Woman Arrested for Refusing To Be Groped By TSA at Austin Airport

[Richard D]

Run time: 02:53 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3UWSgGI2TQ   Posted on YouTube: December 23, 2010 By YouTube Member: MikeHansonArchives Views on YouTube: 59507   Posted on DU: December 26, 2010 By DU Member: Richard D Views on DU: 1228

 

[WingDinger]

1. Couldnt they at least have hired her rapist at TSA?

:mad:

[monmouth]

2. Unless she was living in a cave, she had to know what was required

to take a flight. Either another mode of transport or stay home. No empathy here...

[Alameda]

7. I agree,

unless during the pat down there was some sort of excess, she over reacted (IMHO). We know we are going to have to go through this when we sign up to fly. She is a drama queen. I hate the invasion of privacy, but we need a serious and legally solid challenge to the law.

[demwing]

14. I don't think you hate the invasion of privacy

I think it may annoy you, but not much else.

"Hate" is an entirely different level of response than what you have displayed.

[TheMadMonk]

8. And when all interstate rail travel is locked down the same way?

It certainly looks like that's on the way and possibly mass transit too. It could well be coming to a major shopping centre near you too. Already mobile x-ray scanners for vehicles are being deployed.

And in the meantime, thousands of unscreened caterers roll thousands of unscreen trolleys onto thousands of planes every day. Planes loaded with luggage and other packages by unscreened baggage handlers. Planes services and fueled by unscreened groundstaff.

And because businesses don't want to pick up the labour tab, cargo transport is just as porous. Screeners rely on random sampling and intelligence sources to intercept contraband at the ports. It's only private mail which gets anything resembling 100% screening, and then only once it reaches the entry point into the mail system.


Forget your bloody empathy, how about a bit of simple self interest? Take a good look behind the scenes almost anywhere you care to look. Transport depots, railway stations and yards, the non-passenger side of airports, similarly seaports, security there is a joke. At best, casual intrusion is well discouraged. However all that is needed to penetrate such barriers is one compromised individual with a legitimate reason to be on the other side of those barriers.


Virtually EVERY SINGLE serious security measure in the United States is about monitoring and controlling the movements of individual citizens about the country and even within their own towns. Some of it is perfectly legitimate, but an ever increasing proportion is simply about keeping tabs on people "just in case". And of the legitimate measures, a good many are being integrated into the system of "just keeping tabs", often to the detriment of their primary secuity function.

Americans talk big about their second ammendment rights and what they will ever do with them if "The Big Bad WolfGovernment" ever infringies on their rights to L, L & TPoH. And then with enormous glee they throw: Life to the mercy of a conglomeration of Phama, health service providers & medical insuruers; Liberty to the PATRIOT ACT, the TSA, cops like Sherrif Joe, and a for profit prison system; And finally, The Pursuit of Happiness to an ever more propogandistic entertainment industry.

[truedelphi]

10. I am sorry but many of us did not get the directive

That we are all guilty until we are proven innocent, and that we are now living under martial law.

Besides the Civil Rights issues, the whole notion of these screenings as providing any type of security whatsoever is highly flawed.

I posted a video over two weeks ago, from a TV show over in England, which demonstrrated for all to see how little these screenings do.

In the TV show, the man being screened by the screening equipment had the same type of stuff on him that a Real Terrorist would use to blow up a plane.

It all goes down to the same principle that many G.I.'s in Vietnam figured out early on in their tours of duty -- plastic explosives do not show up when looked for by equipment that is made to "see" metal.

So this is not effective, highly intrusive and unconstitutional to boot.

[KansDem]

12. Please see post no. 11

I wonder where it says that such invasive searches are required to take a flight.

Recently I tried to find the clause, but didn't.

Is it available when one books a flight? When one verifies a flight? When one prints out a boarding pass?

I don't know...just when are we informed, in writing, that such a procedure is in the offing? :shrug:

[truedelphi]

16. Great post, Kansas Dem.

I stand with you on this.

[Sivafae]

13. link? nt

[truedelphi]

17. Unfortunately, the video was taken down from YouTube due to the

Copy right hold that the German TV station has on it.

<sigh> But it still is being discussed on many sites across these fabulous internets.

[KansDem]

11. Just out of curiosity, where does it state it was required to take a flight?

I've flew twice during the Thanksgiving week and looked for a TSA statement that this kind of search was required. I didn't find it.

Where do I find it?

[Bill O Rights]

19. I am embarressed reading some of the comments

If this was happening under Bush, ALL of us would be outraged! Our Freedom from government oppression is WAY more important than any POLITICIAN in the White House.

I voted for Obama for many reasons, the lies about WMD's, the torture, the Patriot Act, the continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Obama has not only betrayed us on EVERY ONE OF THOSE ISSUES, but now he has allowed Napolitan-AHOLE and Pisto-l-AHOLE to force innocent citizens to allow themselves to be subjected to a digital strip search or a CHERTOFF ENRICHING PUNITIVE GROIN SEARCH.

Shame on ANYONE WHO SUPPORTS THIS KIND OF GOVERNMENT ABUSE.

[Bill O Rights]

20. The Scanners create Child Pornography

Every image that is created when minors get scanned are Child Pornography. And the groin searches of those minors are sexual assault of a minor.

This is indefensible!!

What's more, if a parent were to search one of their own children in the way that the TSA searches teenagers, Child Protective Services would take the children away from the parents, and the parents would probably go to jail.

If you are defending the TSA's gestapo tactics, you disgust me.

[struggle4progress]

3. Bullshit stories don't help us get rid of this stuff: I think it's unlikely

that she was pushed down and then dragged 75 feet along the floor, as she claims

[SheilaT]

4. What bothers me tremendously is how many

people have bought into the idea that every single person flying is a potential terrorist/hijacker/bomber, and that the we are somehow, mysteriously, "made safer" by this attitude.

FYI:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

[grahamhgreen]

5. Disgusting, perverse, useless procedures will never make us safe.

[liberal N proud]

6. Those who do not submit will be crushed.

[harvey007]

9. To quote Ben Franklin:

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

[truedelphi]

18. FAvorite quote, there. Thanks. And we are not getting any temporary safety, either.

Recent plot of short movie I watched on indie film channel - a terrorist group had one of their members pose as someone who, like the woman in Austin, claimed to have PTSD, and who didn't want to be groped.

So much attention given to this person in the movie by security personnel, that the people smuggling the stuff on board were able to blow up the plane.

That scenario doesn't seem so far fetched that it could not happen in reality.

[demwing]

15. Gropings will continue

until morale improves