Last Friday, a US federal appeals court sided with the people – finally. The court ruled that travelers can sue the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers for “abusive conduct.”
This is great news for those of us who are absolutely fed up with the rampant invasive and humiliating screenings at the hands of TSA agents.
You know what? Let us call those “screenings” what they often are: Sexual assaults, under the guise of “security.”
Anyway, back to the story…
In a 9-4 decision, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said Transportation Security Administration screeners were “investigative or law enforcement officers” for purposes of searching passengers, waiving the government’s usual immunity from lawsuits.
Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro said the “intimate physical nature” of airport screenings brought them within the ambit of law enforcement, allowing travelers to pursue some civil claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act for intentional wrongdoing.
He downplayed concern that the decision would open the floodgates to litigation, saying that in 2015 fewer than 200 people, out of more than 700 million screened, filed complaints that might trigger the waiver. (source)
The judges rejected the government’s argument that airport screening is different from a search because airline passengers consent to it. They said it’s indeed a search – noting that screeners can search a passenger’s entire body, including sensitive areas.
The court’s decision reversed a July 2018 ruling by a three-judge 3rd Circuit panel.
This decision is a victory for people who have been assaulted by the TSA.
It is a win for people like Nadine Pellegrino, who with her husband sued the TSA for false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution over an incident that occurred in 2006 at Philadelphia International Airport, Reuters reports:
Pellegrino, then 57, had objected to the invasiveness of a random screening prior to her scheduled boarding of a US Airways flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and was accused of striking a TSA officer.
She was eventually jailed for about 18 hours and charged with assault, making terroristic threats and other crimes, which she denied. Pellegrino was acquitted at a March 2008 trial.
“If you think you are a victim of intentional misconduct by TSA agents, you can now have your day in court,” her lawyer Paul Thompson said in an interview. “Nadine never gave up, and it is a real tribute to her courage.” (source)
Here’s more on Pelligrino’s case, from Courthouse News Service:
After she was randomly selected for additional screening, Pellegrino says Transportation Security Administration officers at brought her bags to a private room because she requested discretion.
Once the search, concluded, however, Pellegrino allegedly informed the officers that she planned to report them to her supervisor for excessive conduct. She says they went through her cellphone, counted her coins and currency, smelled each and every one of her cosmetics, and otherwise damaged her property during the ham-fisted search.
It was while Pellegrino was cleaning up the mess of her belongings, she says, that the officers then accused her of striking them. Federal prosecutors in turn brought 10 criminal counts against Pellegrino, only to abandon the case when TSA could not provide any surveillance video of the incident. As for the officers’ testimony, one failed to appear in court and the other was unable to keep the story straight. (source)
Pellegrino and her husband asked the TSA for $951,200 in damages. When their claim was rejected, they sued the TSA and three TSA employees.
It is time to hold the government accountable for violating our rights.
Hopefully, the court’s decision stands. It’s about time we hold people and agencies accountable and responsible for their actions – even those in positions of “authority” like police and other government agents.
It is crucial to retaining the shreds of freedom that remain and perhaps gaining back some lost liberties.
“Go to any airport in this country and you’ll see how well our government is dealing with the terrible danger you’re in. TSA staffers are wanding 90-year-old ladies in wheelchairs, and burrowing through their suitcases. Toddlers are on the no-fly list. Lipsticks are confiscated. And it’s all done with the highest seriousness.
It’s a show of protection and it stirs the fear pot, giving us over and over an image of being in grave personal peril, needing Big Brother to make sure we’re safe.” –
Here are some particularly disturbing examples of TSA “screenings” made under the guise of security.
You might be wondering what you can do about these invasive searches.
I share Daisy’s views on this issue (and pretty much everything liberty-related):
The TSA agents who pat you down and dehumanize you? Stop trying to justify their jobs. Stop trying to make it okay. “These agents are only doing their jobs.” They should be ashamed of themselves for having these jobs. Heck, I’ve even heard people in line at the airport thank the TSA for patting them down. F*ck that. I will not be complicit in my own slavery.
Get out there and be the squeaky wheel.
If you see something wrong, don’t just ignore it. Say something about it, and keep saying something until it changes. Whether this is some process that infringes on your privacy, a job requirement that impedes your health, or another injustice, pursue it relentlessly. Ask questions publically, write letters, and use social media to bring pressure to encourage a change.
If you’re currently taking the easy way through life, if you recognize yourself as a slave, STOP. You don’t have to continue like that.
According to the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
That means that you don’t have to accept the unjust laws. That means you don’t have to quietly take it, muttering under your breath that it isn’t right, but not daring to raise your voice. That means that “they” are only in control of you if you allow it. (source)
I almost became a #TSAMeToo statistic several years ago at an airport in Texas. I was sent through the body scanner and promptly told that “something” showed up in my er, zipper region (I was wearing jeans). A female agent wearing blue latex gloves appeared out of nowhere, presumably to whisk me away for an intimate “screening” but I suppose the look on my face suggested that was a bad idea (Daisy was nearby and said – and I quote – that I looked like I was going to “throat punch” someone). The female agent suggested that I “pull up my jeans a bit” (they were low-rise) and go through the scanner again to see if the “suspicious something” was still there. Of course, nothing showed up my second screening because…nothing was there to be seen.
I used to love flying. The TSA has nearly ruined it for me. If enough of us say NO to their invasive groping, poking, and proddings, maybe things will change. Perhaps this treatment continues because we allow it.
What do you think?
Do you think that the TSA violates our rights? Have you had a negative experience with the agency? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
About the Author
Dagny Taggart is the pseudonym of an experienced journalist who needs to maintain anonymity to keep her job in the public eye. Dagny is non-partisan and aims to expose the half-truths, misrepresentations, and blatant lies of the MSM.
I used to look forward to retirement when I would take all those trips I had put off because of my work schedule. Having retired, I now dread going to the airport, not only because of the TSA ‘Nazis” but because of the ‘cattle cars’ the airlines now call airplanes. If I can drive to my intended destination in 12 hours or less I will do so, carrying my BOB and other items needed for my security. If over 12 hours I will consider extending my trip with a hotel stay enroute. My last option is to fly.
As much as I hate flying now, because of the heighten security BS (and I have flown all over the world before and since 9/11), I say you can have two choices, one line and aircraft with no security check or a second line and aircraft with security checks…your choice.
With that being said, if you are actually violated, then by all means you should have recourse, but if you think that you are above everyone else and shouldn’t have to go through such measures like the rest of the ‘little people’, then you are just being an elitist snob.
Does and has the government overreached, YES!, in many ways… just look no further than congress and it’s abuse of the Bill of Rights.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a government contractor in security (not TSA) and as much as I hate patting people down, especially females or people in wheelchairs (do you realize how gross wheelchairs can be?). The pat downs are always done on camera and using the back of my hand in sensitive areas, I try my best to be discreet and mindful of personal privacy. If you were violated, I’m very sorry. Sadly, we live in dangerous times, which Daisy writes about daily and I read daily and doing our job (correctly) is a hated and necessary evil. Remember that four airliners were taken down with just simple box cutters in 2001 and the majority of us in the security business are just trying to prevent that from happening again.
Sorry you feel the need to victimize disadvantaged people because of your insecurities. There is no need to pay down a 83 year old lady who has just went through your scanner . I am terribly sorry you failed the police Nazi interview but hey , you made the TSA
And I have to fully agree with ToCor above… More than security, I hate, with a passion the ‘sardine can’ flights we have to pay hard earned money for. In 99.99% of the cases, the flight crews do an excellent job, especially dealing with stupid, rude and inconsiderate people, it’s the conglomerate airline companies that ruin the old pleasure of flying. And as ToCor also stated, if I can drive, I will, bringing our BOB’s and ‘restricted items’ with us.
Justifying one’s groping job, whether via TSA (aka Theft & Sexual Assault) or another such entity, on the basis of the government’s “official” story about 9/11 is equivalent to believing that the World Trade Center building 7 (which was never touched by any aircraft) collapsed on its own footprint (just like a controlled demolition) merely out of sympathy for the other WTC buildings. Then there’s that little detail of much of the evidence from that crime scene being hauled off and destroyed — just like the JFK limo with the front entry bullet hole in the windshield.
Believing the “official” story gets you in trouble with events like the OKC bombing where the vertical steel girders that were cut in the explosions could not have been taken down by the slow speed explosive power of the ammonium nitrate in Timothy McVeigh’s truck. Per retired USAF munitions general Benton Partin, only high speed military explosives could have done that damage to the Murrah building. Again, there was officialdom tampering with the case when the investigating grand jury was limited in what they were allowed to investigate. The Oklahoma rancher who was the jury foreman was replaced.
A most recent example of official corruption would have to be the Epstein death. It would be very difficult for a guy bent on suicide to make sure all the guards were either not at their stations or not paying attention or sleeping, to make sure that all cameras were disabled, and to assure that the pathologist who backed up the government’s bogus autopsy of JFK would be brought back from mothballs into service this many decades later to back up the government story of suicide.
Again, remember the infamous words of the late CIA director William Casey who said in a Feb 1981 staff meeting that “We’ll know our disinformation campaign has been successful when everything the American public believes is a lie.”
Believing that one’s “security” job has any power whatsoever to prevent false flag operations by government that kill Americans in order to pave the way for more police state legislation or more falsely justified wars is the height of naivetè.
–Lewis
The magic words are “I opt out!” You have a right to not be scanned by the low frequency radiation emitting body scanners. The TSA “security” regulations allow those unwilling to be run through metal detectors or wanded. Just opt out of the scanner and there will be so many people lined up to be searched the goons will have to let us go. The problem is people just line up for the “scanner” thinking it is easier than objecting. I laugh at the cattle lined up for the chute. The tech used in the body scanners is the same tech used by the military to find buried mines. Ask yourself, do you ever see TSA agents standing around the machine? Object, opt-out! Make them search you. It worked for Ghandi. It will work for us. They have yet to catch a terrorist that wasn’t planted in an airport and then released by the DOJ. Stand up!
I had a job in back in 1980/81 that had me flying 100,000 miles in 18 months. Before “Thousands Standing Around” or “Too Stupid for Arbys” (TSA) came to exist. Air travel has gotten a lot worse between the “cattle class: coach seats and the “airport experience”. I drive from mid-Maryland to the high country of Colorado twice a year. 420 miles of Kansas is nothing to compare with a (first class) security line up.
Evidence of “security theater”
TSA fails internal test, lets fake bombs through (2015 article)
https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/243600-tsa-fails-internal-test-lets-fake-bombs-through
TSA fails most tests in latest undercover operation at US airports (2017 article)
https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story
TSA fails tests 95% of the time (2017 article)
https://onemileatatime.com/tsa-fails-tests-95-percent/
Draw your own conclusions…
–Lewis
If only this BS actually did any good.
It’s nothing but “Security Theater”.
I haven’t flown commercial since the 90’s, and I don’t see myself ever doing it again.
Sure seems like we are being conditioned to accept an invasion on our person in the name of public safety. To what end? I understand safety, yes I do. But the bad guys are not using the airports.
There may indeed be some rare examples of TSA screeners groping passengers under the guise of searching them for dangerous items but, frankly, I didn’t see any in those videos above. Also, it is not impossible for a terrorist to plant a device in an innocent old lady’s luggage without her realizing it, or to tuck it down inside her wheelchair. Further, although it hasn’t happened here, yet, there have been times in other countries when children have been used by adults to smuggle items (even incendiary devices) inside their clothing. The pat downs of the young girl and the 13 year-old boy shown above, in particular, seemed, IMHO, to be less invasive than what they would go through in a normal medical exam. I think those kids and their parents were way over-reacting – possibly as a way to get attention and potentially make some money.
” less invasive than what they would go through in a normal medical exam.”
That’s a non-sequitur. Nobody experiences a “normal medical exam” in public, under pressure of time schedules, while on their way to Disneyland. Nobody.
Sandy, I was referring to the extent of the touching involved, not the place where the exam or (in this case) the pat-down took place, as I’m sure you were well aware.
I stopped flying in November 2010 after I learned about TSA’s immoral, invasive “enhanced pat-downs.”
Since then, I’ve had to fly twice, once for a close friend’s wedding which was on an island, and once for a rushed house-hunting trip where the schedule didn’t allow time for land travel. Other than those trips, I’ve traveled by land since 2010, and it has limited my career and social life, and therefore my liberty.
On both occasions, I was subjected to TSA’s obscene, invasive “enhanced pat-downs.” Both times were traumatic for me; both times I cried involuntarily. On one occasion, the TSA agent showed a modicum of compassion while threatening me that if I didn’t stop crying, I’d be classified as a higher risk. On the other occasion, I WAS classified as a higher risk and sent for the really invasive, intentionally destructive, sexual molestation treatment. On that occasion, TSA explained to me that a sexual assault survivor who cries when molested is viewed by “our protectors” as suspicious.
Those who defend the TSA agents as “just doing their job” have a point: The Nazi rank-and-file were also “just doing their job” when they went door-to-door searching for Jews to persecute. “Just doing their job” is not a real defense when the job description is immoral, invasive, destructive and unConstitutional. It’s impossible for any TSA agent to do “enhanced pat-downs” while respecting the Constitution and the Republic for which it stands.
You are unfortunately correct: burqa-wearers are not being groped. Religious exception. Hence the people most likely to be hiding massive weaponry and to use it to destroy infidel unbelievers are in fact not being searched. Because Islam.
I quit flying when they instituted the pat-downs. Full body scanners have only reinforced my non-flying status. I decided that it wasn’t worth going to jail for hospitalizing an agent for inappropriately touching my junk.
We used to vacation in Europe and the Caribbean Islands, but now we are seeing more of America that is within a 2 day drive.
I used to really enjoy flying. I’d take a trip just to experience the flight. Seeing all those people heading in different directions for business and pleasure. Talking with folks to get their stories. Great fun. The TSA and vast restrictions have tainted air travel. To say they somehow protect us is a joke. It’s mostly a facade so the TSA can say we did the best we could when something actually happens. They’re as effective as a police officer showing up after the crime is committed.
This is great news. I get crotch grabbed every time I fly. I SUSPECT it is because I tell them how theatrical an unnecessary it is because a) I myself am a police officer and would be the FIRST person to act against someone who presented a threat to fellow passenger or crew and
b) I already told you, when asked, that I did not have any prohibited items on my person.
I always ask for a supervisor and then proceed to tell them their claim an ‘anomaly’ in my crotch area was detected by their scatter scanner is bogus because they’re INCAPABLE of giving particulars. In short there was no ANOMALY after all. They simply want to intimidate me into silence by threatening to keep me from flying.
You don’t have grounds to prohibit me. I said. Only YOU can hear my complaints and your lackey wasn’t prevented from back handed gloved ball graze.
I am going to sue.
… Not sure that looking like you’re going to throat punch someone isn’t just asking to be made an example of, but OK.
Lawsuits and other legal actions should have shut TSA abuse down years ago.
The real threat is that as this becomes more likely, the powers that presume to be may stage another successful terrorist incident, which is what most people probably fear.
Its not right to have to live in fear of a Deep State power tantrum, but there’s no questioning the deadly effects of such.
@ Tumbleweed
TSA isn’t in charge of border security. Good job ????
If you dont want to follow screening procedures-drive. No one forces anyone to fly.