The Inevitable: Drunk Man Arrested For Impersonating Groping TSA Agent At Airport
from the had-to-happen dept
In all of the discussion of the TSA, their nudie scanners, and their insane groping as part of security theater, there tends to be a lot of hand-wringing over the slide of our civil liberties and the conditioning of citizens to accept these kinds of intrusions. The problem with making these kinds of slippery-slope and feature-creep arguments has always been how similar they are to insane conspiracy theories and they're typically met with as much derision by the general public. Sometimes, however, you get the unfortunate payoffs to these warnings.
That appears to be exactly what we have in a story about a drunk jackass in San Francisco posing as a TSA agent at the airport and luring women into secluded areas to grope them.
A man suspected of being drunk posed as a security screener at San Francisco International Airport long enough to direct a couple of women into a private booth for pat downs before real security staffers caught on to him, authorities said Wednesday. The 53-year-old San Francisco man was arrested on suspicion of public drunkenness after creating a stir at the A-side security checkpoint of the International Terminal about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, said Sgt. Wesley Matsuura of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office.Here's how insane this is: airport security has so conditioned people to having their privates tweaked that the women in this story likely still don't know that they were violated by someone posing as an agent, and all of this happened amidst the security apparatus the TSA has set up to begin with. It's like a double trump card. Security sucks to point that two women were molested in their midst before anyone caught on and it was only allowed to happen by the victims because they've been conditioned to expect exactly this sort of thing.
Look, sorry, but sometimes the damned slope is indeed slippery and sometimes we get to see the dangers of trading liberty for safety right in front of us. By all accounts, this molester's scheme wasn't even difficult to pull off.
Two other airport law enforcement sources tell us the incident started when the man entered the security area wearing khaki pants, a blue polo shirt and blue rubber gloves - an outfit that might have been mistaken for those worn by screeners with the private Covenant security firm. The man, apparently without saying much, steered a woman into one of the private screening booths used to pat down selected passengers, our sources say. What happened inside isn't known, because the woman soon disappeared to catch a flight.Only then was he detained and charged with...public drunkenness. And nothing else. Why? Well, because the women he violated got on their planes thinking he was an agent and made their way to their destinations. If that doesn't demonstrate the danger in all this, nothing will.
A few minutes later, the man directed a second woman toward the booth, our sources say. This time, however, he caught the attention of real screeners, who figured something was wrong because male screeners are prohibited from taking women into the booth for a pat-down without a female screener also being present.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: drunkenness, groping, impersonation, san francisco, san francisco airport, tsa
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Why?
Because it's those morons who agreed with congress to pass the Patriot Act and every other law that congress passed to give our government unprecedented power. By the way, what happens when you give government too much power? They are unwilling to relinquish control of that power.
Like I said, MORONS.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Will they be unhappy if you try to take them away?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I display my civil disobedience every time I fly by REFUSING to go through the body scanners, and insisting on a public patdown. I refuse to allow them to molest me in private, I want everyone to see how humiliating and embarrassing it is to have some guy run his hands up and down my body and stick his fingers in my waistline.
Each time someone asks me afterward: "What did you do to deserve that?" I explain that I'd rather have the patdown than a privacy-violating body scanning machine any day.
I write to my rep often letting him know how I feel.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Do you ever get muscle sprains from bending over backward to blame the public for the actions of the government/police/politicians, or have you limbered up your muscles enough over the years so that it no longer bothers you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Yeah, like any of us were actually consulted before that bill was rammed through and became law. Portions of it keep coming up for renewal and people keep telling their representatives to deny it, but they keep approving it anyway.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You're including yourself in that group, right?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Is this even a ilegal in the first place? (Honest question)
And well, this speaks volumes to how secure we really are. Even if you consider we managed to stop planes from raining down from the skies due to mass terrorism attacks this should be shameful to law enforcement to say the best. Now, considering that we've seen supposed "terror" plots either stopped by the passengers or by anybody other than law enforcement themselves it's sheer ridiculousness.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Something Wrong
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Something Wrong
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
TSA was designed as obedience training for the masses.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wait aren't we missing a big chunk here
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wait aren't we missing a big chunk here
TSA: Q & A - Standard Operating Procedures
Q-1: Who watches the watchers?
A-1: No one.
Q-2: Who questions our authority?
A-2: See A-1.
Q-3: Who gropes the gropers?
A-3: See A-1.
Q-#: Who (anything to do with our power to violate you, and be declared immune from such violations ourselves)?
A-#: See A-1. The answer is always A-1.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Are we sure it wasnt a real agent?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Drunks just as effective
0 Terrorists caught by drunk TSA imposter
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Drunks just as effective
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Drunks just as effective
all of them...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Express Lane Thru the TSA
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Violating policy
Alternately, we could take this as an indication that while policy will (eventually!) catch male perverts groping female passengers, we now know that female perverts groping female passengers (and presumably males groping males) will be within policy. It is unclear from the quoted bit if a female pervert groping a male passenger would be in violation of policy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Violating policy
I have never had a patdown from a female, and my wife has never had a patdown from a male.
Even stranger is that these two women allowed for a "private screening" - I have never seen someone opt for the private screening (I certainly haven't), and it would be strange if someone ever insisted I have one.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Violating policy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Violating policy
I wonder what would happen if a passenger such as yourself claimed to be gay and requested a patdown by an agent of the opposite sex on the grounds that being patted down by a same-sex agent might be considered sexually confusing to you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Violating policy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Violating policy
What is more worrying, the screeners did not recognize a fake screener instantly. If security personnel do not know on sight other security personnel, they are not offering any security, Oh.......
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Violating policy
There are a number of establishments that do not allow certain items of identification to be taken off premise, such as ID badges, nametags, and even uniforms. Even keys in some cases cannot be taken home. Employees must check in to a certain office and procure said items when reporting for duty. When going off duty they must turn in same items before leaving. If TSA doesn't have something similar in place they should. This way a fake screener could be spotted instantly because they would not be displaying the required item(s).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If every drunken person at the airport was arrested, the holding area would be full. Mostly with nervous flyers and claustrophobes that appreciate a little detachment from the flying experience.
The TSA has taken over the investigation. I'm certainly they really, really don't want a charge of sexual assault until they can differentiate what happened with what commonly occurs during a 'screening'.
They similarly don't want an 'under color of authority' charge, because that would open the question of what authority the screeners operate under. They aren't officers. They aren't certified. What are they?
My guess is that the TSA will assess an administrative penalty, probably a single instance of the $10K maximum, for disrupting the screening process. This is notoriously difficult to challenge or appeal.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
...I...I don't know if I'm being satirical...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
New TSA Moto
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: New TSA Moto
I would so buy that line on a shirt. Especially if it looked a bit like a real TSA shirt. Someone please make that happen.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Which is sad.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What's all the fuss about?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Security Theater just had the curtain drop (again).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And I just though the government just really cared. How sad.
It was such a hearwarming experience that I actually got in line again to be "re-screened", I even changed my blouse so that nice young gentelman would not recognize me and I might get held again by the loving federal agent.
Finally after we "finished" the second time, I thought I detected something akin to The Reinheitsgebot on his breath and just imagined that those nice TSA agents are just so well trained not to let their love shine through and are required to act like the Geheime Staatspolizei, you provincials usually call them "The Gestapo", that finally with a hearty breakfast of small beer in him to warm not just his belly but also his heart, that I too finally came and came to love the TSA as much as they love all of us.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
God Bless America
I think we should issue the TSA guns. They can handle the responsibility.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Two, yes TWO persons were allowed to board an aircraft without proper TSA screening! Why aren't we concerned about that, I mean if it's such a big issue.. .oh wait.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just doing that could seriously backfire, because that then puts in a public forum (and up for debate) what the TSA is doing.
They're not licensed medical professionals, they're not law enforcement, and most of them don't even have college degrees. Yet for some reason it's perfectly legal for them to grope people?
Trying to pin SH on this gentlemen would be like throwing rocks while living in a glass house.
It could ultimately be a good thing for us citizens though, because we could then get an official ruling from a judge about the infringement of our Rights. Or so I'd like to think.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]