Posted on 07/08/2011 6:49:59 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Woman says TSA hair search amounts to racial profiling By Keith Laing - 07/08/11 01:03 PM ET
An African-American woman is accusing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of racial profiling because her hair was searched at an airport security checkpoint.
In an interview Friday on MSNBC, Laura Adiele said that TSA agents notified her after she went through a full-body scanner at Seattle's Sea-Tec Airport that her hair needed to be inspected. Adiele said she had no problem with being patted down, but she said the agents made the request to check her hair after she was scanned because she is black.
"It's already uncomfortable to be going through a naked body imaging," she said on MSNBC's "Jansing and Co." show. "For me, my hair is my breaking point."
"I played the race card in this just because I looked around and didn't see anyone else being searched in that way," Adiele continued. "And at the end of it, I had an African-American flight attendant come up to me and say that she's had this experience and that she's seeing it more frequently and that she thought I should complain about it."
Adiele said the TSA agents told her it was the agency's policy to check anything that "poofs" from the body.
TSA said that it screens all passengers "thoroughly," which might sometimes mean their hair.
"Additional screening may be required for clothing, headwear or hair where prohibiting items could be hidden," the agency said in a statement provided to the network. "TSA has record of this passenger coming through the security checkpoint. We are happy to work with this passenger directly and address her complaints."
However, Adiele said she did not see anything about hair in the guidelines posted on TSA's website.
"I've sent a complaint and I haven't heard anything back," she said. "The whole thing just seemed kind of fishy to me."
Maybe there was a fish in her hair?
She couldn’t play the victim so she “had to play the race card,” by her own admission!
Yes a Chilean sea bass
I’m REALLY sorry Patti, but we have rules now. Being a famous singer decades ago will no longer get you a free pass.
White people have been racially profiled since day one. What’s her problem?
YUM!
Throw a burka over that poofy head and you’ll be sailing through those TSA stations, sweety. Wouldn’t want to profile a Muslim, you know.
A brother of mine from the 70’s had a big fro he could hide lots of stuff in that thing weed pills small razor knife
We iz search burkas now .... foolz you!
A big ‘fro’ would be a great place to hide a pound of C-4.
I lost a pencil in my hair once.
Perhaps if she wasn’t a terrorist, she wouldn’t have had to deal with the hassle.
Big-ass ‘fro? They gots to know.
They feel your head or you drive instead.
I like how this idiot comes right out and says “I played the race card because....”
All the TSA employees at BWI my last flight were black. I don’t know what the breakdown is in Seattle.
No telling what might have crawled into my beard and died.
It’s *ALWAYS* about race if you’re incompetent, and African or Arab, isn’t it?
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