Tag Archives: TSA / CBP

TSA Reveals Passenger Complaints … Four Years Later

open quoteFrom intrusive pat-downs to body scans to perceived profiling, the Transportation Security Administration always seems to be the target of complaints.

Here’s another one: It took the TSA almost four years to tell me what people complained about — in 2008.

In my first week at ProPublica in June 2008, I filed a public records request for the agency’s complaint files. Such records can provide good fodder for investigations.

For example, amid the brouhaha over the agency’s introduction of intensive full-body pat-downs in 2004, I requested complaints and discovered an untold story of the pain and humiliation suffered by rape victims and breast cancer survivors. In one incident that I found from that request — while I was a reporter at the Dallas Morning News — a woman complained that a screener asked her to remove her prosthetic breast to be swabbed for explosives.

When I made a similar FOIA request in 2008, I assumed the TSA would respond in a few months. Government agencies have about a month to respond to public record requests, though they often take longer.close quote (Read more)

WikiLeaks lawyer, on ‘inhibited person’ travel list, stopped at airport

open quoteAustralian human rights lawyer and WikiLeaks supporter Jennifer Robinson appears to have been placed on a travel watch list and was prevented from leaving the UK this morning until approval was secured from the Australian High Commission.

Robinson was returning to Australia to speak at the same conference as Attorney-General Nicola Roxon tomorrow — the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association’s Regional Law Conference — on the apt subject of “Lawyers in the firing line”. Roxon is giving an address on human rights.

Robinson was stopped when checking in at Heathrow early this morning Australian time and told she was an “inhibited person” and that approval from the Australian High Commission would be needed before she was allowed to proceed. She tweeted

Security guard: “you must have done something controversial” because we have to phone the embassy. “Certain government agencies” list.

Intriguingly, however, no Australian agency uses the term “inhibited person”. A DIAC spokesman told Crikey “the only mechanism that would restrict uplift of a person to Australia is the Movement Alert List (MAL).”close quote (Read more)

Airport security in America is a sham

Nothing new, besides the prominence of this article.

The Atlantic:

open quoteAirport security in America is a sham—“security theater” designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items—as our correspondent did with ease.close quote (Read more)

Video Captures Woman Sobbing Uncontrollably During TSA Pat Down

open quoteMADISON, Wis. (CBSDC) – A video captured a woman shaking and sobbing uncontrollably while being frisked by a Transportation Security Administration agent.

Political blogger Jim Hoft — who runs the Gateway Pundit website — captured the incident at a Madison, Wis., airport Sunday.

“This morning at a Midwest airport I witnessed this poor woman suffering through this horrible sexual violation,” Hoft said on his Gateway Pundit website.

The video shows a TSA agent patting down a woman in a pink sweater.

During the pat down, the woman can be heard sobbing and is visibly shaking while the TSA agents runs her hands down the woman’s legs.close quote (Read more)

TSA Forces Woman To Use Naked Body Scanner Three Times Because of “Cute” Figure

open quoteThe incident occurred at DFW International Airport earlier this month. Wife and mother Ellen Terrell was asked by a female TSA screener “Do you play tennis?” When Terrell asked why, the screener responded, “You just have such a cute figure.”

Terrell was then told to go through the naked body scanner not once but a second time. She then heard the TSA screener talking into her microphone saying, “Come on guys, alright, alright, one more time.”

After Terrell was forced to undergo a third blast of radiation from the body scanner, the male TSA agents in the back room who were obviously enjoying the show tried to send her through yet again to see more images of her naked body.

“Guys, it is not blurry, I’m letting her go. Come on out,” the female TSA screener said, finally ending the ordeal.

“I feel like I was totally exposed,” Terrell told CBS 11. “They wanted a nice good look.”

An investigation by CBS 11 News has prompted New York Senator Charles Schumer to introduce legislation that will mandate the TSA provide “passenger advocates” who will be on duty at all times to respond to complaints at every airport in the country.close quote (Read more)

65 Year Old Woman gets loaded .38-caliber revolver through TSA security

open quoteA 65-year-old passenger was charged with a felony after boarding an American Airlines flight with a gun in her handbag and passing through security screening at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, authorities said.

The loaded .38-caliber revolver was spotted during an X-ray check of the bag, Greg Soule, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, said in an interview. The woman took the bag from the conveyor and left the security area before the TSA could notify police, he said. Soule declined to elaborate.close quote (Read more)

N.H. House passes legislation to rein in TSA

open quoteCONCORD, N.H. (Jan. 5, 2012) – The New Hampshire House passed the TSA Accountability and Transparency bill Thursday, the first step toward reigning in overreaching TSA searches in the “Live Free or Die” State.

HB628 passed 188-136 along party lines. It will now move on to the Senate for consideration.

The bill would require state and local law enforcement officials to document complaints from citizens who feel TSA searches cross the line and then place the report in a public data base. It would also allow citizens to videotape encounters with the TSA and require police officers to take the citizens’ side against any TSA officer trying to stop them. The legislation includes TSA searches conducted at bus stations or along the state’s roadways.

“I would like to thank the members of the House who supported this bill for understanding the need to protect passengers and transportation vehicles while also respecting basic civil rights and decency,” Carolyn McKinney, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire said. “With the database created by this bill, the State of New Hampshire will be shining the light of public scrutiny on TSA officials, which will hopefully lead to their more respectful behavior toward citizens in New Hampshire—perhaps even across the country.”close quote (Read more)

TSA Spreads to Trains, Subways, Bus Terminals and Ferries

open quoteThe Transportation Security Administration (TSA) wants it to be clear that it is not the “Airport Security Administration.”

These days, special teams of TSA officials can be seen appearing randomly at the country’s train stations, bus depots and ferry launches. Twenty-five “viper” (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams have made 9,300 unannounced visits at various transportation centers around the U.S. These included testing passenger bags for explosive residue at a Greyhound station in Orlando, Florida; inspecting trucks at weigh stations in Tennessee; checking passengers of cruise ships in the Carolinas; and inspecting spectators at NASCAR races and tourists boarding ferries in North Carolina.

The Department of Homeland Security says the viper teams should be expanded in number and has requested funding for about a 50% increase. The FY 2011 TSA budget for non-airport operations (a.k.a. “surface transportation security”) was $110 million.close quote (Read more)

I guess all America is now a “Constitution Free” zone.

After Getting Groped By The TSA, I May Just Vote For Ron Paul

open quoteThe U.S. is rapidly turning into a police state, as Canada’s Calgary Herald recently pointed out in an excellent op-ed penned by Kris Kotarski.

How dare we condemn human rights abuses in the Middle East when we treat productive members of our own society — frequent business travelers — like drug mules and felons.

The TSA is unconstitutional. Security at the expense of our most basic freedoms is not freedom at all.

I’ve disagreed with some of Ron Paul’s economic views . . . he is the ONLY CANDIDATE who seems to care that our civil rights have been egregiously rolled back over the past decade.

This alone makes him worth my vote. And I can’t in good conscience vote for President Obama’s re-election.

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Raise your hand if you think the TSA keeps you safe . . . then slap yourself

TSA Stops Passenger Over Purse Design

open quoteVanessa Gibbs had no problem getting her Western-themed purse through security at Jacksonville International Airport. But, on her return trip from Norfolk, Virginia, she was told her purse was a federal offense, reports News 4 Jax.

Gibbs, 17, carries the purse, embellished with a faux-gun design, nearly every day.

Agents eventually recognized the gun was fake, but she was told to check the bag or surrender it. The ordeal caused Gibbs to miss her flight and be re-routed to Orlando. close quote (Read more)

Europe Bans Airport Body Scanners For “Health and Safety” Concerns

open quoteThe European Union issued a ruling this week that bans X-ray body scanners in all European airports. According to the European Commission, the agency charged with enforcing the ruling across the EU’s 27 member nations, the prohibition is necessary “in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens’ health and safety.”

X-ray body scanners, which use “backscatter” ionized radiation technology, emit enough radiation to theoretically damage DNA and cause cancer.close quote (Read more)