Rand Paul questions official over airport pat-down of Kentucky girl | Politics and Government. WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, squared off with Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole Wednesday over a controversial pat-down of a 6-year-old Kentucky girl. Paul, a strident opponent of what he sees as overreaching homeland security policies, sharply criticized the TSA's random searches of travelers during a Senate hearing. Pistole said that although some pat-downs are random, most are based on intelligence. "I guess this little girl would be part of the random pat-downs, this little girl from Bowling Green, Kentucky, one of my constituents," Paul said.
Pistole responded that searches help secure the nation's transportation system, but he conceded that agents need to use "common sense. " "Unfortunately, the terrorists have used children under 12 years old as suicide bombers in other locations," Pistole said. Selena Drexel, the girl's mother, said earlier this year that her daughter Anna was selected for a pat-down when they went through a New Orleans airport. GOP bill would dress down TSA - Burgess Everett. Time to Close the Security Theater. 85-Year-Old Grandmother To Sue TSA After Strip Search At JFK Airport. An 85-year-old grandmother says TSA agents at JFK Airport in New York humiliated her by strip searching her Tuesday and she plans to sue, The New York Daily News reports.
Lenore Zimmerman from Long Beach, N.Y., says she was pulled into a private screening room by security who then proceeded to take off her clothes. “I walk with a walker — I really look like a terrorist,” Zimmerman said sarcastically. “I’m tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched,” The Daily News reports. Her son Bruce Zimmerman, 53, dropped her off at the Jet Blue terminal for her 1 p.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale, where she lives during the winter.
He waited with her until her bags were checked and she was given a wheelchair then left when his mom reached the security checkpoint. The grandmother asked TSA if she could forgo the advanced image technology screening equipment, fearing it might interfere with her defibrillator. But instead, she says that two female agents strip searched her. TSA pats down a screaming toddler | The Mommy Files.
You might think a 3-year-old would whiz through security. A child is non-threatening, wears slip-on shoes, and carries little luggage. Mandy Simon suffered through a TSA pat down. Not the case for Mandy Simon who was passing through security with her dad at the airport in Chattanooga, Tenn. A TSA employee gave Mandy the pat down and she started screaming and kicking her legs. Her dad, Steve, happens to be a TV reporter and caught 17 seconds of the ordeal on his cell phone (watch video).
Why was Mandy searched in the first place? If the TSA is going to search kids, maybe they need a little training on how to do it–or at least employees should have a few lollipops or stickers in their pockets. 85-year-old woman may sue TSA after being strip searched at JFK Airport. Gary I. Rothstein for New York Daily News Lenore Zimmerman, 85, shows injury she says was inflicted during strip search by security at JFK Airport. An 85-year-old Long Island grandmother says she plans to sue the TSA after a humiliating strip search on Tuesday by agents at JFK Airport.
Lenore Zimmerman, who lives in Long Beach, says she was on her way to a 1 p.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale when security whisked her to a private room and took off her clothes. “I walk with a walker — I really look like a terrorist,” she said sarcastically. “I’m tiny. TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said a review of closed circuit TV footage from the airport shows “proper procedures were followed.” But Zimmerman, whose hunched back puts her at 4-foot-11, said her ordeal began after her son, Bruce, drove her to the JetBlue terminal for the Florida flight. She checked her bags, waited for a wheelchair and parted ways with her doting son — her only immediate relative. She said she normally gets patted down. Claire McCaskill: TSA pat-downs 'get ugly' - Burgess Everett. Now that she’s sold her private jet, Sen. Claire McCaskill is airing her grievances about flying commercial. The Missouri Democrat told Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole on Wednesday that she is an “expert” on commercial air travel, and that with her artificial knee, she tries her hardest to avoid what she calls “unbelievably invasive” pat-downs in favor of the Advanced Imaging Technology scanning machines.
Continue Reading McCaskill keeps an eye out for one TSA agent in particular. “When I see her, I tense up. “When you have the traveling public tell you these pat-downs are unacceptable, they are not exaggerating,” said McCaskill, who called on Pistole to consider hiring more women at the TSA. Pistole said passengers can request that TSA screeners open an imaging machine even if it appears unstaffed, a policy that was news to McCaskill. Her story — along with a tale from Sen.
The program allows approved passengers to undergo expedited pre-flight screening. TSA agents become rapists. Advice Goddess Blog. Amy Alkon threatened with $500,000 lawsuit by TSA agent. I alluded to this yesterday, but it deserves its own post. Techdirt is reporting about my friend Amy’s horrific TSA experience earlier this year, and what’s happened since (note that it gets a bit graphic): Amy Alkon is an advice columnist and blogger who is just one of many people who has had a horrifying and traumatizing experience going through airport security lately.
After being pulled aside for an “enhanced” search, she found the process to be so invasive and so in violation of her own rights that she was left sobbing. She wrote about the experience on her blog, noting that she didn’t think the search was just “invasive” in the emotional sense, but flat out physically invasive: Nearing the end of this violation, I sobbed even louder as the woman, FOUR TIMES, stuck the side of her gloved hand INTO my vagina, through my pants. Between my labia. She really got up there. I’m really torn on this. This is a big mistake, and somebody at the TSA needs to deal with it ASAP. The TSA Stooges | Amy Alkon on MND.