Flinching is NOT ALLOWED!

Apparently, flinching is now considered a hostile act.

On Friday I received the most appalling email from a friend and former co-worker. I didn’t want to post it until I could get her on the phone and ask her permission to post because there’s some very personal details in here. I spoke to her yesterday, and she said I can post it provided I keep her anonymous. This friend of mine just had an ectopic pregnancy three weeks ago (also known as a “tubal pregnancy”). She was only one week out of the hospital, and still had a large bandage covering the abdominal incision area, as well as a thick menstrual pad due to continued bleeding, when she flew last week. She probably shouldn’t have been flying, but she had an opportunity for a long-term assignment (she does freelance marketing and graphic design from her home). So, here’s her email (I’ve deleted some parts that could identify her). Note that there are some words in there that are probably NSFW, but this is how she talks, so I’m posting what she wrote.

I asked her if she got names, but she didn't even think to. Nor did she file a compliant - by the time it was all over she was not feeling well at all, and had to go sit down for a while...and by then her plane was boarding.

I'm just sickened. Actually "sickened" doesn't even cover it - I'm not sure there's a word in the English language that conveys strongly enough my utter horror that this is going on in our formerly-great nation, with no recourse.

 

LeeAnne, please convey to your friend our sympathy and best wishes.

Unfortunately, we here at TUG know that this kind of abuse is routine. It's the idiot naysayers out there who want to pretend it isn't. I'll add her account to my Master List.

I notice, however -- sadly -- that until this happened she apparently treated you like you were crazy. Frankly, it becomes harder and harder to have sympathy for people like this. Many of us have been ringing alarm bells about TSA abuse for a couple of years now, yet we still have to face the know-nothings and be ridiculed by them.

 

Of course our resident Screener will say that this could not have happened because the pat down (grope down) does not touch the genitals.

Sounds like sexual assault to me and the screener should be charged. Not to late for a complaint. Suggest your friend send this letter in its entirety to TSA's "Talk to TSA" along with copies to EPIC and the worthless (on TSA issues) ACLU.

 

Strangely, I was thinking about "flinching" today, knowing that if my crotch were touched by a screener, I would most certainly flinch as I would if my breasts were touched.

One grope at a time, people will be converted.

 

Lisa, you are correct that MANY people think that I am completely over-the-top in my position against the TSA. And that includes close family members. My husband, in fact, while he seems to at least agree that what they are doing is wrong, said to me recently that he hopes I won't "make a scene" when we fly to Tahiti in June for our vacation. All I can tell him is that if they don't try to forcibly irradiate me, or touch my genitalia without my permission, then I won't make a scene. But I will NOT allow them to irradiate me, or sexually molest me - simple as that.

Anyway, this particular friend - she exaggerates a bit when she said she called me "crazy"...really, all that she'd said in the past was that she thought I was "making too big a deal out of it". Perhaps she DID think I was crazy, but she never told me that! And she clearly doesn't think so now.

I continue to be stunned and disgusted by the number of people who really don't think it's a "big deal". Just do what they say, and get on with it, seems to be their thought process. Well, that doesn't work for me, because "doing what they say" involves allowing them to do things to me that are, plain and simple, dangerous, abusive and unacceptable.

Perhaps everyone is going to have to go through this type of experience at least once before they get it.

 

Clearly, flinching is considered a hostile act, preventing them from "doing their job". Message: just stand there and take it, and for God's sake do NOT let them know that you are in pain or in any way object, or they'll just start all over, and this time, do it harder.

 

Power and control. Power and control. Wash, rinse, repeat. And still the sheeple don't get it. Oops -- did I say "sheeple"? So sorry, I meant fine upstanding virtuous free citizens who know their rights and think for themselves and have sympathy for their fellow human beings. You know, good people. Like the "good Germans."

(LeeAnne, I have the same problem with clueless family and friends. I've told the story enough times around here. That's okay. They're wrong. We're right. And one of these days, they'll get their comeuppance.)

 

I keep thinking that my response (not that I ever plan on setting foot in an airport until scope-n-grope is abandoned and Pistole is in prison, where he belongs) would be to stare unblinkingly at the smurf-clerk and, if they don't return my gaze, ask "What's the matter? Can't look me in the eye as you're violating my 4th-amendment rights?"

 

Yup - I'm a nut job too. So sorry for your friend...I keep thinking that one of these days someone is going to go "Pistole" on TSA and I will not feel one bit bad.

 

I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.

 

I don't want to sound like a broken record about the Occupy movement, but the thugocracy at UC Berkeley says that linking arms is an act of violence. It's the same attitude that was encountered here. I've tried to be fair-minded to TSA, but this sort of story makes it extremely difficult.

 

LeeAnne,

I think it's vitally important that your friend report every detail of the abuse to her State Governor, State Representatives, Senators and Congressmen. This incident cannot go unreported. A request for whatever video may be available should also be filed.

 

Sounds like a criminal assault to me. But let's not forget, most such assaults go unreported, and who can fault the victim? Want to live your life in a fishbowl? Who would? TSA won't do anything, staffed by zombies and run by criminals.

 

It's a tough call, a really tough call. But the advice I'd give would be to report it as Elizabeth suggests. Why? This is her health that we're talking about. Those thugs could really have hurt her so soon after surgery.

 

One of my friends did this last year going out of MSP-HH. They tagged her as hostile and abnormal, she got the put in the glass box until she 'decided to comply' then subjected to the full enhance putdown ringed by 2 other clerks-forming a safe perimeter. And everything in her bag and outer layers of clothing was stripped, examined and swabbed.

She was denied a compliant form because she was "the one whom instigated the hostile act" and made the TSA agent uncomfortable.

By staring and not breaking eye contact.

She one of the few around me that's on our side, and she does not at all think I or any of you are crazy. (but that's what it took.)

 

This kind of retaliation must be reported to State Governors, State Representatives, Congressmen and Senators. Video must be sought and obtained. The denial of the complaint form is serious, because it proves the TSA is lying about the number of complaints they receive.

 

I agree. Linking arms is not violent. Flinching in pain is not violent, nor is it uncooperative. Making eye contact is not failure to comply. These nonviolent behaviors on the part of the Fascist Police State's victims cannot be redefined as violence/noncompliance/lack of cooperation that justifies retaliation with physical brutality and sexual assaults. Assaulting citizens who dare to cry out in pain, flinch from blows, make eye contact with their abuser or link arms is simply insane.

The first amendment doesn't even speak to such opression. I don't think anyone could anticipate such violations of citizens' rights.

 

Governors, Reps, Congress-menbers are mostly too chickens**t to really stand up for our rights against DHS and TSA. There are a FEw, but so few. I hate to use Family Guy as an example but there's a grain of truth in the one where Lois runs for mayor and blurts our "Nine Eleven" senselessly over and over when she realize that those two words got her everything she wanted.

Getting video-again they seem to set up an endless circular set of hoops designed to give us the illusion we can use the FOIA but in reality is all about stalling and deadends.

I am grateful I am an American citizen but ashamed that those we appoint to office do not act like they hold true, the basic American rights and values.

 

What if you tried to bring a tent into the airport?

 

Now you're talking. I've been wondering......