Another Absurd TSA Tale: 95 Year Old Woman Forced to Take Off Diaper for Search

By Allan Lengel

And now comes another story of the absurd involving the Transportation Security Administration, the folks who protect our airports.

The News Herald reports that a woman filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security after her 95-year-old mother, who is suffering from leukemia and in a wheelchair, was detained and searched and made to take off her adult diaper during a search at Northwest Florida Regional Airport last weekend.

Jean Weber of Destin, Fla. filed a complaint on behalf of her mother, who was headed to Michigan to be with family members in the final stages of leukemia, the paper reported.

Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.

“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber said Friday, according to the paper. “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”

TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz declined to comment, citing privacy issues, according to the paper.

Former Miss USA Alleges TSA Abuse

Posted on Apr 27, 2011

TSA.gov

Two and a half weeks after an airport pat-down of a 6-year-old ended up on YouTube and in the mainstream media, the Transportation Security Administration is in the middle of another controversy. In a new video on YouTube and other websites, a tearful former Miss USA charges she was sexually violated during a TSA search. Susie Castillo said she was improperly touched by a screener at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport last week.

The TSA implemented its “enhanced pat-down” program in August as an alternative to the full-body X-ray scans now becoming standard at major airports. These body searches have infuriated a growing number of passengers, ranging from young women to elderly men with medical conditions. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano continues to defend the security measures, vowing they will remain in place for the “foreseeable future.” —KDG

Daily Mail:

A former Miss USA has blasted airport screeners for groping her after she refused to go through a naked body scanner.

Susie Castillo, now 31, complained that she was ‘violated’ by a female TSA agent at a security checkpoint at Dallas airport in Texas.

Miss Castillo, who held the Miss America title in 2003 and is now an actress, wept as she recounted her traumatic ordeal in a video filmed at the airport.

Read more

Video: Security choice for holiday travelers Wood TV8

TSA security groping leaves 61-year-old bladder cancer survivor soaked in own urine

By Xeni Jardin

61-year-old Thomas Sawyer is a retired special education teacher, and a survivor of bladder cancer. He says he was "absolutely humiliated," broke down in tears and soaked in his own urine, after a degrading and invasive TSA "pat-down" at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on November 7 caused his urostomy bag to rupture. Snip from MSNBC:

Due to his medical condition, Sawyer asked to be screened in private. "One officer looked at another, rolled his eyes and said that they really didn't have any place to take me," said Sawyer. "After I said again that I'd like privacy, they took me to an office."

Sawyer wears pants two sizes too large in order to accommodate the medical equipment he wears. He'd taken off his belt to go through the scanner and once in the office with security personnel, his pants fell down around his ankles. "I had to ask twice if it was OK to pull up my shorts," said Sawyer, "And every time I tried to tell them about my medical condition, they said they didn't need to know about that."
Before starting the enhanced pat-down procedure, a security officer did tell him what they were going to do and how they were going to it, but Sawyer said it wasn't until they asked him to remove his sweatshirt and saw his urostomy bag that they asked any questions about his medical condition.

"One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants."

Sawyer was forced to walk through the airport drenched in his own urine, then board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean himself up in the plane's toilet.