Nude body scans at airports - Page 23

A longtime Charlotte, N.C., flight attendant and cancer survivor told a local television station that she was forced to show her prosthetic breast during a pat-down.

Cathy Bossi, who works for U.S. Airways, said she received the pat-down after declining to do the full-body scan because of radiation concerns.

The TSA screener "put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' " Bossi told the station. "And I said, 'It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer.' And she said, 'Well, you'll need to show me that.' "

Bossi said she removed the prosthetic from her bra. She did not take the name of the agent, she said, "because it was just so horrific of an experience, I couldn't believe someone had done that to me. I'm a flight attendant. I was just trying to get to work."

For Americans who wear prosthetics — either because they are cancer survivors or have lost a limb — or who have undergone hip replacements or have a pacemaker, the humiliation of the TSA's new security procedures — choosing between a body scan or body search — is even worse.

Musa Mayer has worn a breast prosthesis for 21 years since her mastectomy and is used to the alarms it sets off at airport security. But nothing prepared her for the "invasive and embarrassing" experience of being patted down, poked and examined recently while passing through airport security at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C.

"I asked the supervisor if she realized that there are 3 million women who have had breast cancer in the U.S., many of whom wear breast prostheses. Will each of us now have to undergo this humiliating, time-consuming routine every time we pass through one of these new body scanners?" she said in an e-mail to msnbc.com.

'I was so humiliated'
Marlene McCarthy of Rhode Island said she went through the body scanner and was told by a TSA agent to step aside. In "full view of everyone," McCarthy said in an e-mail, the agent "immediately put the back of her hand on my right side chest and I explained I wore a prosthesis.

"Then, she put her full hands ... one on top and one on the bottom of my 'breast' and moved the prosthesis left, right, up, down and said 'OK.' I was so humiliated.

"I went to the desk area and complained," McCarthy wrote. "The woman there was very nice and I asked her if the training included an understanding of how prosthetics are captured on the scanner and told her the pat-down is embarrassing. She said, 'We have never even had that discussion and I do the training for the TSA employees here, following the standard manual provided.' She said she will bring it up at their next meeting."

If she has to go through the scanner again, McCarthy said, "I am determined to put the prosthesis in the gray bucket," provided to travelers at the security check-ins for items such as jewelry.

"Let the TSA scanners be embarrassed .... not me anymore!" she wrote.

Sharon Kiss, 66, has a pacemaker, but also has to fly often for her work.

"During a recent enhanced pat-down, a screener cupped my breasts and felt my genitals," she said in an e-mail to msnbc.com "To 'clear my waistband' she put her hands down my pants and groped for the waistband of my underwear.

"I expressed humiliation and was told 'You have the choice not to fly.' "

The remark infuriated Kiss, who lives in Mendocino, Calif. "Extrapolate this to we should not provide curb cuts and ramps for people confined to wheelchairs because they can choose to stay home ... This a violation of civil rights. And because I have a disability, I should not be subjected to what is government-sanctioned sexual assault in order to board a plane."

TSA: Pilots to be exempt from some airport security checks

No planned changes to security
So far, the government is not letting up on the enhanced screening program. TSA administrator John Pistole said this week at a Congressional hearing on the matter that "reasonable people can disagree" on how to properly balance safety at the nation's airports, but that the new security measures are necessary because of intelligence on latest attack methods that might be used by terrorists.

Gail Mengel, of Blue Springs, Mo., is used to being patted down; she had a hip replacement five years ago.

"I admit that I was relieved when I flew last week and was able to spend a few seconds in front of the X-ray screen in Seattle and Denver," she said in an e-mail to msnbc.com. "I have heard medical experts say the level of radiation will not hurt us. And frankly I was happy to realize I won't have my body touched, patted and rubbed anymore.

"Unfortunately last weekend, I arrived at the New Orleans airport and learned that airport staff (was) still being trained in using the X-ray machine. Because my hip replacement sets off the security buzzer, I was faced with the new regulations."

While she is "used to" being patted down, "this experience was certainly much more personal, uncomfortable and embarrassing," she said. "Every part of my body was touched. I do not want to be harmed by radiation, but the experience was painless and quick compared to what I have faced over the last five years. I support security measures but I also hope we can be assured of safe procedures."

One man, from Nashville, wrote in an e-mail that "as a handicapped person, I am sick and tired of being 'raped' at the security line. I lose my crutches and leg orthotics to be 'nuked' by the X-ray machine. Then manhandled by the pat-down, followed by chemical swabbing for 'possible explosives.' ...Enough is enough."

Said Mayer, the longtime breast cancer survivor: "I am outraged that I will now be forced to show my prosthesis to strangers, remove it and put in the X-ray bin for screening, or not to wear it at all whenever I fly. To me, this seems unfairly discriminatory and embarrassing for me, and for all breast cancer survivors."

The TSA has been hit with a number of lawsuits as the revolt against Big Sis, naked body scanners, and invasive groping measures explodes, with one case involving a woman who had her blouse pulled down in full public view by TSA goons who then proceeded to laugh and joke about her exposed breasts.

Nationwide outrage against the TSA is not only bringing to light new cases of airport abuse, it’s throwing fresh attention on previous incidents that have been going on for years.One of the most disturbing, which is subject to an ongoing lawsuit, involved a 21-year-old college student from Amarillo Texas. The woman was passing through security at Corpus Christi airport on May 29 2008 when she was subjected to “extended search procedures” by the TSA.

“As the TSA agent was frisking plaintiff, the agent pulled the plaintiff’s blouse completely down, exposing plaintiffs’ breasts to everyone in the area,” the lawsuit said. “As would be expected, plaintiff was extremely embarrassed and humiliated.”

TSA workers continued to laugh and joke about the incident “for an extended period of time,” leaving the woman distraught and needing to be consoled. After the woman re-entered the boarding area, TSA workers continued to humiliate her over the incident.

“One male TSA employee expressed to the plaintiff that he wished he would have been there when she came through the first time and that ‘he would just have to watch the video,’” the suit said.

The woman filed an administrative claim against the TSA but was forced to launch a full lawsuit after the agency failed to respond.

The incident bears similarities to a 2002 case involving a pregnant woman who had her breasts exposed by TSA agents in public. Her husband was thrown in the airport jail for complaining about the treatment of his wife.

TSA Hit With Lawsuits As Revolt Explodes

Another lawsuit against the TSA involves Ron Corbett, a businessman and frequent traveler who is so infuriated by the plethora of cases where TSA workers have sexually groped passengers, squeezing breasts and genitals, that he has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Miami requesting an injunction against the TSA to prevent them from touching private areas without reasonable suspicion.

Corbett writes about his lawsuit on a blog entitled TSA Out Of Our Pants.

“Having grown up in New York and personally seeing the smoke rise from the towers that morning in 2001, I know the threat of terrorism is real, and I know we must defend ourselves. This does not mean that the Constitution should be ignored, and indeed, the TSA has plenty of alternative screening procedures that are less invasive. Besides the privacy issue, there have been health issues raised as to the radiation produced by the imaging devices, as well as efficacy issues, with no good studies having been done to show that this imagery makes us any safer,” writes Corbett.

Yet another lawsuit involves The Rutherford Institute, which is suing the feds on behalf of two pilots over the use of full body scanners.

“Those pilots recently refused to go through a controversial whole body imaging scanner, and also refused the alternative, the TSA’s new, more invasive pat downs,” reports CBS 6.

The lawsuit, which personally names both TSA chief John Pistole and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, argues that the scanners violate the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures under the 4th Amendment.

The TSA could also be hit with a fourth lawsuit if they pursue an $11,000 claim against John Tyner, otherwise known as “don’t touch my junk guy”. Speaking on The Alex Jones Show yesterday, Tyner insisted he would file a counter lawsuit if the TSA continued to pursue him over his refusal to submit to an airport groping.

Another victim, radio host Owen JJ Stone, who had a TSA agent put his hand inside his pants and touch his backside and genitalia, has not indicated he will pursue charges, but has vowed instead to use his treatment as an example of why the TSA needs to be stopped in its tracks or abolished altogether.

Pistole faces another grilling from lawmakers today on Capitol Hill at a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Privacy watchdog Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sued the Department of Homeland Security this week, asking a federal judge to make the Transportation Security Authority (TSA) stop using body scanners in airports across the United States. EPIC claims that the scanners violate a handful of federal laws, including the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, the Privacy Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Joining TSA as petitioners in the lawsuit are security guru Bruce Schneier, privacy activist Chip Pitts, and Nadhira Al-Khalili, legal counsel for the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations.

Federal lawmakers have also expressed concern about the scanning process, although their complaints center on safety, not privacy. Senators Collins (R-ME), Burr (R-NC), and Coburn (R-OK) signed a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano noting that concerns about passenger safety "remain unanswered."

In its opening brief, EPIC argues that TSA violated these laws by unilaterally implementing "the most sweeping, the most invasive, and the most unaccountable suspicionless search of American travelers in history." According to EPIC, TSA should not have made such a drastic change to screening procedures for airline passengers without publishing the change in advance and providing the public an opportunity to express its views.

Passengers object to TSA screening practices

Countless travelers have endured the indignity of TSA's full-body scans and pat-downs. In a full-body scan, passengers step through a high resolution backscatter x-ray device which projects an image of their naked bodies to a TSA screener in another location. TSA argues that passenger privacy is protected because the screener who sees the image of the passenger's naked body does not see the passenger in the flesh and does not know the identity of the passenger being screened. In a pat-down search, a TSA screener touches the passenger's body parts through her clothing in an effort to detect any weapons the passenger may have hidden on the body.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, EPIC obtained copies of passenger complaints about the procedure. In one complaint, a rape victim described her humiliation as a male TSA agent touched her body after she declined the full body scan. In another complaint, the father of an eight-year-old boy declared that he would never allow his son to fly because the scanner images amount to child pornography.

California software engineer John Tyner recently declined a body scan at San Diego International Airport and decided not to continue with screening after TSA officials "patted down" his inner thighs. Tyner, who blogs under the pen name Johnny Edge, posted a cell phone video of the incident online. Like a burning ember in dry grass, Tyner's anecdote sparked a firestorm of consumer complaints and public outrage about TSA's invasive screening practices.

Agency law

EPIC's lawsuit may force TSA to temporarily suspend the scans, but it is unlikely to have a lasting effect on the screening process. Before federal agencies like TSA implement substantive changes in policy, they are required to publish the proposed change in the Federal Register and allow a period for the public to comment on or object to the proposed rule. In some cases, formal public hearings must be held before a new rule is implemented. The EPIC petition alleges that TSA bypassed the notice-and-comment process, making the body-scanning rules illegal and unenforceable. If the lawsuit succeeds, TSA could overcome some of the issues raised by EPIC by publishing the rule for notice and comment and then re-implementing body scans.

TSA has responded to the lawsuit by calling out a CBS poll finding that four out of five passengers support the use of body-scanning technology because passengers want assurance that no one on their plane is carrying a weapon. Federal judges have long recognized national security as a public need that supersedes personal privacy rights.

Until the federal court takes action on the lawsuit, TSA will continue to use existing screening tools, including body scans and pat-downs.