TSA Now Making Its Intrusive Searches Even More Gropey & Assaulty

from the hello-sexual-assault dept

For years we've pointed out the sheer insanity of the TSA's security theater, which is intrusive, insulting and does little to actually make us any safer. One aspect (of many) that has been particularly troubling is the way that the TSA has basically enabled sexual assault of travelers. If you felt that wasn't too bad, have no fear, the TSA is apparently increasing the sexual assaulty nature of these searches:

The new physical touching—for those selected to have a pat-down—will be be what the federal agency officially describes as a more “comprehensive” physical screening, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman.

Denver International Airport, for example, notified employees and flight crews on Thursday that the “more rigorous” searches “will be more thorough and may involve an officer making more intimate contact than before.”

Got that? I love the way they dance around the fact that this is randomly allowed sexual assault on people who just want to travel somewhere. But it's described as "physical touching" that is more "comprehensive" and "may involve an officer making more intimate contact."

So why are TSA agents allowed to get more gropey, just a year or so after it was discovered that some TSA agents were scheming specifically to be able to sexually assault travelers they found attractive? Well, it's because it's been revealed how useless TSA security theater is. Really. After yet another set of reports pointed out that all this security theater is useless, the TSA said "welp, the answer to that must be moar sexual assault!:

The change is partly a result of the agency’s study of a 2015 report that criticized aspects of TSA screening procedures. That audit, by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General, drew headlines because airport officers had failed to detect handguns and other weapons.

This is madness. The answer to the TSA's awful and useless security theater should never be to give TSA agents more power to sexually assault travelers with "more intimate contact." This is not about security. This is about the TSA wanting to make it look like they're doing something, and apparently that includes groping strangers who are just trying to get somewhere. How the hell does sexually assaulting travelers make anyone any safer?

Filed Under: 4th amendment, groping, searches, security theater, sexual assault, tsa

TSA's Investigation Into Groping Agents Ensured They Wouldn't Be Prosecuted

from the because-of-course dept

By now, you may have heard the story about how two TSA agents at Denver International Airport were fired recently after it was revealed that they had worked out a scam by which one agent was able to grope and fondle the genitals of male passengers he found attractive. The plan involved him signalling to a colleague who was working the scanning computer. That agent would tell the computer that the individual being scanned was female, which apparently would set off an "anomaly" alert for the groin area, allowing the male TSA agent to conduct a "pat down" of that area. Leaving aside the fact that these computers even have "male" and "female" settings and it can determine an "anomaly in the genital area" if they don't match -- this kind of thing was exactly what many insisted was going to happen when the TSA put in place these advanced screening procedures. And if you think that this is the only case of it happening, well, then, you probably think the TSA doesn't rifle through and steal stuff from your luggage as well.

Now here's the thing: this only came out because the TSA agent blabbed about it to a colleague, who then reported it, leading to an investigation. Many people find it odd that the two TSA agents (who are still unnamed) merely lost their jobs, rather than got arrested for this activity. Chris Bray, over at TSA News (found via Amy Alkon -- herself no stranger to intrusive TSA searches), went and grabbed the actual Denver police report on the incident, revealing that it appears that the TSA set up its "investigation" in a manner to almost guarantee no criminal charges and that the names of the TSA agents would remain secret.

Specifically, the TSA was first told about this scheme on November 18th of 2014. First, it took nearly two months for the TSA to do anything about it, and it did not contact the police during this time. Instead, on Feburary 9th, TSA investigator Chris Higgins observed the screening area and saw the signal/button push/grope of the genitals. Higgins made no attempt to speak with or identify the victim of this assault (this is important). Instead, he just spoke with the two TSA agents who were terminated at some later time (exact date not clearly indicated). The Denver police were not told about any of this until over a month later, on March 19th, 2015, at which point they noted that without a named "victim" there wasn't much they could do.

On that same day, the inspector, Higgins, told the Denver police that he had also spoken with a deputy district attorney who had told him that without a victim, it was unlikely they could prosecute a case. It's unclear when that conversation took place, but it appears that the TSA had plenty of time to fire the TSA agents and make it basically impossible for the police to file a case before then telling the police what happened. As Bray notes, this all seems rather suspicious, as if the TSA's "investigation" was much more about covering up the TSA's misdeeds, rather than holding the agents responsible:

So in November of 2014, the TSA was warned that two of its officers were currently, actively conspiring to commit sexual assault. But the TSA did not notify the police about that anonymous tip. The Denver Police Department is the agency that regularly polices Denver International Airport; the DIA Bureau is listed on this directory.

If the TSA had notified the police about the tip in November, the police could have been watching the checkpoint to observe the groping incident that was instead witnessed by a TSA employee. But the police didn’t know about an allegation of active, current, ongoing sexual assault, because the TSA didn’t tell them.

And so an act of sexual assault occurred right in front of a TSA investigator — and the investigator let the victim walk away without approaching him and identifying him.

Then, in March 2015, the TSA informed the police of the allegation, and of the evidence of the event that a TSA investigator had personally witnessed more than a month before. But the TSA didn’t notify the police until both employees had been fired — in other words, until both participants in a scheme to commit sexual assault had been removed from the place in which they allegedly committed it.

It’s as if someone called the fire department to report a pile of cold ashes. The TSA waited to call the police until the passengers were long gone, the TSA officers alleged to have committed the crime were long gone, and the crime witnessed by a TSA investigator was more than a month old.

Isn't that convenient?

Bray asked the TSA why it didn't contact the police earlier, and received a boiler plate response about how "intolerable" the actions were, but no substantive response to Bray's actual questions.

Yes, the groping scheme is a scandal, but it seems like a much bigger scandal is how the TSA handled the case -- first allowing the criminal activities to go on for two months without notifying police, and then making sure that no one could be actually charged with a crime.

Filed Under: assault, denver, denver police, groping, prosecution, tsa

TSA Not Sure If It Groped Man Before Flight, Demands To Grope Him After Flight Is Over

from the he's-going-to-blow-up-the-plane-then? dept

Via Amy Alkon, we learn of yet another bizarre moment in the world of security theater known as the TSA. It involves a young man from Orono, Minnesota, named Kahler Nygard, who for reasons no one will ever explain, happens to be on a "selectee" list for flying. It's not quite the no fly list, but it's the list where you get four S's on your boarding pass ("SSSS"), and the TSA is then supposed to give you and your bags that extra level of privacy-destroying attention, including a full gropedown. Nygard claims he got the full groping in Minnesota, but the TSA (or potentially a Spirit airlines employee) apparently believed it was overlooked -- though, they didn't "realize" this until the flight was halfway to Denver. Frantic calls were made and the TSA was eagerly waiting for Nygard when he landed in Denver, leading him to be pulled off the plane first (that's a self-recorded video where he cheerfully announces to those on board, "No, I have not committed a crime!"), at which point the TSA demands to grope him again: Yes, after he's already flown from Minneapolis (where he claims he was groped, though the TSA claims it was missed) to Denver, the TSA wishes to grope him (and search through his bags again). Apparently, they believe that he might magically reverse time and go back in time to blow up the plane or something.

The TSA agent, Andrew Grossman, first demands Nygard's boarding pass. Nygard points out that he no longer has it (you don't need it after you board), which stumps Grossman, leading him to have to make a phone call -- where he helpfully tells whoever he's talking to at the other end that Nygard is "pretty objectionable, filming me." Nygard keeps asking why they need to search him, and the TSA has no good answer, other than saying they need to do so. Nygard asks if he's being detained, and they don't answer. He asks if it's an order or a request, and the TSA's Grossman again doesn't really answer (other than to say that he's following orders). Finally, Nygard just walks away, saying that if he's not being detained, he's leaving. The TSA claims it's calling the Denver police, who apparently did not do anything to stop Nygard, who walked out of the airport without any further problems.

I'm curious if the TSA's Blogger Bob will step up with an explanation for why a passenger should be groped post-flight.

Filed Under: extra scrutiny, groping, kahler nygard, tsa

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.

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.

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.

Filed Under: drunkenness, groping, impersonation, san francisco, san francisco airport, tsa

Phoenix DA Decides Not To File Charges Against Woman Accused Of Groping TSA Agent

from the is-that-good-or-bad? dept

Well, well. There was a lot of talk earlier this week about the woman, Yukari Miyamae, who was arrested for allegedly groping a TSA agent at a security checkpoint. The police reports claimed she had grabbed the agent's breast. In some press reports, Miyamae had claimed she did not actually grope anyone. And now... the district attorney's office in Phoenix has decided not to press charges, claiming that what she did "did not rise to the level of a felony offense under state law." She may still be charged with a misdemeanor, however, though that would be a city issue. At this point, it's not entirely clear what happened. Either the original claims by the police were simply not accurate and she didn't do what they claimed (as she asserts). Or the DA may have realized that going forward with such a prosecution would be problematic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the equivalence issue that plenty of people have raised, about whether or not the TSA gropings themselves are a form of sexual molestation.

Filed Under: felony, groping, tsa, yukari miyamae

Woman Faces Felony Charges For Groping A TSA Agent

from the you-can-only-grope-in-one-direction dept

Well, while it may be legal for the TSA to grope you, that doesn't mean it's okay for you to grope back. It appears that one woman is finding that out the hard way, after grabbing and squeezing the breast of a TSA agent. She admitted to "the crime," and now faces felony charges. It's not clear if she did this as any sort of protest against the pat downs, though it does strike me as an interesting way to make that point (if that is the case). After all, if it's okay for the TSA to do that to passengers, but it's a felony in the other direction, doesn't that at least raise some questions about the "reasonableness" of the pat downs?

Filed Under: groping, tsa

Woman Arrested For Not Letting TSA Grope Her Daughter

from the terrorism? dept

A woman, who did not feel comfortable going through the TSA naked scanners, was arrested for disorderly conduct when she also refused to let the TSA molest and grope her daughter. I'm trying to figure out how this makes us any safer on airplanes.

"I still don't want someone to see our bodies naked," the mom is reported to have replied.

As for the pat-down option, the police report states that the mom didn't want her daughter to be "touched inappropriately or have her "crotch grabbed."

TSA agents say she became belligerent and verbally abusive. The woman was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

So, either your privacy gets violated, you get molested, or you get arrested. Where do we live again?

Filed Under: arrest, children, groping, scanners, tsa

Texas Lawmakers Decide Not To Make TSA Gropings Illegal

from the oh-well dept

Given a second chance to pass an anti-TSA groping bill in Texas, it appears that Texas state elected officials chickened out again. While the State Senate had watered down the bill so that it allowed the TSA to continue to do the "enhanced patdowns" if they had a "reasonable suspicion" (rather than the "probable cause" standard in the original bill), the House failed to vote on the newly revised bill by the end of the session yesterday, which apparently means that the bill can't be introduced again this year.

Filed Under: flights, groping, texas, tsa

TSA Says Groping A Dying 95-Year-Old Woman, Forcing Her To Remove Diaper, Is Ok Because It Followed Standard Procedure

from the not-this-again dept

Back in April, we wrote about the TSA defending its groping of a 6-year-old girl, by saying that it was fine because it was their standard operating procedure. That, of course, made absolutely no sense to anyone outside of the TSA. Just because it's the way you normally do things doesn't make it right. At all. In fact, even the TSA's boss seemed to acknowledge last week that groping 6-year-olds is no longer standard operating procedure in most cases.

Perhaps he can now turn his attention to groping 95-year-olds.

Yes, over the weekend a lot of people heard about the story of Jean Weber's 95-year-old mother, who is in the final stages of leukemia, and wanted to travel to Michigan from Florida, to spend her few remaining days with family. Except, once she got to the airport, she was apparently selected for extra scrutiny, including a patdown, and being told she needed to remove her adult diaper. She ended up being detained for 45 minutes.

The local TSA spokesperson defended the procedure by suggesting that if they didn't grope 95-year-old dying cancer patients and force them to remove their diapers, that the terrorists would plant bombs on such old ladies:

"TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability."

But that's just the TSA spokesperson in Miami. Surely once this made its way back up to the top, the TSA folks in DC wouldn't go through the same mistake from April and claim this is perfectly fine because it's standard operating procedures... or would they? Oh, of course they would:

The TSA released a statement Sunday defending its agents' actions at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport.

"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."

You know what? If that is "proper procedure," the procedure is wrong. It's time for someone at the TSA to admit that.

Filed Under: groping, privacy, procedures, security, tsa

Anti-TSA Groping Bill May Come Back To Life In Texas?

from the don't-mess-with-texas? dept

After Texas politicians (new motto: "don't mess with Texas, unless you threaten to take away our airplanes") backed down on a proposal to make TSA-style gropings illegal unless the TSA could show the Constitutional basis for them, many pointed out that the bill could not be reintroduced this session. However, according to Kashmir Hill, a loophole and a whole bunch of protesters complaining about politicians backing down may mean that the bill has one more chance this year.

Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, who was one of the main reasons why the bill died in the first place, has now asked the Governor, Rick Perry, to call the bill during a 30-day special session that resulted from the state's budget fight. Hill notes that Perry might not be willing to take on this issue, due to his own presidential aspirations, but Perry has a history of going his own way on certain things, so it could happen. I'm still not sure the bill really has enough support to make it, but it certainly would create an entertaining legal fight...

Filed Under: groping, texas, tsa