK over the Thanksgiving holiday. Well, sort of.
In a letter obtained by the News, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Betsy Markey acknowledges that agents violated policy when they insisted that 89-year-old Ruth Sherman show her colostomy bag—"It is not standard operating procedure for colostomy devices to be visually inspected, and [the Transportation Security Administration] apologizes for this employee’s action,"—but she wouldn't apologize for all of the things the women claim were done to them.
Specifically, 85-year-old Lenore Zimmerman insists that she was forced to remove her clothing and the TSA says she wasn't. Instead, Markey apologized because a TSA agent "violated policy" by scanning her back brace. "They’re lying," said Zimmerman responded. "I don’t have a problem with [screeners checking my] back brace. I have a problem with being strip-searched."
No word yet from the TSA regarding the third older woman who came forward that weekend saying she was stripped by the JFK TSA.
Tagged
colostomy bag
grandmother
granny attack
jetblue
JFK
jfk airport
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transportation security administration
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Garth Johnston
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