In Portland, Oregon, at the same airport where John Brennan was arrested, the TSA has abused yet another elderly woman.
Harriette Charney, age 90, was “asked” to go into a private room with the blue shirts, where they then “asked” her to take off her blouse and her bra. She complied. According to her son Alan Charney, as quoted in this report by KATU:
“They wanted her to take, I guess, take all of her clothes off from her waist up,” says Charney, “and so she took off that and took off her bra . . . and I’m like ‘what??!!”
It’s interesting, as always, when people such as Alan Charney don’t know that this sort of thing goes on all the time. His mother joins a long list of similarly abused travelers.
The TSA, of course, denies it. Actually, this time, instead of outright denying it, as they usually do, they hedge their bets:
The TSA says it would be unusual for any screener to ask a passenger to completely remove their shirt instead of lifting it up, and is still looking into what happened during that search.
Yeah, you keep looking into that. Just like you’ve looked into the thousands of accounts of abuse that include your “unusual” strip-searches, and far worse.
And America, you keep living in denial. Life is so much more fun that way.
By the way, KATU got at least one aspect of this story wrong: the scanners in airports these days are millimeter wave, not backscatter. The backscatter scanners were junked two years ago. The current scanners are still garbage, but they’re not backscatter.
And since it seems to need to be said, again and again and again, never go into a private room with these people. They can’t force you to, despite their bullying. Make them do their little song-and-dance search in public, where other people can see, and where they sure as hell won’t “ask” you to take off your clothes. You need witnesses. This should be common sense. If you allow the TSA to take you into a private room. you’re asking for trouble.
Lisa Simeone is a writer, editor, political activist, Glamour Girl, and radio host. She publishes ABombazine, where this originally appeared.
On a flight from Seattle to Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I took seats toward the end of the plane where we usually sit. As the plane filled up, a steward came over to me and told me that I was in the wrong seat and was forced to leave my wife and sit at the front of the plane. I was put between two men who clearly knew each other and were travelling together. As some conversation developed, they declared “we do this for a living”. I didn’t enquire what that was. I slept through much of the flight and when I exited in Philadelphia, my passport was gone. Perhaps I had mislaid it. However, the atmosphere in our nation now is such that one might think that anything is possible.