Today in TSA Traveler Abuse

[Trigger warning for general harm.]

Palm Beach Post—$11,000 fine, arrest possible for some who refuse airport scans and pat downs:

If you don't want to pass through an airport scanner that allows security agents to see an image of your naked body or to undergo the alternative, a thorough manual search, you may have to find another way to travel this holiday season.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport.

That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest.

CBS News—Obama: I Understand Rage Over Enhanced Screening: "President Barack Obama has asked security officials whether there's a less intrusive way to screen U.S. airline passengers than the pat-downs and body scans causing a holiday-season uproar. For now, they've told him there isn't one."

CBS News—Clinton: I'd Avoid Airport Pat-Down if Possible: "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would not want to submit to an airport security pat-down, one of the new 'enhanced' measures instituted by the Transportation Safety Administration ahead of the holiday season to screen airline passengers. ... 'I understand how difficult it is, and how offensive it must be for the people who are going through it.'" Clinton said there was a need for the procedures because terrorists are "creative," but suggested there ought to be a way to limit the number of people who are submitted to 'enhanced' screening. (Again, I will note how foolish it is to acknowledge the obvious loophole—emphasis on hole—to even the most intimate pat-downs. Unless people who refuse the scanner are going to be subjected to full body cavity searches, which I am not advocating, this shit is pointless.)

And reports of traveler abuse continue...

Raw Story—ABC producer says TSA agent felt inside her underwear: "One employee of ABC News who opted for the pat-down instead of the full body scan claimed that a TSA agent actually felt inside of her underwear. 'The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around,' said ABC News producer Carolyn Durand. 'It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist. It was embarassing. It was demeaning. It was inappropriate.'"

LA Times—Young boy gets pat down from TSA. [Video at the link.]

MSNBC—TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine:

A retired special education teacher on his way to a wedding in Orlando, Fla., said he was left humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after an enhanced pat-down by TSA officers recently at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

"I was absolutely humiliated, I couldn't even speak," said Thomas D. "Tom" Sawyer, 61, of Lansing, Mich.

Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his stomach. "I have to wear special clothes and in order to mount the bag I have to seal a wafer to my stomach and then attach the bag. If the seal is broken, urine can leak all over my body and clothes."

..."One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants."

...Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer said he had to walk through the airport soaked in urine, board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean up.

"I am totally appalled by the fact that agents that are performing these pat-downs have so little concern for people with medical conditions," said Sawyer.

..."I am a good American and I want safety for all passengers as much as the next person," Sawyer said. "But if this country is going to sacrifice treating people like human beings in the name of safety, then we have already lost the war."

San Diego Examiner—TSA airport screeners gone wild in San Diego (again):

In what can only be described as TSA handlers gone wild, the San Diego Harbor Police arrested an area resident for refusal to complete the screening/security process yesterday. This is the same airport that created the TSA security catch phrase "don't touch my junk." John Tyner of San Diego started the airport screening firestorm last week as Americans head into the busiest travel week of the year in the United States.

This time the defendant, Sam Wolanyk says he was asked to pass through the 3-D x-ray machine. When Wolanyk refused, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel told him he would have to be patted down before he could pass through and board his airplane.

Wolanyk said he knew what was coming and took off his pants and shirt, leaving him in Calvin Klein bike undergarments.

"It was obvious that my underwear left nothing to the imagination," he explained. "But that wasn't enough for the TSA supervisor who was called to the scene and asked me to put my clothes on so I could be properly patted down."

It was clear to Wolanyk that TSA only wanted him to submit to a pat-down and if they were interested in ensuring the safety of all passengers they would have rifled through his clothes, carryon baggage and acknowledged that he was not carrying any illegal paraphernalia on his person.

Once Harbor Police arrested Wolanyk, he was handcuffed and paraded through two separate airport terminals in his underwear to the Harbor Police office located inside a different terminal at the airport than Wolanyk had originally gone through during his TSA security process.

The incident was confirmed by Harbor Police Sergeant Rakos who said Wolanyk was arrested on two misdemeanors, "failing to complete the security process; violation code 7.01 and illegally recording the San Diego Airport Authority (they confiscated his iPhone); violation number 7.14 (a)."

Another confirmation came from Ronald Powell, director of communications, who said Wolanyk wasn't charged with any federal crimes, just the two misdemeanors. "The bottom line is that all our police officers did was enforce the law."

Powell also stated that there was another arrest of a woman who was allegedly illegally filming the x-ray, and TSA screening process with a video camera. The young woman's camera was confiscated and she was given a citation and released from Harbor Police custody.

So now you can't even record yourself in order to ensure that you are not sexually assaulted and/or that you have demonstrable proof if you are.