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IPFS News Link • Holidays

Thanksgiving Travel: Trump's Holiday Gift is More Invasive Airport Security

• http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org

On the campaign trail last year, Donald Trump derided the Transportation Security Administration as a "total disaster." But his administration is making TSA more intrusive and abusive while its 42,000 screeners remain as incompetent as ever. New TSA screening guidelines will likely make Thanksgiving travel a disaster for legions of Americans — and the worst is yet to come. Shortly after Trump's inauguration, TSA announced more "comprehensive" pat-down procedures which the Denver airport suggested might involve "more intimate contact than before." TSA preemptively notified local police to expect potential complaints, and plenty of travelers are howling: 

*Jenna McFarlane, a 56-year old teacher and graphic designer, was traveling out of Charlotte, N.C., in April when a TSA agent repeatedly told her "to spread my legs wider" and proceeded to "touch my vagina four times with the side of her hand," as she complained to TSA afterwards. She was selected for a vigorous patdown after an unreliable TSA test gave a false explosive alert for her carry-on baggage.

*Hollywood reporter and author Sharon Waxman complained this summer about an aggressive female TSA agent who "placed both hands around my legs and slowly — very slowly — rubbed up and down. The touching went all the way up to my groin. My private parts were touched by the edge of her hand, twice." The TSA agent rested her hands on Waxman's chest much longer than necessary to check for weapons. Waxman groused: "The TSA screening felt like nothing less than physical assault. If anyone other than a government officer had done anything of the kind, I would have reported it as a crime." 

*David Stavropolous complained that a TSA agent doing a search at Chicago O'Hare airport jammed his hand into Stavropolous' groin so hard that it caused bleeding and will require surgery to correct, according to Chicago's NBC station and his lawsuit against TSA. 
But there is a ray of hope: TSA's screeners may soon lose the legal immunity that has shielded all their abuses. Federal judge James Cacheris okayed a lawsuit by Captain James Linlor, an airline pilot, who complained that a TSA agent at Washington Dulles International Airport "rammed his hands into (his) genitals ... and subsequently laughed."

TSA asked the court to dismiss Linlor's case because, instead of suing, he could have phoned in his complaint to the TSA Contact Center. TSA also insisted that its screener deserved legal immunity even if he did pummel Linlor's private parts. The judge scoffed at the government's inference that "a reasonable federal officer would be surprised to learn that gratuitously striking an individual in the groin while searching them violates the Fourth Amendment." The case is proceeding.

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