Wednesday, November 24, 2010

For sexual crime victims, TSA pat-downs can be 're-traumatizing'

The TSA's latest efforts to increase airport security include 'enhanced' pat-downs that have been criticized as invasive. Rape counselors advise that victims know their rights to protect themselves.

A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) worker rubs her hands across a female traveler's chest during the 'enhanced' pat-down search at Denver International Airport Nov. 23. Passengers who have experienced sexual trauma may have difficulty with the TSA's new search protocols.

Rick Wilking / Reuters

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By Elizabeth Fuller, Correspondent / November 24, 2010

As the outcry grows against the new security screenings at US airports, one population may face a special burden at TSA checkpoints: victims of rape or sexual assault who are now confronted with a procedure that they feel explicitly strips them of control over their bodies.

Pilots among those dismayed at scanners, pat-downs

By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Michael Tarm, Associated Press – Tue Nov 16, 4:58 am ET

CHICAGO – Airport security stops one airline pilot because he's carrying a butter knife. Elsewhere, crews opt for pat-down searches because they fear low-level radiation from body scanners could be harmful. And in San Diego, one traveler is told he can't fly at all when he likens an intrusive body search to sexual harassment.
Annoyance at security hassles has been on the rise among airline crews and passengers for years, but the widespread use of full-body image detectors this year and the simultaneous introduction of more intrusive pat-downs seems to have ramped up the frustration.
As passengers have simmered over being forced to choose scans by full-body image detectors or rigorous pat-downs inspections, some airline pilots are pushing back. Much of the criticism is directed at the Transportation Security Administration.
"I would say that pilots are beyond fed up," said Tom Walsh, a pilot and sometimes aviation security consultant. "The TSA is wasting valuable time and money searching the crew — who are not a threat."
Even one of the nation's most celebrated pilots, Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, has detected the growing unease.
"The fundamental reason is that airline pilots are already the last line of defense for anyone who poses a threat to the airplane," said the soft-spoken Sullenberger, who successfully ditched his US Airways plane in the Hudson River last year after it struck birds during takeoff. "We are — and would like to be considered — trusted partners in that important security mission."
The scanners show a body's contours on a computer stationed in a private room removed from the security checkpoints. A person's face is never shown and the person's identity is supposedly not known to the screener reviewing the images. Under TSA rules, those who decline must submit to pat-downs that include checks of the inside of travelers' thighs and buttocks.
Top federal officials said Monday that the procedures are safe and necessary sacrifices to ward off terror attacks.
"It's all about security," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. "It's all about everybody recognizing their role."
That's not how John Tyner sees it.
The software engineer posted an Internet blog item over the weekend saying he had been ejected from the San Diego airport after being threatened with a fine and lawsuit for refusing a groin check after turning down a full-body scan. He said he told one federal TSA worker, "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested."
"I told the person that being molested should not be a condition of getting on a flight," the 31-year-old said in a phone interview Monday.
Tyner, who was eventually told he could not fly at all because he refused both modes of search, captured the incident on his cell phone.
"This is not considered a sexual assault," a supervisor can be heard telling him.
"It would be if you were not the government," replies Tyner.
Many pilots say requiring them to go through security is ridiculous.
One 20-year airline pilot, Patrick Smith, recalled once being stopped and questioned because he had a butter knife in a bag.
"If a pilot like me is going to be up to no good, why would he need a butter knife?" he said. "I'm in control of the entire airplane!"
Walsh argued that it sends a disturbing message to passengers for them to see pilots being searched.
"They must think, `This is the guy flying the plane. If you can't trust the pilot who can you trust?'" he said.
Capt. John Prater, head of the Air Line Pilots Association, noted pilots are already subject to FBI background checks. Prater said that based on discussions with TSA officials Monday he was hopeful the agency will soon approve a "crew pass" system that would allow flight attendants and pilots to undergo less stringent screenings.
Some pilots also are concerned about possible health risks from low-level radiation emitted by the body machines.
Sullenberger, who recently retired, said pilots are exposed to more radiation because they fly at altitudes where the atmosphere doesn't fully block harmful rays.
"So, for those of us who are already exposed to many times more radiation than those who work on the ground, it is of concern to us that we are exposed even in small amounts to additional, what we consider unnecessary radiation exposure," he said.
Sullenberger said he hasn't heard of studies addressing those potential health risks, but he said, "Absent the data, I think we need to err on the side of caution."
Not all passengers share the level of ire of Tyner, whose individual protest quickly became a web sensation over the weekend.
Waiting to board a flight at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday, Mark Spritzler said he, for one, accepted that scanners were a necessary inconvenience.
"It makes me feel safer flying," Spritzler, of Long Beach, said. "I don't think they intrude on my privacy, the images are seen behind closed doors and unfortunately this is what has to be done to make things more secure."
___
Associated Press writers Samantha L. Bonkamp in New York; Joan Lowy and Adam Goldman and Sam Hananel in Washington, D.C., and Robert Jablon and Daisy Ngyuen in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101116/ap_on_bi_ge/us_airport_security

U.S. airline passengers rage over intrusive pat-downs

http://www.canada.com/news/airline+passengers+rage+over+intrusive+downs/3858061/story.html

By Sheldon Alberts, Washington Correspondent, Postmedia News November 19, 2010 Comments (22)

The complaints about the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's new security screening procedures have jumped dramatically over the past week as more American travellers feel frustrated — and violated — by full body scanners and more invasive physical pat-downs at the nation's airports.

Photograph by: Getty Images, Postmedia News

WASHINGTON — A breast cancer survivor who was asked to remove her prosthesis for inspection. A woman who was "lifted off my heels" by an airport security screener during a groin search. Another woman who says she endured a "criminal sexual assault" by an officer who placed a hand inside her underwear.
The complaints about the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's new security screening procedures have jumped dramatically over the past week as more American travellers feel frustrated — and violated — by full body scanners and more invasive physical pat-downs at the nation's airports.
But even as the U.S. heads into its busiest air travel period of the year — the annual Thanksgiving rush — the Obama administration on Friday said it has no plans to modify the security policy to mollify angry flyers.
"What we're trying to do is address the latest intelligence about the threats we have, coupled with the privacy issues that people are rightfully concerned about," John Pistole, the TSA administrator, said in a televised interview.
Later Friday, Pistole made a small concession — to airline pilots who have balked at undergoing the body scans and pat downs.
"Allowing these uniformed pilots, whose identity has been verified, to go through expedited screening at the checkpoint just makes for smart security and an efficient use of our resources," Pistole said in a statement.
"Obviously, the bottom line is trying to ensure that everybody that gets on every flight can be assured with high confidence that everybody else on that flight has been properly screened."
Added Vice-President Joe Biden: "I think it's a necessary policy. I think it will have the effect of saving lives, intercepting explosives."
The TSA is bracing for the annual surge of Thanksgiving holiday air travel that, beginning this weekend, will see 1.3 million to 2.5 million people go through security screening every day through Nov. 28.
But the delays and long airport security lines that typify Thanksgiving travel threaten to be even worse now that TSA critics have designated Nov. 24 as National Opt-Out Day. Travellers who have privacy or safety concerns about "naked" X-ray body scanners, used at about 70 U.S. airports, are being urged to opt out of the screening next Wednesday.
The one thing that might derail the planned U.S. protest against full body scanners? Many travellers are even more offended by the "enhanced" pat-down procedure they must undergo if they refuse to be scanned.
Under the new policy, which was introduced three weeks ago, TSA officers use a "hand-sliding motion" along a traveller's thighs, groin, shoulder and chest areas. The officers alternate between using the palm of their hand on some body parts and the back of their hand on more sensitive areas.
Mathieu Larocque, a spokesman for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, said Friday the agency cannot detail specific pat-down procedures authorized in Canada "for security reasons." But Larocque said Canada's procedures are not identical to those used by the TSA and have not recently changed.
Since the enhanced pat-down procedure was introduced in the U.S., more than 2,000 travellers have filed complaints with the American Civil Liberties Union about searches they considered inappropriate.
In Grand Rapids, Mich., traveller Ella Swift was reduced to tears by a TSA agent after a pat-down — which was conducted, the officer said, because she was wearing a skirt.
"The female officer ran her hand up the inside of my leg to my groin and she did it so hard and so rough she lifted me off my heels," Swift told local media. "I think I yelped. I was in pain for about an hour afterwards."
In St. Louis, businesswoman Penny Moroney said she was patted down aggressively when metal in her two artificial knees set off the airport's metal detector. Moroney told KMOV TV the female TSA officer touched her breast, patted her genitals and "inserted her hands between my underwear and my skin."
Outside of airport security lines, "if a person touched me like that without my permission, it would be considered criminal sexual assault," Moroney said.
Some TSA complaints predate the new policy.
Cathy Bossi, a breast cancer survivor who works as a flight attendant with U.S. Airways, said she was selected for additional screening in August after her prosthesis showed up during a full-body scan at the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina.
A female TSA agent "put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' " Bossi told a local TV station. "And I said, 'It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer.' And she said, 'Well, you'll need to show me that.' "
Ron Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas, introduced legislation this week that he says would authorize the arrest of TSA agents whose searches cross the line.
"We have read the stories of Americans being subjected to humiliating body imaging machines and/or forced to have the most intimate parts of their bodies poked and fondled," Paul said.
"My legislation is simple. It establishes that airport security screeners are not immune from any U.S. law regarding physical contact with another person, making images of another person, or causing physical harm through the use of radiation-emitting machinery on another person."
The U.S. has been steadily tightening security measures at airports since Uman Farouk Abdulmutallab was accused of trying to ignite explosive hidden in his underwear on a flight over Detroit last Christmas Day.
The new tactics may soon be challenged in court.
The TSA and Department of Homeland Security were hit with lawsuits this week — one by two airline pilots and another by the Electronic Information Privacy Center — contending that the full body scanners and security procedures violate travellers' constitutional rights protecting against unreasonable search and seizure.
Pistole, the TSA administrator, acknowledged "it is a challenge" to carry out the new pat-down searches without violating a traveller's privacy."
"But when it comes down to the pat-down, actually a very small number and small percentage of people will actually receive that pat-down if they opt out of the advanced-imaging technology," Pistole told CBS.
There are currently 36 full body scanners installed at Canadian airports; the federal government ordered 44 in total following last year's failed Christmas Day terror attack.

TSA pat-down of shirtless boy, 8, adds fuel to the ire Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/tsa_pat_down_ire_shirtless_boy_adds_8cdPrIBtlagpj58E2udsjK#ixzz16FYNsTzL

By LEONARD GREENE

Last Updated: 9:23 AM, November 22, 2010

Posted: 2:15 AM, November 22, 2010

He looked like Public Enemy No. 1 by the way security screeners were treating him -- and he's only 8 years old.
The little boy is seen on a disturbing Internet video being forced to take off his sweatshirt and stand bare-chested as he is surrounded by four airport-security agents, one of whom runs the back of his hand across the front of the boy's pants. The child is then sent on his way.
The video, taken last Friday at Salt Lake City International Airport, according to the YouTube user who uploaded it, was one of several troubling allegations against Transportation Security Administration screeners that came to light yesterday.

YouTube

NO KID GLOVES: A video posted on the Internet shows a shirtless 8-year-old boy (arrow) being frisked at Salt Lake City International Airport by security personnel last Friday while the child's irate father watches beside him.

A Washington lobbyist revealed how he was traveling with his own 8-year-old son through Orlando Airport in Florida last week when the boy set off a metal detector, prompting Transportation Security Administration screeners to select him for an extra search.
The father, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters that the officer described the procedure to him before putting on gloves and conducting the search. The agent then patted down the boy in the open security area, using the backs of his hands to check his genital area, the dad said.
"I didn't think it was going to be as horrible as he was describing," the father said.
"We spend my child's whole life telling him that only Mom, Dad and a doctor can touch you in your private area, and now we have to add TSA agent, and that's just wrong."
Another Internet video, taken by a Tennessee TV reporter, shows the journalist's 3-year-old daughter screaming, "Stop touching me!" as a female screener pats her down before a recent trip.
Despite the backlash, TSA chief John Pistole told fliers to get used to it.
"If you're asking, am I going to change the policies? [The answer is] no," Pistole told CNN.
But, hours later, he appeared to soften his stand, saying the new screening methods should be "as minimally invasive as possible."

Airline passengers fed up with security pat-downs

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A passenger is patted down while going through a security checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010. (AP / David Goldman)

View larger image

Volunteers pass through the first full body scanner installed at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Monday, March 15, 2010. (AP / M. Spencer Green)

Updated: Thu Nov. 18 2010 16:55:22

CTV.ca News Staff

U.S. airline passengers are growing increasingly frustrated by airport security checks, showing irritation with the widespread use of full-body image detectors and the introduction of more intrusive pat-downs.
Annoying security checks are nothing new. The checks grew more intense after the 2001 terrorist attacks, and then again after the failed attacks of "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.
But the recent introduction of intrusive body pat-downs and full-body scanners have many questioning where security ends and invasion of personal privacy begins.
A week before some of the busiest flying days of the year, irritation with the checks has hit the boiling point, with some passengers refusing to submit to them, and even pilots and crew saying they're sick of it too.
The full-body scans show naked images of the passenger's body, without their face, to a screener who in a different location. Passengers who refuse to submit to those scans undergo a pat-down which involves sliding the hands along the length of the body, along the thighs, groin and breasts.
In the last week, passengers refusing to put up with the pat-downs have become Internet sensations.
One passenger, John Tyner, posted an item to an Internet blog over the weekend to describe how he became ejected from the San Diego airport after refusing a full pat-down of his groin.
He said he told one federal Transportation Safety Administration worker, "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested."
Tyner, 31, a California software engineer recorded himself challenging security agents at San Diego International Airport. When he was singled out for a body scan, he refused to go through the full-body scanner.
That meant he had to submit to a pat-down by an agent. The security agent explained to Tyner that he would have to touch his groin area.
"I told the person that being molested should not be a condition of getting on a flight," he told the Associated Press Monday.
"This is not considered a sexual assault," a supervisor can be heard telling him.
"It would be if you were not the government," replies Tyner.
Tyner was eventually told he could not fly at all and was escorted back to the ticketing area, where he got a refund for his ticket.
His refusal has led to online sales of T-shirts and more with the words, "Don't Touch My Junk!"
The cellphone footage of a hysterical three-year-old girl being frisked by a TSA security worker at a Tennessee airport sparked outrage when it was posted on the Internet this week and reported on by several mainstream media outlets.
The footage shows three-year-old Mandy Simon squirming and screaming "Stop touching me!" as a female TSA employee - her face purposely blurred - pats the girl down while in her mother's arms.
Mandy's father, a U.S. TV reporter, filmed the clip in March 2008 but the clip has found new life this week on the Internet.
The head of the Transportation Security Administration, John Pistole, told a Senate committee about his department's policies and procedures earlier this week that he understands the privacy concerns of passengers, but says the government must provide the best possible security for air travellers.
"I'm not going to change those policies," he declared Wednesday.
Responded Sen. George LeMieux, from Florida: "I wouldn't want my wife to be touched in the way that these folks are being touched. I wouldn't want to be touched that way."
Pistole, who became TSA chief in the summer, says he has reviewed reports in which undercover agents were able to slip through airport security because pat-downs were not thorough enough.
He said that given a choice between a planeload of screened passengers and a flight with no lines or security checks, "I think everybody will want to opt for the screening with the assurance that that flight is safe and secure," he told the senators.
An online campaign on Facebook dubbed "National Opt-Out if the Airport Scanners Day" is urging people to take part in a boycott next week, Nov. 24, and refuse to use the full-body scanners, which the page's administrators call "virtual strip search porno-scanners".
Pistole has said such boycotts are "irresponsible."
"On the eve of a major national holiday and less than one year after al Qaeda's failed attack last Christmas Day, it is irresponsible for a group to suggest travelers opt out of the very screening that may prevent an attack using non-metallic explosives," he says. "This technology is not only safe, it's vital to aviation security and a critical measure to thwart potential terrorist attacks."

http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101118/airport-security-patdowns-101118/20101118?hub=EdmontonHome

Protests of security procedures threaten to delay flights at KCI Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/11/23/2466903/protests-over-airline-security.html#ixzz16FW9uwjp

By LYNN HORSLEY

The Kansas City Star

JOHN SLEEZER

9-month-old Joseph Arnett was comfortable as he waited in line to check bags with his father Tom Arnett and his mother Mary Arnett, left, all from Blue Springs, MO, as they prepared to fly to New Mexico for the holidays on Tuesday November 23, 2010, at Kansas City International Airport in Kansas City, MO. This was Joseph's 3rd flight on an airplane since he was born. John Sleezer/The Kansas City Star

Thanksgiving travelers at KCI

Protests of security procedures threaten to delay flights at KCI

So you’re flying out of Kansas City today. Interesting.
It’s one of the busiest travel days of the year. A controversy over body searches at airports has been building. And some people are calling for a security protest.
Any reason to worry?
Probably not, say federal officials — but arrive early all the same.
“We will process people as quickly, as efficiently and as securely as possible,” Transportation Security Administration Chief John Pistole said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters.
He said he remained concerned, however, about the potential for a large numbers of protesters to intentionally slow screenings today.
An Internet campaign has been calling on passengers to boycott the full-body scanning machines in what is being called National Opt-Out Day. The idea is that the extra time needed to pat down people who refuse the scanners could cause a succession of delays throughout airports.
TSA officials said 99 percent of passengers nationally chose to go through the advanced imaging technology (AIT) machines. If screeners see something suspicious, passengers are then subjected to enhanced pat-downs, which some people say are overly intrusive.
Very few passengers require pat-downs searches, which now include the crotch and chest, officials said.
Kansas City International Airport spokesman Joe McBride said KCI had received 15 to 20 questions and concerns about screening procedures on its website since Friday, with some people saying, “I don’t want to do this.” But he said there had been no evidence of intentional delays so far this week.
“It looks routine,” he said Tuesday of the lines, estimating most were no more than five minutes long.
Because today is a traditionally busy day anyway, TSA officials advise all passengers to get to airports at least two hours ahead of their flights.
Indeed, Thanksgiving travel by both car and plane is expected to be up this year.
A protest is planned at KCI today, but it’s being done with a permit and outdoors, not within the terminals.
A group associated with the Liberty Restoration Project of Kansas City says it will gather outside Terminal B from 10 a.m. to noon as part of the national protest against the new scanners and enhanced pat-downs.
McBride noted that at KCI, the two AIT machines are only used in Terminal B by the airport’s two busiest carriers, Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines. In each instance, passengers have a 50/50 chance of getting full-body scans. Otherwise they go through regular metal detectors.
People are subject to pat-downs if they set off the machines, if screeners detect something suspicious, or if the people decline the machine screenings.
McBride doubted that many people, especially those with nonrefundable tickets, would deliberately risk missing flights or deliberately delay other passengers by slowing down the screening process.
However, he acknowledged that if delays occurred at other airports, such as in Chicago or Denver, it could have a “domino effect” on flights into Kansas City.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that about two-thirds of Americans support the full-body scanners to increase security but that about half the 514 adults said the more rigorous pat-downs go too far.
Earlier this week, Pistole essentially pleaded with Thanksgiving travelers not to boycott the scanners, which could snarl what is already the fourth-busiest traveling day of the year. The Sunday after Thanksgiving is the busiest day.
“It is irresponsible for a group to suggest travelers opt out of the very screening that may prevent an attack using nonmetallic explosives,” he said in a statement. “This technology is not only safe, it’s vital to aviation security and a critical measure to thwart potential terrorist attacks.”
Pistole said his agency welcomed “feedback and comments on the screening procedures from the traveling public, and we will work to make them as minimally invasive as possible while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve.”
Pistole said in Tuesday’s conference call that the agency had received about 2,000 complaints about either the body scanners or the enhanced pat-downs.
Mike Right, an AAA spokesman from St. Louis, said Tuesday he traveled throughout six airports last week and noticed security screenings were taking longer.
“It was intrusive, to say the least,” he said of the pat-downs. “They shimmy up your legs.”
Passenger advocate Kate Hanni, director of FlyersRights.org, said it was time for passengers nationally to “send a message that the TSA has gone to far” in violating the privacy rights of travelers.
Hanni said her organization recently received 1,000 complaints a day over the scanning devices and pat-downs, and some people were canceling their travel. She was advising others to opt out of the scanners and request a private room for a pat-down, with a witness.
The Business Travel Coalition, which represents corporate travel managers, is criticizing both the TSA and groups that were calling for a boycott.
In a news release, the group said protesters had effectively raised awareness about “intrusive and sometimes wasteful TSA security processes.” But it also said that for the safety and security of the public, these groups should cancel their boycott and redirect their efforts toward a “complete review of the TSA.”
David Castelveter, vice president of communications for the Air Transport Association, which represents leading U.S. airlines, said its members were hearing from customers both for and against the new procedures.
He said some people considered the new pat-downs excessive, but most of them hadn’t undergone one. The majority of people, he said, think that if the procedures ensure that every passenger on a plane has had a thorough screening, “we’re OK with that.”
Despite all the hassles of traveling, Right said AAA was projecting a 3.5 percent increase in air travel nationally over the Thanksgiving holiday, and a 12 percent increase in people traveling by car 50 or more miles from home, over last year.
KCI projects about 350,000 more passengers, a 4 percent increase, during the 12-day period that began last Friday and concludes Nov. 30.
Right attributed the increase to a moderately improved economy and the fact that people felt a little more secure in their personal financial situations this year versus last.
“It’s hard to miss Grandma’s house two years in a row,” he said.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/11/23/2466903/protests-over-airline-security.html#ixzz16FWNPUii

Airplane Travel

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

For sexual crime victims, TSA pat-downs can be 're-traumatizing'

For sexual crime victims, TSA pat-downs can be 're-traumatizing'

The TSA's latest efforts to increase airport security include 'enhanced' pat-downs that have been criticized as invasive. Rape counselors advise that victims know their rights to protect themselves.

Related Stories

Pilots among those dismayed at scanners, pat-downs

U.S. airline passengers rage over intrusive pat-downs

The complaints about the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's new security screening procedures have jumped dramatically over the past week as more American travellers feel frustrated — and violated — by full body scanners and more invasive physical pat-downs at the nation's airports.

Photograph by: Getty Images, Postmedia News

More on This Story

TSA pat-down of shirtless boy, 8, adds fuel to the ire Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/tsa_pat_down_ire_shirtless_boy_adds_8cdPrIBtlagpj58E2udsjK#ixzz16FYNsTzL

Airline passengers fed up with security pat-downs

Protests of security procedures threaten to delay flights at KCI Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/11/23/2466903/protests-over-airline-security.html#ixzz16FW9uwjp

By LYNN HORSLEY

The Kansas City Star