ACLU Reports More Than 900 Complaints This Month Over “Enhanced” TSA Security Measures

[avaistheone1]

NEW YORK - November 24 - The American Civil Liberties Union has received over 900 complaints in the month of November from travelers who have been subjected to the Transportation Security Authority's (TSA) new "enhanced" screening procedures. The procedures include sending travelers through backscatter X-ray machines that produce naked outlines of travelers' bodies and subjecting them to thorough pat-downs that include TSA agents touching their breasts and genitals on the outside of their clothing.

Most of the complaints, which were submitted through an online form on the ACLU's website, came from travelers who reported feeling humiliated and traumatized by the procedures. Some of the excerpts include:
• "The TSA agent used her hands to feel under and between my breasts. She then rammed her hand up into my crotch until it jammed into my pubic bone."
• "I cried throughout the groping and have had intrusive thoughts since. It was humiliating."
• "The procedure was violating, degrading, invasive and humiliating."
• "It was so rough that I felt the effects of it throughout the day."
• "I do not feel safer. I feel violated."

The following can be attributed to Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office:

"The government must keep us safe, but it must do so in a way that is sensible, effective and constitutional. The new 'enhanced' security methods are far more intrusive than other methods but have not been shown to be any more effective. Nobody should be forced to choose between 'naked scans' and intrusive groping by strangers to keep our airplanes safe."


Additional excerpts can be read online at: www.aclu.org/passengers-stories-recent-travel





http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/11/24-2


900 Complaints BEFORE November 24th - the busiest flying day of the year. More to come...

[MineralMan]

1. The average number of domestic airline passengers per day is

about 1.5 million. In a 30 day month, that comes to 45 million passengers. Let's say 1000 people complained to the ACLU about security screening, just for simplification of math. That comes to .002% of the number of passengers. That sounds about right, and I'm betting that number hasn't changed that much for a long, long time. .002% That's 2 thousandths of a percent. Just keeping it real.

Reference: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_travel_by_air_per_day_in_u.s

Of course, not everyone complains to the ACLU. But, still...that means that 99.998% of passengers didn't complain to the ACLU.

[LisaL]

2. You are ignoring the fact that TSA doesn't pat everyone down.

Naturally only ones who were patted down are going to complain about it.

[MineralMan]

8. I'm ignoring nothing at all. I'm just posting numbers.

If you can tell me how many people were actually patted down in the same time period, I'll calculate the percentage of those who complained, too. Numbers are important. Numbers are how decisions are made. Whether you agree or disagree with the current screening procedures, the numbers are still important.

Only a very small percentage of people going through security are patted down or manually searched. What does that mean? It means that most people are not. They don't care, because it didn't happen to them. Why didn't it happen to them? Now, there's a question worth looking into. In most cases, it's because they didn't cause any alarm, either in the metal detector, which is how most people are screened, or the body scanner, which is how a small minority are screened. Unless you somehow trigger the manual search, you will not be searched. If you do trigger either of those machines or the people observing them, you'll get a manual search.

Most people will never get a manual search. Frequent flyers almost never do. They've learned how to not cause themselves to be manually searched. Most of those who are manually searched are less-experienced flyers, or people with joint replacements or prosthetic limbs. They're always manually searched.

[pecwae]

20. More blame the victim.

"They've learned how to not cause themselves to be manually searched." Yep, all their fault for having those prostheses, breast reconstruction, steel rods and plates. Why don't they just do everyone a favor and stay the hell off airplanes? They're a damned inconvenience to all those "experienced" flyers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. They select 2%or less

Keep whistling by the grave

And you still contend this is just a frisk?

I call this sexual battery.

[LisaL]

4. And most of those selected supposedly agree to body scans.

So we have even smaller % of passengers who were patted down. I think it's also a fair conclusion that not everyone humiliated, offended or outraged by a pat down is going to complain to aclu.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. The latter I got a pretty nasty one in 2004

I was on a wheelchair and it was nothing like they're doing now.

I got frisked in Mexico City, I know the difference. It was a head to toe survey I did to patients.

[woo me with science]

14. Plus, why is "only 2 percent" an argument anyway?

Why should we be happy if "only 2 percent" of people get groped?

What if "only 2 percent" of women are raped? Does that make it acceptable?

If the argument is NOT that a small percentage of outrages is okay (and lets keep in mind that a small percentage here is still a hell of a lot of people), then why insist on the "only 2 percent" argument at all?

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. No it doesn't... Instead of this theater

And this is sexual battery, to use the technical term.

I wonder if this is so extreme it will finally crash travel. I know I ain't flying out of us airpots if I can avoid it. I don't particularly like sexual battery for the privilege.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. No it doesn't... Instead of this theater

And this is sexual battery, to use the technical term.

I wonder if this is so extreme it will finally crash travel. I know I ain't flying out of us airpots if I can avoid it. I don't particularly like sexual battery for the privilege.

[MineralMan]

9. You can call it whatever you like. I've been frisked many times,

mostly when I was in the USAF and worked in a very high security area. I got frisked every day, and that frisking involved contact with the area at the top of my inner thigh. A proper frisking always does.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Did it include going into the labia or in your case between your sack?

This is enhanced for a reason, the kind done by COPS with a warrant. If you cannot get that I can't help you...

By the way hubby's served in a high security area as well and was trained in these procedures as well, and he had the same reaction. You do this without a warrant, it is assault. Of course you got the ILLUSION of safety so that's all that matters.

[MineralMan]

13. I don't have any labia. Yes, the scrotal area was part of the

frisking. So was the perineal area, and between the butt cheeks. I don't know where your husband worked, and it's none of my business. We were searched in this way daily when we left the area. As far as I know, nobody was ever caught trying to remove anything from the area.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. You were also in the military wherethour rights are summarized

In the UCMJ, in the civilian world you need a warrant to do this or be in prison, and this is still more intense, which you are still missing.

I am glad this makes you feel safe though. it is useless theater, and next comes the cavity searches. No, not exaggeration, that is next...after all we react...

Enjoy the repression.

[MineralMan]

12. OK. If that's correct, then it means that 90,000 people get patted down

in an average month. If 900 people complained, that's 1% of those selected who complained. 99% did not complain. Again, since the number of complaints is only those who complained to the ACLU specifically, others probably complained elsewhere, so the percentage of complainants would be higher than 1%. We don't have any numbers, though, other than the ACLU complaints.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. And these enhanced patdowns have less than a month

Try to keep up...but you feel safe.

[Desertrose]

7. Just because they don't complain, doesn't mean it's ok.

These are real people with real feelings and trying to make this about statistics doesn't change a thing.

Having to get doses of x-ray to your skin allowing some faceless person to see your naked boy or a person fondle your breasts or put their hands down your underwear does not make it one damn bit safer to fly.

People can still come in to the security area from smaller airports without scanners & gropers.
If they want to blow up planes....this scan/grope thing will not stop them.

In the meantime we give up more rights & liberties to prove what good little sheeple we have become...for what? An illusion of safety?

[MineralMan]

10. I didn't say it was OK. I gave the statistic. Whether it's OK or

not is another issue. Believe me...the people who decide whether this practice continues are looking at statistics. They always do.

[Gormy Cuss]

15. This is the only month when the new pat downs were operational. There is no longitudinal comparison.

Also, the subset of passengers who would even think to complain to the ACLU is not easy to quantify, making the denominator for that calculation unknown.

[Zambero]

5. I guess that means 10's of 1,000,000's of non-complaints?

After seeing these procedures being put into place under Bush, without so much as a whimper from the far right, it's been quite interesting to see the transformation in "attitude" from these whiners once a Democrat is elected to the Presidency. One more nasty "outrage" bomb to toss at Obama. At least the ACLU/political left has been consistent in the opposition to this stuff.

Meanwhile, a sensationalistic MSM uninterested in reporting real substantive news cherry picks isolated events that may or may not be factual representations of what some underpaid TSA employee might have actually perpetrated. As far as humiliating and traumatic events go, my periodic prostate exam would seem to rate as a whole lot worse.

[glitch]

21. People aren't buying that, please come up with something better.

Adding insult to our intelligence won't improve this particular kabuki's acceptance.

[Zambero]

22. Just my .02. Don't really care if anyone buys it or not

Guess I'm not buying most of what's being posted here either. The far right wing's latest feigned outrage seems to have spilled over into progressive circles as well. This entire media feeding frenzy over quasi-libertarian offended sensitivities rates about # 1,967 on my own list of critical issues. The persistence of two unnecessary wars? Economic non-recovery? Speaker Boehner & non-stop House investigations here we come? Absolute Senate gridlock as a key element of Mitch McConnell's one-term Obama strategy? Repeal health care and Wall Street reforms? Not a prayer for action on climate change? Oh yes, and not to forget pat downs performed by 'those' people -- the overwhelming majority of whom are not sexual predators and who'd just as soon be doing something else for what they're paid, given the sudden notoriety of their revamped job descriptions. As soon as the novelty wears off, the MSM will quickly move on to something even more mundane, and it'll become "last week's issue".