Pat-downs anger RDU fliers--Two Dozen Travelers Register Complaints

[KoKo]

Pat-downs anger RDU fliers--Two Dozen Passengers Register Complaints
BY BRUCE SICELOFF - Staff Writer

Local airport and federal security officials are fielding protests from Triangle travelers who say they have been traumatized by officers administering intimate pat-downs at security checkpoints.

"My wife in tears told the screener and the witness she would not let them abuse her," Willie Johnson of Raleigh said in a complaint filed Nov. 15 on the Raleigh-Durham International Airport website. "No citizen should be subjected to humiliation, stress and fear just to fly."

Two dozen travelers have contacted RDU to register objections in the six weeks since the Transportation Security Administration began a new, more invasive style of pat-downs. TSA officials say they have received about 2,000 complaints nationwide.

-snip-

Many travelers accept the scanning and touching as a necessary inconvenience to keep air travel safe. Some give high marks to the agents who frisk them.

"They told me exactly what they were going to do before they did it," said Daniel Chung, 28, of Raleigh, after a Nov. 18 flight out of RDU. "For safety purposes, if that's what it takes, who am I to say different?"

But critics say TSA agents are not well trained for this delicate duty.

"They're coming into very intimate contact with people like rape victims whose trauma may still be very fresh for them," said Jay Stanley, an American Civil Liberties Union policy analyst. "A couple of training sessions for TSA agents is not sufficient to allow them to handle this kind of situation with the sensitivity and dignity that American people deserve."

TSA agents let travelers walk through the metal detector repeatedly until they track down all the coins, keys and buckles that trigger the alarm.

But there's no second chance with the body scanner to resolve false alarms - images that, after a pat-down, turn out to be nothing. Allen, the agency spokesman, would not explain why.

Tim Ely, a retired Army officer who once commanded a military police unit in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, filed an online complaint after a Nov. 20 confrontation at RDU. He was subjected to an intimate pat-down because of a false alarm from the body scanner.

After an agent groped around his genitals from in front and from behind, Ely challenged him to explain what sort of anomaly had turned up on his full-body scan.

"He said there was something suspicious hanging from between my legs," Ely, 63, wrote in his RDU online comment. "I told him that something suspicious was my , you dummy."

Feelings of humiliation

Calvin Powers, 46, of Raleigh, said his experience before boarding an RDU flight Nov. 23 humiliated him.

"He started running his hands all over my body," Powers said in an interview. "He went all the way up to my crotch and put pressure on the underside of my testicles.

"He stuck his hands down my pants, inside the waistband of my underwear. I could feel the latex gloves on my skin, and he went all the way around my body."

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center, based in Pennsylvania, called on TSA last month to stop the intimate pat-downs, citing rape victims' concerns. Last week, center officials said TSA has promised to improve agents' training.

Passengers can ask to be screened in a private room, and they can have a traveling companion present to witness the pat-down, Allen said.

"Our officers are trained to treat all passengers with dignity and respect, and to fully communicate with each passenger to ensure they understand the process throughout screening," he said.

More at........
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/12/14/861264/pat-downs-anger-rdu-fliers.html

[xchrom]

1. if you are an abuse/trauma victim -- there are no 'pat downs' that aren't going to seem

intrusive on a psychic level.

and the problem with mass transit like airlines is that there are going to be huge numbers of them.

and i can't imagine what it must be like for a child who has been or is currently being abused to go through this.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. +10,000

[nc4bo]

2. My skin crawls just reading the descriptions. Crawls! nt

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. I wasn't patted down when I flew two weeks ago, but I witnessed...

a few. It really is both creepy and embarrassing to observe. I cannot imagine what it must be like to endure it.

[Javaman]

5. My GF and I are traveling to the east coast this summer...

last time we flew, she made the statement, "I really don't want to fly anymore". I agreed.

Now we are making plans for this summer.

I'm looking into renting a car to drive there and taking the train back.

It will be more expensive, but I know I won't be groped and I will have a relaxing experience both ways.

what flying has pointed out to me more than anything else is something very simple, I have forgotten what our country looks like. I miss that so much. I don't want to fly over it anymore. I want to see and touch it's beauty. I don't need a TSA halfwit seeing and touching my beauty.

[KoKo]

6. My Brother had a prostate operation six weeks ago and had to fly for business

and went to the airport to see where the machines were. He picked flying another airline because they'd just installed the backskatters in the main terminal. He didn't want to be subjected to "pat downs" or anything else given he'd gone through surgery recently.

He had a choice because not all the machines are delivered to all terminals, yet. So, for now some of this can be avoided but for people who've had recent operations who have to fly for business it's going to be harder to work around by the end of 2011.

[gratuitous]

7. It's necessary! Obey and accept it, you buncha terrorist lovers

You won't have a need for "personal privacy" and other nonsense like that when your body is blown to bits in mid-air now, will you? Just accept it, get over it, and wait quietly until Agent Badtouch can get around to you.

Oh, and if you think things are a little intrusive now, just wait and see what happens if a bomb slips through somehow, like on the checked luggage. Side note to terrorists: Please ignore that. Thank you.

[KoKo]

11. I hope you forgot the "sarcasm alert?" eom

[sabrina 1]

8. Sick, sick society we live in.

[KoKo]

9. sabrina...it will be interesting to see how the "Holiday Travelers" deal with all of this

in the next few weeks. I don't think this is going away.

Some folks think it was just a "Thanksgiving Hullabaloo" with Lefty Dems and Social Justice Folks complaining...but I think this has "legs" because it's intrusive, invasive and does cause harm to many folks and many folks are "nervous flyers" who have dealt with crowded seats and lack of food and whatever to get where they need to go with Medications...but you throw on getting SCANNED or your Privacy Invaded ...and it goes to a level BEYOND what "mild meds" can do to stop the REACTION to Privacy/Bodily Invasion..amongst folks who have a "social conscience."

It's GONE TOO FAR...IMHO...but then I thought that when Bush invaded Iraq for trumped up charges and lies.

Still..I think this "hits home with average American Travelers as a "bridge too far" to comply with "DEPARTMENT OF....Homeland Security."

[sabrina 1]

10. It went out of the news after Thanksgiving, Koko, but it didn't go away.

Two states are moving to ban the machines one of them being the state where terrorists did the actual damage, NY. I am going to put up an OP about it, just haven't had time but I hope that's how they get defeated, state by state.

This battle against these machines has been going on for six years, very successfully, until a democratic administration caved after the ridiculous case of the underwear bomber. We cannot give up, but now we are fighting two political parties. Still, there are more of us than there of them.

I would like to see a Boston Harbor event, tossing them into the water. We're past due for another such event :-)

[csziggy]

12. I like your Boston Harbor idea - with Chertoff chained to one of his machines! n/t

[EmeraldCityGrl]

13. Very intense, personal and negative experiences like this

can cause a presidential candidate a vote when the election comes.

All issues aside, people don't forget events that affect them personally.