Posted on 11/19/2010 8:35:02 AM PST by markomalley
(CBS) A flight attendant and cancer survivor said she was forced to remove and show her prosthetic breast to a TSA agent during a security pat-down.
Cathy Bossi of Charlotte, who has been a flight attendant for the past 32 years, told CBS Affiliate WBTV that in August she was asked to go through the new full-body scanners at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
As a 3-year breast cancer survivor Bossi said she didn't want the added radiation through her body, but reluctantly agreed.
"The TSA agent told me to put my ID on my back," Boss told WBTV correspondent Molly Grantham. "When I got out of there, she said because my ID was on my back, I had to go to a personal screening area."
Bossi was taken to a private room where two female Charlotte TSA agents began what she calls an "aggressive" pat-down.
Bossi said the exam halted when they got around to feeling her right breast - the one where she'd had surgery.
"She put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' Bossi recalled. "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 was asked to remove her prosthetic breast from her bra and show it to the agent.
She said she did not take down the name of the agent because of the "horrific" nature of the experience.
"It just blew my mind. I couldn't believe that somebody had done that to me,'" she told WBTV.
Bossi has since contacted the flight attendants union's Legislative Affairs Team.
She says there are better alternatives to such intrusive examinations.
"There are blowers and there are dogs that could sniff out bombs," she said. "There's no reason to have somebody's hands touching your body parts."
A TSA representative told WBTV that agents are allowed to ask to see and touch any passenger's prosthetic, but aren’t supposed to remove them. Later, the TSA contacted the station and said they would review the Bossi matter.
The blue gloves are made of “nitrile”; they’re non-allergenic. I use various grades of nitrile gloves (rather than other materials) in the laboratory for several reasons one of which is the allergy issue.
I’d ask them. They have policy contingencies for a lot of various scenarios.
People also should understand that you can have a witness present during your groping.
At our local airport, which does not have scanners, the local police have officers stationed around at all times the airport is open & most of them are right there at the security check area so you can have a cop witness if you want. The local PD also has one K9 they bring around often.
Again, this is coming directly from my contacts at TSA as well as personal experience.
There is no reason to be alone with a TSA agent during a pat down. None whatsoever. Believe me, the agents don’t want to be alone with passengers either.
You need to post your message that other countries may issue a travel alert that travelers coming to the US may receive abusive/invasive treatment by TSA screeners.
I learned all about it in grad school. Nobody is getting electric shocks. Nobody is required to be alone with a TSA agent.
Contrary to popular mythology, TSA agents do not have guns (tho there are a select few in some airports who do), hand cuffs or arrest powers. Airports have their own security people who handle that as well as local law enforcment which may be on site.
I understand why people are outraged by this idiocy but I expect the over the top stuff to come from the left. Our side is usually the one that sticks to the facts.
Japanese media picking up the stories ..It will not be long now!
No,it is not true.
I was going to write the same thing. I'm allergic and now all our staff use non-powdered nitrile gloves (if your hands sweat, the powdered ones make a mess). If they are going to an invasive pat down, request and make sure they put on a new pair of gloves.
To clarify, I’m told they do have some kind of goofy pat down procedure for head scarves & turbans, but muslims are not exempt from anything. Yet.
What madness the degenerate, Communist Progressives have pulled us down to.. .and we must stop it.
The media is reporting widespread public outrage, I think, not because of the injustice done to the crew and commoners like us, but because members of the elite are now being abused.
The intelligencia is not exempt fortunately, because the smurfs aren't smart enough to identify who is an influencial left wing columnist so the ivy league elitist gets treated the same as a Joe Six-pack. And saying "do you know who I am?" would probably guarantee even worse treatment.
If the elite were exempt from humiliation, I doubt we would see much coverage of this story.
Apparently first class passengers are treated the same as everybody else. This is probably intolerable to the intelligentia who are used to being treated better than regular citizens, because they believe they are better.
How interesting that the TSA waited only days before the busiest time of year to impose this outrage on travelers, forcing them to make a fast choice either to submit to x-rays or groping, or else be further humiliated, fined and lose a plane ticket. I will not opt of the x-rays; I will opt out of flying all together. Let the bankrupt airlines blame the TSA, and let the outraged public blame Islam. This country needs a radical transformation to be saved.
Friends of Obama have invested millions in the manufacture of those body scanners. They MUST have people go through them in order to recoup their costs. If we don't go through the scanners, which do show our bare naked bodies, then they must embarrass us enough to make sure that we get used to having pornographic pictures taken of us.
So, your choice is to either have your naked body prepared for possible internet display or have some stranger feel you up.
One other thing, what would stop some enterprising pornographer from saving those pictures along with our names and addresses?
And, do the very same thing to our children?
So in the cases which are being currently reported of TSA gloved hands going into some passengers’s pants, are they going to pass on a sexually transmitted disease? Bad mental picture, but we have among us folks whose toilet habits are disgusting, not to mention third worlders who have never used more than one sheet of TP at a time.
That will be next.
I just don’t believe they could make a breast bomb so small and realistic that the only way you could tell it was a bomb is by feeling it.
They may to to conceal a bomb in the breast area, but wouldn’t it have to have wires coming out and someway to detonate it?
Wow-I’d never read about that experiment- fascinating- thanks for posting.
Very, very. . .and no one should be patted down and worse, by anyone not using a fresh pair of gloves. Of course, the reality is; NO citizen should be so subjected - unless 'due cause' has been so noted.
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