From KCNC, the CBS affiliate in Denver, comes this completely unsurprising “news”: TSA clerks at Denver International Airport deliberately messed with the strip-search scanners to alarm on attractive male passengers so one of the blue-shirted goons could grope them.
No, Virginia, say it ain’t so!
A CBS4 investigation has learned that two Transportation Security Administration screeners at Denver International Airport have been fired after they were discovered manipulating passenger screening systems to allow a male TSA employee to fondle the genital areas of attractive male passengers.
. . .”He related that when a male he finds attractive comes to be screened by the scanning machine he will alert another TSA screener to indicate to the scanning computer that the party being screened is a female. When the screener does this, the scanning machine will indicate an anomaly in the genital area and this allows (the male TSA screener) to conduct a pat-down search of that area.”
Gee, ya think this goes on elsewhere? Nah.
Just as the blue shirts at Reagan National Airport in Washington organized a ring of assailants to assault women, so, too, were the Denver goons getting their jollies.
And though the Denver TSA brass knew about it back in November, nothing was done.
Although the TSA learned of the accusation on Nov. 18, 2014 via an anonymous tip from one of the agency’s own employees, reports show that it would be nearly three months before anything was done.
According to the report, the TSA investigator then watched a male passenger enter the scanner at DIA “and observed (the female TSA agent) press the screening button for a female. The scanner alerted to an anomaly, and Higgins observed (the male TSA screener) conduct a pat down of the passenger’s front groin and buttocks area with the palm of his hands, which is contradictory to TSA searching policy.”
(Correction: it is not contradictory to TSA searching policy. It has been TSA policy nationwide since October 2010, and before that, in Boston and Las Vegas since January 2010, where it was being “tested” before the national rollout. This was widely reported, such as in this Washington Post article dated Sunday, August 22, 2010, quote: “ . . . a palms-forward, slide-down search—is being tested at Logan International Airport in Boston and at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas before a national rollout. It replaces the old back-of-the-hand patdown.” And it is the first entry in my Master List of TSA Crime and Abuses.)
Wonder how Blogger Bob Burns and Blogger West Cooper will spin this one? We already know: “Proper procedures were followed.”
There’s even videotape of one of the incidents. But we all know what happens to TSA videotapes: they go mysteriously missing. Just ask Jon Corbett. Or Stacy Armato. Or so many others too numerous to name.
The TSA said the male passenger who they saw being fondled was flying on Southwest Airlines and the agency has videotape of the incident. CBS4 has requested the tape but it was not immediately released. TSA has said it could not identify the male passenger who was groped and the agency says there have been no other complaints about the serial groping.
But hey, we’ve only been telling you about this stuff for five years. We’ve been telling you about the groping, the bullying, the theft, the lies, the sexual assaults, the fact that the scanners are worthless pieces of junk. We’ve provided evidence on top of evidence on top of evidence.
But what do we know? We’re a bunch of loons. We engage in “hyperbole.” After all, “I’ve never experienced anything like this, and I fly all the time; therefore, nobody else is experiencing it either!” Logic at work.
You, Mr. and Mrs. America, know better. You think it’s okay that you and your children are bullied, robbed, and physically assaulted to get on a plane. You think it’s “no big deal.” You even want to arm the blue shirts. You even think cavity searches are okay (and no, we’re not talking about teeth).
Maybe you’re right. Maybe you do deserve to be physically assaulted in order to travel. Puts you in your proper place. Which, given your lack of concern about your rights, is perhaps where you belong.
And hey, if something like this does happen to you, or to one of your friends or loved ones, no biggie. Just tell them to “get over it” and move on. After all, it’s “for your safety.”
Happy Trails!
Lisa Simeone is a writer, editor, political activist, Glamour Girl, and radio host. She publishes ABombazine, where this originally appeared.
In a normal world this would be so absurd. Thanks every so much to the BushBoy we live in the world of the absurd. And, so many take this absurdity as a for our protection kind of thing … never, never questioning how much of it is abuse, how much of it is the birthing of the Bush Police State which now blankets so much of our lives.
The ultimate absurdity of all of this is that on any busy day at the security point of a hub airport, one can find several planeloads of passengers waiting to prove their innocence. It would seem a more tempting target for a lunatic than just one little plane! I’m somewhat afraid to mention it, they might set up security points to enter the security point! Through the looking glass!