TSA Pat-Down Leaves Traveler Covered in Urine

Harriet Baskas, reporting for MSNBC on Thomas Sawyer, a retired teacher and bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag to collect his urine:

“One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.”

The security officer finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, “He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn’t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.”

Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer said he had to walk through the airport soaked in urine, board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean up.

This is how United States government agents treat innocent citizens.

Video of Young Boy Strip Searched by TSA

This is sick. UPDATE: Here’s the story behind the incident, from The Salt Lake Tribune.

TSA Told Cancer-Surviving Flight Attendant to Remove Her Prosthetic Breast

Molly Grantham, reporting for WBTV:

A Charlotte-area flight attendant and cancer survivor contacted WBTV after she says she was forced to show her prosthetic breast during a pat-down.

TSA and Those Deadly Nail Clippers

From an email to Erick Erickson from a soldier returning from Afghanistan:

This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.

So we’re in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they’re going to confiscate his nail clippers.

Are TSA Airport Screeners Allowed to Wear Radiation Badges?

Ira Flatow, a month ago:

This weekend, when traveling through the airport at Buffalo, NY I happened upon one of those new whole body x-ray scanners. Refusing to be screened that way, I chose for a full body pat-down. Upon gathering up my stuff, I asked one of the screeners if she knew how much radiation she was exposed to each day. She said she did not know and wanted to wear one of the badges that her friend wears at a local hospital, but was told “no,” that would not be permitted. She was upset with that decision.

Why do dentists, doctors, med techs, etc. who work in other x-ray environments gladly wear these exposure detectors on their clothing but TSA employees do not or cannot?

This is just hearsay, of course, but it’s a good question for TSA. Maybe someone should ask Blogger Bob: Are TSA screeners permitted to wear radiation exposure badges?

TSA Checkpoint Sign

Via Oleg Volk

Isaac Z. Schlueter's TSA Success Story

From John Gruber:

This might be my favorite TSA-related story of the week. Nothing sensational about it. Just a story about using and sharing information, and having the fortitude to act on your beliefs.

Read here.

Airports Can Opt-Out of TSA Screening

Byron York, writing for The Washington Examiner:

Did you know that the nation’s airports are not required to have Transportation Security Administration screeners checking passengers at security checkpoints? The 2001 law creating the TSA gave airports the right to opt out of the TSA program in favor of private screeners after a two-year period. Now, with the TSA engulfed in controversy and hated by millions of weary and sometimes humiliated travelers, Rep. John Mica, the Republican who will soon be chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, is reminding airports that they have a choice.