WoT TSA now has 110,000 abuse complaints lodged against it. Here are some doozies.

http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/xrated.security.screenings.2.777423.html

Fliers Complain About X-Rated Security Screenings
TSA Agents Forced Woman To Remove Nipple Rings, Pulled Pants Off Disabled Man

When travelers go to the airport, they know what kind of security to expect: luggage searches, metal detectors and shoe inspections.

It's all part of our post 9-11 reality enforced by the Transportation Security Adminstration. But as CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports, thousands of travelers have complained that some of these screenings can become abusive and even x-rated.

For arguing with a TSA agent, Robin Kassner wound up being slammed to the floor. She's filed a lawsuit.

"I kept begging them over and over again get off of me ... and they wouldn't stop," Kassner said.

And it wasn't enough for another woman to show TSA agents nipple rings that set off a metal detector. The agents forced her to take them out.

Mandi Hamlin said, "I had to get pliers and pull it apart."

In Chicago, people like Robert Perry are subjected to exhaustive security checks. He was patted down, his wheel chair was examined and his hands were swabbed, all in public view in a see-through room at the security checkpoint. Perry, 71, is not alone

"It's humiliation," Perry said.

Perry was also taken to a see-through room by a TSA agent when his artificial knee set off the metal detector.

"He yelled at me to get the belt off. 'I told you to get the belt off.' So I took the belt off. He ran his hands down over and pulled the pants down, they went down around my ankle," Perry said.

At that point, Perry was standing in his underwear in public view. He asked to see a supervisor. That made things worse.

"She was yelling 'I have power, I have power, I have power," Perry said. The power to stop him from flying to Florida with his wife that day to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

"It makes you feel like you have no rights," Perry said.

Perry said he always alerts TSA agents about his metal knee and wonders why they can't just check his leg.

"If somebody told me that I would save the people on the airplane by taking my pants off out in public out there, I wouldn't mind doing it, but this was not necessary," Perry said.

TSA officials said that when the metal detectors go off, their agents must resolve what caused the alarm. But experts have said it's important to use common sense when balancing security and customer service.

Carlos Villarreal, former director of security for the Sears Tower, said proper training is crucial. "When you're wanding somebody and you can identify which part of the body set of the alarm, that should be sufficient to clear a person," Villarreal said.

But all too often, it's not enough for 16-year old Michael Angone. She frequently flies as a member of the Chicago Children's Choir.

"I've had to completely take my pants off and show them like my entire leg," Angone said.

As a baby, Angone was diagnosed with cancer. Her parents, both Chicago police officers, had to have her leg amputated. She said she always warns TSA security agents that her prosthetic leg will set off the metal detector, but many insist on doing an embarrassing full body pat-down.

"I feel like I'm being felt up in public," Angone said.

Her father Bob Angone wanted to know, "What's the reason for all the feeling up, you know the groping at the back of the neck, the chest, underneath the bra, all the groping on her body, her buttocks?"

CBS 2 News asked the TSA those questions, but got no answers.

"The key word here is reasonable, and they have gone off the track. They are not reasonable," Bob Angone said.

The TSA declined to comment on the Angone and Perry cases, but the agency has announced that soon, passengers who set off an alarm that cannot be resolved will have a choice: Agree to a physical pat-down or what some believe is an even worse invasion of privacy.

This fall, O'Hare International Airport will get its first advanced digital x-ray machine. It allows TSA agents to see through clothes and discover any hidden weapons. Critics have likened it to a virtual strip search.

A spokesman said that out of 2 billion passengers screened nationwide since 9-11, there have been only 110,000 abuse complaints.

As for the nipple ring case, TSA did change its procedures regarding body piercings.

I for one will never fly again if I can't drive there I am not going this is ridiculous.

Here is part of the new JBT's polcy on 'screening'...they only care about you....

http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/civilrights/travelers.shtm

We are committed to making each traveler's screening experience as pleasant and smooth as possible. We are also committed to treating each traveler with dignity and respect throughout the screening process.
Despite our commitment to integrity, you may be unhappy with your screening experience. You may feel that you were treated differently or less favorably by a security officer. You may even feel that the treatment you experienced was because of your race, national origin, age, religion, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. If this is how you feel about a screening experience, we want to know about it.

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I was searched for a half hour in San Francisco airport by a brown skinned guy in my opinion could not speak English. He first wanted to know if I wanted a private search. I said ‘are you going to strip search me”? He hesitated and said no.
I was felt up and down in front of God and everyone.
It took him 20 more minutes to finally figure out that the Levi jeans I was wearing had metal rivers on the pockets.
He also crumbled up my new cap with his hands four times and threw it on the floor each time, then went and had it x-rayed.

When he was waning my jeans and it kept going off at the pockets each time, time after time, time after time. I thought if he hasn’t got it figured out by this time he never will.
I couldn’t say much although I was red by this time. I knew he was going to make me miss my flight.

I thought –my family has been in this country 400 years and this guy has only been here three weeks and can’t even speak English, yet he is interrogating me.
That’s America today folks.

Kinda makes ya wish we could stick with common sense PROFILING, doesn't it?

It is a monument to political correctness. All that money spent to hire and equip all those mouth-breathers, just so we can treat everyone equally and never be accused of specifically targeting any particular group of people.

And people wonder why I don't fly anymore.

Those TSA goons are psychopathic thugs who weren't fit for the military or the police force. Now they finally have their badge and swagger around like little Nazis.

I suggest people watch the video of the day the trade towers came down complete with bodies falling and hitting the pavment at least once a year.
People are all to quik to forget whats going on out there .
Muslims come in all colors too.
The video of muslim extremest sawing a live persons head off usually puts things in perspective also.
wake up , its not over by a long shot.
Scrapman

Scrapman said:

I suggest people watch the video of the day the trade towers came down complete with bodies falling and hitting the pavment at least once a year.
People are all to quik to forget whats going on out there .
Muslims come in all colors too.
The video of muslim extremest sawing a live persons head off usually puts things in perspective also.
wake up , its not over by a long shot.
Scrapman

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Scrapman, I take great issue with what you're saying. I too believe as you do that it's not over yet. But there is a line--a REASONABLE line--that must be drawn between being REASONABLY sure that security is tight, versus being a jackbooted egomaniac cop wanna be jackhole like some TSA agents are. I've had the full spectrum of these people, and I don't think highly of the TSA as a whole. They have a tough job, I give them that. But at times, like as I was treated in Kansas City and documented here on TB2K 3 years ago, they are complete and utter ASSHOLES, and they are so, to the WRONG PEOPLE. I know how to play their game, and yet, I STILL can't understand their lack of logic sometimes.

But some of the stories I've read when they first came on to the scene, and stories even to this day, I wonder who the hell is in charge around there. Search me, screen me, that's fine. But don't you DARE yell at me, and don't you DARE yell at my kids, like the dumbass did at LAX one day. He may never be the same after I gave him my patented TIK Death Stare...

So what does that have to do with the TSA empolyees coping a feel anytime they want to and you have nothing to say about it??

My personal opinion is that they are attempting to move in the direction of the sub-microwave image screening, where they don't have to touch you, the machine allows them to see under your clothes.

If they can piss off enough people they figure we'll just give in to it.

People will make a decision, several minutes of being felt up or 5 seconds on under your clothes, no touch photograph

BS.

Keep drinking the , Scrapman......these "procedures" wouldn't prevent another terror attack. Kindly remember that the terrorists on 9-11 had cleared airport security, because everything they carried on was not illegal at that time.

A terrorist will find a way to get you one way or the other.

If you fly these days you are crazy.

Perhaps if more people stopped flying, they would stop this harrassment.

But noooooooo, the cattle get into the loading pens and stare vacant eyed while the aliens conduct anal probes.

MzKitty, I think many people have stopped flying and those that can't stop totally have cut way back. I know my own family has stopped flying very often, even though on this side of the water it often makes sense to do so (not to mention the security is not quite as insane). I have not been back to visit the US since 2001 (right after 9/11), then they simply broke my walking stick (it had metal inside) and then told me to keep walking. When I asked how they expected me to do this, they gave me the bottom half of the broken stick. I wouldn't have minded if they had just insisted on checking the walking stick and giving me a "cleared" airport cane or offered me a wheel chair. But no, I was just expected to figure out how to walk somehow. Although I am much more mobile now, flying is one of things most likely to cause a flare up so I can't get around with out some aid.

What happened to me is very MINOR, compared to what happens now. I fail to see how someone screaming "I HAVE POWER!" several times makes the US safer from terror. In fact, when done to a defenseless person, trapped in a legal situation (which airport security is) it borders on the dictionary defination of creating terror itself. It would have served her right (if the story is really as reported) if the old guy threw up and his wife defecated in fear on the floor! I'm glad for the couple's sake this did not happen, but it is the way many older folks might react when "terrorized."

There is no need for this sort of treatment, if they can't tell why a machine is being set off and a search is needed minors should be acompanied by parents to a seperate room with at least two security guards of the same sex as the child. For older people, there should be privacy as well and be searched as quickly and quiety as possible.

Instead, I really do suspect there is some truth to the idea that is is being "allowed" in order to push the new machines that scan you naked. That doesn't bother me as much as it would some folks, but I'd not be overjoyed by the experience.

I think I would draw the line at wearing a "Taser bracelet" something else the airlines were playing around with recently. At that point, if my choice was visit home or wear the thing, I don't think I would get on a plane. It would be sheer insanity to do so, talk about terror, just think about what would happen if the wrong person got their hands on the controls of the taser bracelets!

dissimulo said:

It is a monument to political correctness. All that money spent to hire and equip all those mouth-breathers, just so we can treat everyone equally and never be accused of specifically targeting any particular group of people.

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Let us be clear, here -- the TSA is funded by the U.S. taxpayers, as a agency of the U.S. government, employed as a security entity to protect the product and services of for-profit, publicly traded corporations.

WHY must the U.S. taxpayers pick up the security costs/tab of for-profit, publicly traded corporations?


intothegoodnight

I would be willing to bet the cities with the most complaints are tied to low waiges and lack of quality people looking for employment.
this weekend I passed through buffalo , cleavland ,chicago and denver airports . TSA seemed very profesional and instructions were well marked .
Can some one do the math and tell me what the percentage is on two billion checked and 110,000 complaintes.
scrapman

Scrapman said:

I would be willing to bet the cities with the most complaints are tied to low waiges and lack of quality people looking for employment.
this weekend I passed through buffalo , cleavland ,chicago and denver airports . TSA seemed very profesional and instructions were well marked .
Can some one do the math and tell me what the percentage is on two billion checked and 110,000 complaintes.
scrapman

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Oh I did this in my head....0.00005...why do you ask? 5 tenthousandths of 1%...OVERWHELMING. They need to get that number...TO ZERO.

I avoid flying whenever possible but 2 months ago I had to fly from Orlando to Texas and back. I was surprised how smoothly it went. I even carried my laptop with no issues, just take it out of the case. The security in Texas was much "tighter" but also more "professional". The screener seemed older and more experienced. Just my two cents...

Just came back from Orlando and had no major problems - just had to take my laptop out of the carry on suitcase, and they confiscated my water that I was going to use for my Airborne, other than that it went smoothly. And....it didn't seem any less people were flying as our plane was loaded with people both ways, and many people at the airports as well.

So far in Portland, OR, no problems at all at PDX. In fact, as far as any luggage goes I've seen these big xray machines you just put your luggage on and it's whisked off to the plane you're flying on with no human hands being allowed to search through it.

Those are OFFICIALLY REPORTED complaints.

How many folks get pseudo-raped but never file official reports for fear of landing on the no-fly list??????????

Remember, these are reported cases. I wonder how many complaints are dropped because they made the procedure just hard enough that people just don't report it?

Guess we think alike on this FL hey?