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The Transportation Security Administration has recently generated controversy after announcing that more “rigorous” and “comprehensive” pat downs will be occurring in airports across the country. Apparently, TSA has failed at least 95% of airport security tests, in which undercover agents attempted–and succeeded–in smuggling banned weapons through airport checkpoints. However, persons boarding a plane are not the only ones who will be subjected to additional and more random full body pat downs. Employees, flight attendants, crew members, and others will be checked to ensure that no bombs, weapons, explosives, or other prohibited paraphernalia makes its way onto a plane.

Fresh off Sunday night’s taser-fueled fan violence at Metlife Stadium in New Jersey, the NFL will conduct pat downs from the ankles up this season. In the past, the pat downs went from the waist up. “The enhanced security procedures recommended by our office before the start of the season will further increase the safety of fans but will require some additional time,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told USA T0day in a statement Thursday. “We encourage fans to come early, enjoy their tailgating tradition, and be patient as they enter the stadium.”

Texas lawmakers adjourned their special session Wednesday without passing a ban on Transportation Security Administration pat-downs, to the dismay of staunch conservative critics of the agency. The bill, which would have criminalized touching passengers' genitalia during hand searches at airport security checkpoints, had already been watered down by the Texas Senate. The upper chamber of the Texas Legislature added provisions to allow TSA agents to deliver a hand search if they have a reasonable suspicion one is necessary. The provisions were added to the House version of the bill, but the chamber adjourned without taking a vote on the tweaked...

Texas lawmakers may reconsider a bill to outlaw controversial airport pat-downs, the sponsor of legislation that was shelved recently said this week. Texas state Rep. David Simpson (R) said that Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst asked Gov. Rick Perry to include the measure in a special session of the Texas legislature. Dewhurst reported asked lawmakers to withdraw the bill when federal officials threatened to cancel flights to Texas if it passed. But he has since had a change of heart, Simpson told fans on his Facebook page. "The Lt. Gov. sent a letter to Gov. Perry asking him to include...

A new video documenting some of the more unpleasant tactics employed by the TSA has come to light. This time the video shows a 6 year old girl getting an extremely thorough full body pat down. I guess in case she has a shiv stashed somewhere on her person. You can never be too safe, right? There is no conceivable way this is appropriate in my mind. Frankly the whole thing reeks of security theater. After all does any sane person really believe this little girl is hiding anything? Would it even be possible for her to hid something that...

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura is suing the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, saying full-body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints are violating his rights. Ventura filed his lawsuit Monday in federal court in Minnesota. He says the new security measures violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Terrorism: A pilot who posted a YouTube video documenting flaws in TSA's airport security has his home raided and federally issued firearm confiscated. Body scanners and junk-touching are just the beginning. Ever watchful all 364 days of the year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has discovered a new security threat — pilots who fly our planes and have questions about the TSA's security practices and policies. Three days after a 50-year-old veteran pilot living outside Sacramento, Calif., posted a YouTube video to shed light on the security gaps he believes exist at major U.S. airports, he had his home raided...

Tim Ely, a retired Army officer who once commanded a military police unit in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, filed an online complaint after a Nov. 20 confrontation at RDU. He was subjected to an intimate pat-down because of a false alarm from the body scanner. After an agent groped around his genitals from in front and from behind, Ely challenged him to explain what sort of anomaly had turned up on his full-body scan. "He said there was something suspicious hanging from between my legs," Ely, 63, wrote in his RDU online comment. "I told him that something suspicious was my...

A friend of mine flew out of Corpus today. This is a white, American born, woman in her early 60's. She's a very clean cut, well to do woman. I'll put her security story in the comment section.

A brother of three men indicted last month on federal sex trafficking charges provided one of them access to restricted areas at the Nashville International Airport including in the cockpit of a plane. The information came out during a hearing regarding the federal detention of Abdifatah Sharif Omar and Mohamed Sharif Omar Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Nashville. The two, along with brother Liban Sharif Omar, are three of the 29 individuals — mostly from Minneapolis and Nashville — indicted in November on federal charges of sex trafficking involving juvenile girls.

Philadelphia, PA – Thanksgiving travelers opted out of commercial air travel in large numbers across the country on Opt Out Day as reports came in of eerily quiet airports, shorter than usual security lines, swamped bus and train stations and 94 per cent of travelers opting to drive instead of fly. We Won’t Fly has received multiple reports of the federal government’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) shutting down full body scanners, selecting fewer people for secondary screening, using less invasive patdowns and being unusually friendly and helpful to flyers.

ATLANTA -- Channel 2 Action News has learned a TSA security worker accused of abducting and sexually assaulting a woman had previously been convicted of misdemeanor harassment and stalking. Randall King remains hospitalized following a suicide attempt. Police said last Wednesday, King agreed to drive a woman home from the airport. Instead, investigators said King took her to a MARTA station parking lot and placed novelty handcuffs on her. Investigators said he drove her 50 miles away to his home in Troup County and sexually assaulted her. The woman told police that King gave her a suicide note, his car...

Freepers, please. I have a loved one with airline tickes for mid-December to the New Year, from Montgomery, via Memphis, to Louisville, and returning to Montgomery by the same route. I am abroad, and this loved one has asked for my advice. We are wondering if any Montgomery area, Memphis area, and Louisville area Freepers have any information on the current TSA security procedures at those three airports. You may send me a private message or post openly. And I sincerely thank you. John

Intrusive pat-downs, strip-searches, and body scans far too high a price to pay for political correctness: 70% favor advanced terrorist profiling techniques insteadThe Obammunist regime has this little habit of acting like there's simply no alternative to their heavy-handed statist ways -be it health care, bailouts, or air travel safety- while slandering opponents that dare bring any reality to the debate. But the TSA's x-ray/pat-down/or $11,000 fine oppression US airline passengers has many thinking this long holiday weekend that there's got to be another way... and there is.TSA Chief John Pistole has come right out and said that the reason all...

I'm curious to know why no one has brought a court challenge against the TSA pat-downs based on the fourth amendment prohibition of unreasonable serch and seizure. Here is Wikipedia's description of the current judicial understanding of unreasonable search: "Under Terry v. Ohio 392 U.S. 1 (1968), law enforcement officers are permitted to conduct a limited warrantless search on a level of suspicion less than probable cause under certain circumstances. In Terry, the Supreme Court ruled that when a police officer witnesses "unusual conduct" that leads that officer to reasonably believe "that criminal activity may be afoot", that the suspicious...

Let's acknowledge that when it comes to flying, we're all willing to make a few compromises in the interests of safety. We're willing to subject ourselves to some minor inconvenience if other passengers do the same. To be honest, we'd prefer that every stranger who gets on a plane with us go through the most stringent of tests - body scans, pat downs, strip searches and waterboarding, topped off by an interview with Jack Bauer. But unfortunately, these strangers have the right to expect the same of us. Therein lies the dilemma. How do we fashion a security system that...

The burgeoning “don’t touch my junk” movement in the United States has prompted the Harper government to quietly request the installation of special privacy dividers at security lanes in Canada’s major airports. The physical search stalls are beginning to appear now, in time for the peak holiday travel season. The U.S. backlash against intrusive searches prompted the Conservative government to act. Transport Minister Chuck Strahl announced the new privacy measure in Question Period on Wednesday. He insisted, however, the government will not institute aggressive U.S.-style pat-downs. He also said the full body-scan machines Canada is using “do not pose the...

Dangers include syphilis, lice, viruses, ringworm Syphilis, lice, gonorrhea, ringworm, chlamydia, staph, strep, noro and papilloma viruses all are part of the possible fringe benefits when airline passengers next go through a full hands-on pat-down by agents of the federal government's Transportation Security Administration, according to doctors. WND reported two days ago on alarmed passengers who noted that TSA agents doing the pat-downs that have been described by critics as molestation since they include touching private body parts were not changing gloves between passengers. In fact, some apparently were patting down dozens of passengers or more wearing the same gloves....

TAMPA - A Hillsborough judge on Thursday ordered a halt to NFL-mandated pat-down searches before Tampa Bay Buccaneers games at Raymond James Stadium. Hillsborough Circuit Judge Perry A. Little issued the temporary injunction nearly two weeks after high school civics teacher Gordon Johnston, 60, filed a lawsuit against the Tampa Sports Authority, claiming its decision to implement the searches was unconstitutional. Little said he initially had doubts about the complaint, but in the end was convinced by legal precedents that the searches should end. "I didn't think personally that what the Tampa Sports Authority was requiring was unreasonable, but our...

Lineups at airports throughout the U.S. are moving smoothly in spite of calls for passengers to protest intrusive security measures by insisting on time-consuming pat-downs instead of full-body scans. The day before U.S. Thanksgiving is the busiest of the year for air travel in the country, and major delays were expected. But the U.S. Transportation Safety Administration said very few passengers were opting out of the scans, and there were only a few scattered protesters at some airports.