Tuesday, December 11, 2012

TSA agents like to pat down pretty ladies. But why?

Spend just a little time searching comments about the Transportation Security Administration on Twitter and you’ll see a lot of posts from pretty ladies who have been felt up by TSA agents.
Sometimes traveling companions will post photos of their friends getting fondled. A picture is definitely worth a thousand words here. It’s comical that the TSA will pat down these women who often are wearing body-hugging outfits. The only thing dangerous on these ladies is their curves.
Women writing on Twitter about their TSA pat downs are surprised by the experience. Depending on the person, they express bemusement, outrage and other emotions at the incident.
But why do TSA agents pat down obviously harmless young women?
In public responses to such activity, the TSA claims its pat downs are random. They’re meant to keep the bad guys guessing, they say.
If that’s true, then TSA agents are just wasting their time and that of the traveling public. And they know it. Not a good way to spend taxpayer dollars.
Worse yet, this security theater subjects innocent citizens to searches that would be illegal if done by law enforcement officers. That’s because they have no probable cause to search these women. U.S. citizens are supposed to be protected from unreasonable searches by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
These so-called random pat downs are designed to avoid racial profiling. “Look, we’re treating everybody the same!” What a joke.
I can understand why people would think racial profiling makes sense for airport security. After all, just look at the photos of the terrorists involved in the 9/11 hijackings.
But racial profiling is illegal for a reason. It treats whole groups of people as suspects because of their skin color. That’s wrong and again violates our constitutional rights. So random pat downs today mean that a blonde teenage girl has as good a chance of being frisked as Mohamed Atta.
Effective security against terrorists must occur before a suspect ever reaches the airport. It requires intelligence gathering and law enforcement officials working together.
But back to the question of why TSA agents pat down pretty ladies.
This activity by the TSA has been well documented in the news media. (See articles below.) Some people describe it as “flying while attractive,” a variation of “driving while black.” Just as racist cops will pull over black motorists, some TSA agents want to molest pretty women.
The frequency with which it occurs leads observers to suspect that either male TSA agents enjoy using their power to watch female passengers get groped or lesbian TSA agents want to do the groping themselves.
One more reason to abolish the TSA and reform airport security.

Related reading:

Female Passengers Say They’re Targeted By TSA (CBS; Feb. 3, 2012)

Female Passengers Say They Were Targeted for TSA Body Scanners (Wired; Feb. 14, 2012)

Airport security makes married mother go through body scanner THREE times... after telling her she had a ‘cute’ figure (Daily Mail; Feb. 15, 2012)


Photos (from top): 
Carlo Mondavi posted a photo of his wife getting a TSA pat down on March 25, 2012, to his @CarloMondavi Twitter account. 
Photo by Schuyler McFerran at Oakland airport TSA checkpoint posted to Twitter account @_schuyler_ on June 10, 2012. 
Twitter user Jaye Sosa posted this photo to @jayesworld on Sept. 2, 2012, saying “TSA stopped basically our whole team.” 
Katie Alexander of the Bikini Hockey League gets a TSA pat down in this Aug. 2, 2012, photo posted to Facebook

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