TSA Blasted for Exposing Breasts of Texas Congressman's Teen Grandniece

The New American ^ | 28 November 2012 | Alex Newman

[VitacoreVision]

The Transportation Security Administration is under heavy fire after publicly exposing the breasts of a teenage girl during its controversial “screening” procedures.

TSA Blasted for Exposing Breasts of Congressman's Teen Grandniece


The New American
28 November 2012


The Transportation Security Administration is under heavy fire after publicly exposing the breasts of a teenage girl during its controversial “screening” procedures. Of course, passengers routinely complain of TSA abuse and molestation — some 17,000 formal complaints have been lodged against the widely ridiculed and despised unconstitutional Homeland Security agency just since 2009, documents show.

The latest scandal, however, has turned into an international firestorm for the embattled bureaucracy, largely because the then-17-year-old victim was the grandniece of Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas). More than a few analysts noted that countless regular Americans suffer similar abuse and humiliation every single day; virtually nothing is ever done.

Now, though, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are crying foul while demanding investigations. Rights activists from across the political spectrum, meanwhile, have jumped on the opportunity to rein in the federal abuses once and for all.

According to official documents obtained by reporter Scott MacFarlane with an Atlanta TV news station, the girl was traveling to Australia on a trip with her classmates at Southwest Christian School in Texas. An internal investigation by TSA noted that after being selected for “secondary screening” and a so-called “pat-down,” which critics regularly equate with sexual molestation and assault, the screener "removed minor passenger from the corral." Yes, the report uses the word corral, defined as an enclosure or pen for domesticated animals.

The girl was not offered a “private screening,” the report noted, though passengers often prefer to be screened publicly anyway to ensure that there are witnesses to the controversial procedure in case of extraordinarily inappropriate fondling or other incidents. As the teen was enduring a “pat-down of the stomach area,” the top of her dress came loose and slipped down to her stomach, according to the internal investigation at least, revealing her breasts to everyone in the vicinity. Analysts suggested the dress had actually been pulled down, a far more plausible scenario.

Surveillance cameras caught the humiliating event on film, but TSA claimed the footage was not good enough to determine whether its screener had “properly conducted” what commentators said sounded a lot like “sexual assault.” The girl’s chaperones, according to the report, became “visibly upset” about the event and notified her parents. On the following day, her father filed a formal complaint.

The incident happened at the international airport in Los Angeles (LAX) some two years ago. However, it came to light only in recent days after journalist MacFarlane obtained the internal TSA report about the investigation using the Freedom of Information Act. When the findings were publicized, outrage quickly ensued.

News of the scandal has since gone viral, attracting headlines across America and beyond. Major press outlets from the United Kingdom to Iran have also covered the resulting uproar. Meanwhile, countless victims of TSA abuses took the opportunity to vent their fury in online comment sections over the lawless but routine violations of the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.

Rep. Hall, describing the incident as “brutal” and saying his grandniece had been “badly mistreated,” called on the TSA to fire the screener responsible for exposing his relative’s body at the airport. The 17-term congressman from Texas is also seeking a proper federal investigation of the incident, according to news reports.

“We have no desire to revive a painful event of the past, one that we abandoned any effort for litigation for privacy reasons,” Hall said in a statement quoted in the press. “We did not want to hurt our niece any more than she had already been hurt.”

Other lawmakers have also entered the fray. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), for example, contacted the massive screening bureaucracy to ask for a review and to express concerns about “potentially invasive screenings.” Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters of California, whose district includes LAX, also complained to TSA about the suffering and humiliation endured by her colleague’s young relative.

It is also not the first time lawmakers have had unpleasant experiences with the TSA. Earlier this year, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) missed a flight to Washington, D.C., after being detained by screeners for refusing a full-body pat-down. The incident happened at the Nashville, Tennessee, airport when a so-called “naked-body scanner” found some sort of alleged “anomaly” around the conservative senator’s knee.

Sen. Paul’s father Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a hero to millions of Americans for his devotion to liberty and the Constitution, has been a foe of the TSA and its lawless abuses from the start. “Why is the TSA permitted to abuse the rights of any American traveling by air?” the congressman wondered in his farewell address this month. “Victims of TSA excesses never consented to this abuse.”

Last year, meanwhile, a congressional report determined that despite squandering close to $60 billion in taxpayer funds on the TSA, screening is based on “theatrics” and has failed to catch a single terrorist. Passengers and crew, the investigation found, are actually the most effective line of defense. Ironically, perhaps, the explosive report said air travel is no safer now than it was before September 11, 2001.

The out-of-control agency has become “an enormous, inflexible and distracted bureaucracy, more concerned with human resource management and consolidating power,” according to the report, released in November of 2011. “Today, TSA's screening policies are based in theatrics. They are typical, bureaucratic responses to failed security policies meant to assuage the concerns of the traveling public.”

This week, a stinging investigation by Charles Kenny, a fellow at the Center for Global Development and the New America Foundation, found that the TSA actually makes air travel less safe. Still, despite the facts and the growing surge of public revulsion, the Department of Homeland Security continues purporting to usurp new powers for itself, with the TSA still seeking to expand its “mission” far beyond the confines of “corrals” at airport terminals.

In typical fashion, the widely loathed screening agency attempted to blame the teenage victim after the latest scandal exploded into the global press, claiming the girl’s dress being too loose was the problem — not the molestation. “We regret that the incident of more than two years ago was one that caused embarrassment to the young lady; however, an investigation concluded that the event was accidental,” TSA claimed in a statement cited in media reports.

According to the official report about the internal investigation, the bureaucrat responsible for disrobing the girl was “counseled on the expectation of our agency for professionalism and customer service.” By “customers,” TSA was presumably referring to its hapless victims who are lawlessly forced to submit to the violation of their rights in order to board an airplane, and more recently, sometimes even a bus or train.

Aside from the wanton violations of Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed, unalienable rights, the TSA has also refused to respect federal court decisions. In August, for instance, a U.S. appeals court demanded that the agency promptly explain its brazen failure to obey the law and a judicial order issued a year earlier.

With Americans across the political spectrum becoming increasingly outraged by TSA abuses, some state lawmakers are taking action. In Texas, for example, a bill to criminalize the “screening” procedures as sexual assault was passed overwhelmingly as Democrats and Republicans united to protect the rights of Texans.

Now, the celebrated Texas Travel Freedoom Act, HB 80, recently pre-filed by state Rep. David Simpson, aims to put an end to TSA lawlessness in the Lone Star State once and for all. Activists, however, are hoping to end the abuses nationwide, and with a congressman’s grandniece becoming the latest high-profile victim, analysts say achieving that goal just got a big boost. Indeed, the entire unconstitutional Department of Homeland Security is increasingly in the crosshairs, too.


Related articles:


TSA Makes Travel More Dangerous

Court Orders TSA to Explain Lawless Use of Naked Body Scanners

Texas Bills Would Nullify NDAA's Indefinite Detention, TSA's Intrusive Screening

TSA: Airports Are Only the Beginning

More Lawmakers Demand TSA Probe

Congressional Report: TSA Useless Despite $60 Billion

Getting Rich from the TSA Naked-Body Scanners

Theft, Pedophilia, Murder Among TSA Employees’ Crimes

Sen. Rand Paul Blocked from Flight for Refusing TSA Groping

TSA Agents Charged With Grand Larceny

TSA Policies May Desensitize Children to Sexual Abuse

Grandma, 84, Strip Searched by TSA, Says U.S. in “Big Trouble”

The TSA and Its Whole-body Scanning

Report: Homeland Security Compiling TSA Enemies List

Texas Officials Groped by TSA As Anti-Groping Bill Makes Comeback

[TheDon]

TSA - pedophiles and molesters now get paid and it is legal!

[HiTech RedNeck]

And if there IS security screening, have it remotely make sense. Dogs for bombs. Profiling for mules. We won’t do it because we want so much not to be “unfair” to clueless Muslims.

[Smittie]

I was wondering why they would remove her bra in public. But it appears from the story that she was not wearing one.

Doesn’t excuse the TSA. Just answers the question.

A lot of sundresses have them(bras) built in so the person doesn't have to have additional bra straps showing. So it doesn't mean she wasn't properly attired.

[buffyt]

Surely this TSA child sexual abuser is headed to prison! I would say for at least 30 years. Well if he/she were any place other than TSA they would!

They have mothballed hundreds of those scanners, the company that made them lied about how safe they are.

[rawcatslyentist]

Rape the citizens, but don’t dare offend the moose!

[buffyt]

I got a heavy petting by a TSA woman who was very butch. Makes me nauseated when I remember it and there was no offer of a private screening. but then again i don’t think i would want to be alone with Her! LOL Gross old hag.

[Democrat_media]

What does government do right? Not much as socialism doesn't work.

This tyrannical government keeps growing as we become slaves . and stupid democrats voted in this communist tyrant Obama to make us slaves. I hate democrats

[buffyt]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/tsa-equipment-warehouses-dallas_n_1502993.html

TSA Equipment Worth $184 Million Warehoused, House Panel Says

WASHINGTON — Thousands of pieces of security equipment that cost taxpayers an estimated $184 million and were supposed to be installed at airport checkpoints to screen passengers are collecting dust in government warehouses, a joint congressional panel reported Wednesday.

“Airport Insecurity: TSA’s Failure to Cost-Effectively Procure, Deploy and Warehouse its Screening Technologies” details how 85 percent of about 5,700 security units is warehoused at a Transportation Security Administration facility in Dallas. Annual storage costs at the Transportation Logistics Center, the report noted, top $3.5 million annually.

The investigative report was produced by the Republican staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired By Rep. Darrell Issa of California, and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, headed by Rep. John Mica of Florida.

“TSA continues to demonstrate its penchant for bungling aviation security and wasting taxpayers’ money,” Mica said at a hearing on the report Wednesday. “The CIA uncovered terrorists’ latest modified underwear bomb plot, but TSA has repeatedly failed to effectively procure and deploy screening equipment that actually detects threats, and incredible amounts of its state-of-the-art technology is gathering dust in Texas warehouses. Significant reform is necessary to transform this bloated and inefficient bureaucracy into the effective security agency it needs to be.”

“Money spent on equipment sitting in a warehouse in excess is money not spent on the front lines,” said Issa. “This is not a security operation, but rather a recipe for waste and abuse.”

According to the committee’s report, as of Feb. 15, 2012:

•About 85 percent of the approximately 5,700 pieces of security equipment was stored for longer than six months; 35 percent had been stored for more than one year. One piece of equipment had been in storage more than six years.
•There were 472 carry-on baggage screening machines in the warehouse, 34 percent of which had been stored for longer than a year.
•The committee estimated the delayed deployment of TSA equipment “has resulted in a massive depreciated loss of equipment utility at an estimated cost to taxpayers of nearly $23 million.”
•TSA had 1,462 explosive-trace detectors worth nearly $44 million in storage, far more than it could use in the 463 airports where TSA provides screening operations. When asked why the agency bought so many, agency officials said they needed that many in order to get a discount.
The 22-page committee report said the TSA “intentionally delayed Congressional oversight of the Transportation Logistics Center (TLC) and provided inaccurate, incomplete, and potentially misleading information to Congress in order to conceal the agency’s continued mismanagement of warehouse operations.” It said the TLC tried to hide roughly 1,300 pieces of screening equipment from congressional investigators and provided staffers with a list of disposed items “that falsely identified disposal dates and directly contradicted the inventory of equipment” in a report to committee staff.

The committee made a series of recommendations to TSA aimed at ensuring equipment is actually needed before it is purchased.

The TSA defended buying equipment in bulk, saying it saved taxpayers money and that machines have been kept in warehouses at times because airports weren’t ready to accept them. The agency said as of Wednesday there are only two AIT machines in storage.

“TSA is responsible for deploying and operating state-of-the-art security technology at over 450 airports across the nation. To fulfill its security responsibilities, TSA rapidly deploys technology to respond to changing threat information, and stand-up operations in locations affected by natural disasters and other crises,” said TSA spokesman Matthew Chandler.

“These factors and others require the agency to have a steady inventory of technology available to prevent supply disruptions from compromising aviation security. The overwhelming majority of all screening equipment that is currently in storage (nearly 80 percent) has been warehoused for less than a year,” he said. “After technology is tested, TSA must fulfill a number of requirements prior to deploying machines, such as establishing sufficient and qualified staff to operate the new equipment and ensuring the assigned airport has the infrastructure in place to accept it.”

[Tzimisce]

How dare you treat someone important like a commoner!

[USARightSide]

‘TSA - Touch Sexual Area’

LOL!
Can’t believe I didn’t think of that!
Because I can ‘see’ things long before anyone within my family, and circle of friends.

TSA - it’s so obvious - !

[USARightSide]

‘I would rather see entire 747’s blown to smithereens________’

A few months ago I expressed something quite similar as you wrote about planes. But I should have really considered my audience. . .
And it didn’t come out of my mouth exactly how I heard it in my head - - -

[central_va]

TSA=Touching Sensitive Areas.

[wrencher]

What, cut into the entertainment time to fight back?!?

[The Working Man]

To: biff

I used to travel every week on Southwest which is my preferred airline but haven’t flown anywhere for the last two years. Received a “we miss you” email from Southwest and told them I’d return when TSA was gone. Sent copy to everyone on their board and airport managers everywhere in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arizona which are serviced by Southwest. Our family drives everywhere on business and for pleasure or we don’t go. Makes for some very long trips but I refuse to be a participant in their gropeathon and thuggery.

---

I agree with your sentiments.

However actions like this and many others that never get publicized do get the traveling public to change their preferred methods of travel.

The government on the other hand has shown that they prefer to have a more controlling hand over the “Legal and Lawful” populace and are doing everything they can imagine to make it incrementally more and more difficult to travel for business or pleasure.

And as another poster wrote with tongue in cheek, imagine the days to come when we all have to submit to cavity searches because some Ya-hoo created a “cavity bomb” and took out a “Plane/bus/mall”.

[NRA1995]

Maybe they should be called T & A instead of TSA

[sergeantdave]

“Maybe when the TSA has checkpoints on the major interstates then we’ll see some resistance. On the other hand I believe the incremental removal of freedoms will go on unabated.”

Which is why conservatives need to wake up from their stupor and elect constitutional sheriffs in their counties. A properly constructed sheriff’s department has the authority and armed muscle to take on the criminal fascist syndicate occupying Washington. When armed federal thugs tried to push their way into adjoining counties during Katrina, armed sheriffs turned them away.

Sheriff Arpaio is legally taking on the obuma thug operation.

Federal courts have ruled that sheriffs are sovereign entities and can ignore orders from federal authorities, including presidents.

So the elected sheriff is one element that can be used to reign in the Nazi thugs at TSA, but I’m sure some so-called conservative will be along shortly, insisting that it’s too much trouble electing a sheriff and even if it’s done, it’ll never work.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I wouldn’t have said she wasn’t properly attired either. There’s no law that says you have to wear a bra.

My point was that pulling a dress of the shoulder of a girl while doing a search is a different form of action than removing a girl’s bra in public.

If the girl specifically asked NOT to be taken into a private room (the article specifically noted that many people don’t want to go into private because they are scared of the TSA), then you can’t fault the TSA for not taking her into a private room.

My problem therefore is that I oppose the TSA searches, and think we go way overboard on airline protection, but I don’t see this particular action, as described in the article, as being worse than many others I have read about.

It just happens to be one in which an unfortunate accident occured. That makes it useful for those who disapprove of the TSA, but I don’t see any indication that the TSA groper purposely did this, or intended such exposure.

If they did, they certainly deserve whatever punishment they can be given. And I’m not defending them, I have no idea what they were trying to do, I just noted that there was a misperception I had because of the story, and reading the whole story cleared up that misperception (that they had removed her underwear in public).

[soycd]

>For what the TSA costs, there could be an armed air marshal on every flight.

They could put three special forces members on every flight and still save billions every year. What they are doing now is criminal.

[crosshairs]

What a bunch of boobs!

Should change their name to T&A.

[hattend]

I too am amazed at who still flies.

It's kinda hard to drive to Australia.