Back when the Thousands of Sexual Assaulters announced their nudity-scanners / cancer-cannons (otherwise known as "backscatter x-ray machines"), I concluded that unless there were no other option available to me (visiting parents across the country, business travel, etc.), I would never be flying ever again. The upside of this is that we have a positively beautiful country, with all manner of awesome and intriguing things between point A and point B, and having to drive due to gross governmental authoritarianism is as good a reason as any to explore those sights.
At any rate, news like this helps me remain convinced that was the right decision:
The Transportation Security Administration stood by its security officers Sunday after a Florida woman complained that her cancer-stricken, 95-year-old mother was patted down and forced to remove her adult diaper while going through security.
[...]
"While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner," the federal agency said. "We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure."
[...]
While going through security, the 95-year-old was taken by a TSA officer into a glassed-in area, where a pat-down was performed, Weber said. An agent told Weber "they felt something suspicious on (her mother’s) leg and they couldn’t determine what it was" — leading them to take her into a private, closed room.
Soon after, Weber said, a TSA agent came out and told her that her mother’s Depend undergarment was "wet and it was firm, and they couldn’t check it thoroughly." The mother and daughter left to find a bathroom, at the TSA officer’s request, to take off the adult diaper.
It is probably just as well that I do not have any more grandparents… were I a personal witness to that degree of shameful, disgusting, and outright idiotic behavior, it is very doubtful that we would ever make it onto the plane at all… of course, I would probably have to get in line behind my mother and father.
The TSA needs to go away. Now. And every last one of its employees need to be brought up on charges of accessories to sexual assault… or given the choice between that, and a contract requiring them to identify themselves as past TSA employees on their resumes for the rest of their natural lives.
And as for the society that demanded the generation of this farcical, offensive organization, and those half-wits who continue to support it, "shameful" does not even begin to cover your behavior.
I agree. I would encourage every single TSA agent to leave their job and go do something else. NOT. IN. THE. SECURITY. FIELD.
Expect it to get worse. Not that anyone with two brain cells to rub together hasn’t known this was coming for at least the last ten years.
@ topofthechain: Something tells me that anyone claiming to have worked for the TSA will have a very hard time procuring employment from any security-related private corporation much above the level of “Mall Cops R Us”.
As it should be.
@ Jake: Power creates a thirst for more power. This is especially true for organizations and individuals who never should have had power to begin with.