TSA turns the gloves on itself

by Lisa Simeone on November 30, 2011

Isn’t it nice to know that you’re not alone? That the sexual assault the TSA perpetrates against you and yours is also meted out to its own employees?

Nilda C. Marugame, a TSA agent at Lihue Airport in Hawaii, is suing the Department of Homeland Security, TSA’s parent agency, for sexual assault. She says she was retaliated against when she went through the proper chain of command to report it. (That chain-of-command thing is beloved of bureaucrats and people who believe that all you have to do to achieve justice is tell the truth.)

Marugame says she is, to her knowledge, the third woman who received unwanted sexual advances from one particular TSA employee, a Transportation Security Investigator (TSI).

After Maragume reported her incident, she says she was forced to sign a statement disavowing it:

Marugame says she was suspended for three days, after being “forced … to sign a document stating that the TSI did not sexually harass her”. She claims her boss suspended her “rather than addressing and disciplining the behavior of a sexual predator in the workplace.”

She says the alleged predator “was not subjected to any discipline, while each of his victims were disciplined.”

Oh, well.  At least we peons know we have company!

Tagged as: DHS, sexual assault, TSA