More TSA rights abuse porn

by Amy Alkon on June 11, 2012

I’m not offended by traditional porn — the kind with naked people and and kinky this and that (as long as it isn’t kiddie porn and as long as the participants are consenting adults).

What I am offended by is the obscene constant daily violation by the TSA of Americans’ Fourth Amendment right to not be searched without probable cause. There was yet another disgusting TSA-inflicted ball-grabbing — that became an intense disgusting TSA-inflicted ball probing — of the husband of conservative commentator Dana Loesch:

He was subjected to the standard pat-down: back of the hands, check your waistband, run hands up and down the inside of the leg stopping at the groin. When the agent went to check his gloves he claimed that something on his gloves “set off the alarm” at which point informed us that Chris would be subjected to another pat-down and his luggage searched.

He was not given the choice as to whether or not he wanted a private or public screening for the second, more invasive pat-down.

At this point we were becoming annoyed as we’d been detained for around 25 minutes minutes already (the entire screening process took about 45 minutes) and were concerned that we would miss our flight. I flipped on my camera after we had been escorted into the private room and kept it vertical, rather than horizontal, to look less confrontational.

The TSA agent informed us, as he snapped on his blue latex gloves, that he would be performing another pat-down, this time using the front of his hands, and he would be touching Chris’s “groin.” It was at this point I began asking questions. He became aggravated and asked for me to turn off my camera. I asked once more about photos and video for clarification, and he stated that the reason I could not film them touching my husband’s genitals through his shorts was due to “security reasons.” The other agent in the room spoke into his shoulder walkie about security. I complied and turned off my phone. When I asked for the agent’s name a second time, he informed me that if I would like, he would call security. The agent demanded that I put my phone away entirely and get it out of my hands and would not start the intrusive screening procedure until I had done so.

. . . He performed the pat-down which began as routine, except that he used the front of his hands. He then bent down and specifically targeted Chris’s crotch. Using the front of his hands, he pressed against his genitals and swept his hands across the crotch three times across, and then pressed at the top of his genitals and wiped his hands down three times.

Make no mistake: outside of the airport this would be considered molestation.

And in the airport, it is considered molestation — by any decent, rights-respecting, Constitution-loving person.

A commenter on her site posted this about the TSA’s thuggish order that Loesch stop videotaping:

*UPDATE: Jimi971 notes this:

TSA does not prohibit the public, passengers or press from photographing, videotaping, or filming at security checkpoints, as long as the screening process is not interfered with or slowed down. We do ask you to not film or take pictures of the monitors. While the TSA does not prohibit photographs at screening locations, local laws, state statutes, or local ordinances might.

I urge people to stand up to the TSA. Don’t go quietly when your rights are taken from you. Don’t let TSA workers walk past you in the airport without telling them that they are horrible people for taking money to violate Americans’ rights. Take names of the people who violate you, and name them far and wide — on blogs, on Twitter, and anywhere else you can. And speak up to everyone you can and in every venue you can about how dangerous it is that we are allowing this march to a police state we call “security” to continue.

Yes, that’s right — we are well on our way to becoming a police state, and this is not hyperbole. Just think back to 2000, and how you would have reacted if somebody told you that you had to have your genitals groped to get on an airplane. We’re not safer because of this — but Americans are being primed to be obedient little drones in the face of having their rights taken from them.

The videotape Loesch did get: