Controversy over pat-downs, body scans lands at DIA

Disturbing Photo of TSA Pat-Down From The Denver Post
Photo taken last night at Denver International Airport Transportation Security Administration agents perform enhanced pat-downs on passengers at DIA on Wednesday amid growing Controversy about the screenings and full-body Scanners, one week before Thanksgiving Air travelers crowd Airports. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post) denverpost.com Despite ongoing criticism from some Washington lawmakers and many travelers, Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole refused Wednesday to ba...

Controversy over pat-downs, body scans lands at DIA
At U.S. airports, the TSA has been deploying more advanced imaging scanners that perform a kind of electronic Strip-search on passengers and allow screeners hidden in control rooms to Search the images for Concealed Weapons and explosives. And in recent weeks, TSA screeners also have escalated the pat-down procedure on passengers in a way that some say is far too intrusive....

Instead of a TSA airport search, he'll take the train
Kyle Whitney is headed home for the holidays next week, but unlike 1.6 million Americans who say they plan to fly, he's taking the train. This Story Instead of a TSA Airport Search, he'll take the train Poll: Full-body scan or pat-down? Dr. Gridlock: TSA officials get 'pat-downs' If you won't submit to screening, you won't fly, TSA says Airport 'pat-downs' cause growing passenger backlash Poll: Have you ever been subjected to an Airport Security 'pat down'? Full-body Scanners installed at Dul...

Travelers opt for autos over air, experts say
Amid growing public uproar over invasive Airport Security procedures and assorted fees tacked onto the price of Airline Tickets, this Thanksgiving will see the largest share of automobile drivers versus Air travelers of any Holiday in the past decade, Travel experts said. The shift to driving will happen even though Gasoline prices will remain high, $3.05 on average for a gallon of unleaded fuel in Illinois, the experts said. Next week, 94 percent of Thanksgiving travelers nationally are expec...

You want to do what?
The Transportation Security Administration's recent stepped-up screening of airline passengers and crews has created some backlash among flight personnel, consumer groups and Privacy rights groups. We're mostly for anything that will make the airways safer, but criticism that the new methods lend themselves to abuse needs to be addressed. At issue are two new measures, full-body screening machines and a new pat-down method that is much more intrusive into private areas of the Body. The TSA nee...

Rep. John Mica urges airports to opt out of TSA screening
As complaints grow over full Body Scanners, one local congressman said he wants Airports, including Orlando International Airport, to use private security to screen passengers. U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, has sent a letter to the heads of more than 150 airports across the country, suggesting that they opt out of Transportation Security Administration screening. Mica is in line to become chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. His letter did not address ...

TSA Chief: Body Scans, Pat Downs Necessary
A growing number of Air travelers are upset about the full Body scans and pat downs that are conducted at Security checkpoints at U.S. airports. John Pistole, the chief of the Transportation Security Administration, went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to answer questions about the new procedures. Pistole has experienced an enhanced pat down first hand. "It was more invasive then what I was used to," he said. Yet, the TSA chief said they're necessary and a reality of Air Travel -- especially as t...

Airports Weigh Congressman's Call To Ditch TSA
In a climate of Internet campaigns to shun Airport pat-downs and Veteran pilots suing over their treatment by government screeners, some Airports are considering another way to show dissatisfaction: ditching TSA agents altogether. Federal law allows Airports to opt for screeners from the Private Sector instead. The push is being led by a powerful Florida congressman who's a longtime critic of the Transportation Security Administration and counts among his campaign contributors some of the compan...

Are the New Airport Scanners Making You Rethink Holiday Plans? - The Takeaway
The backlash against new airport screening procedures is growing. Last month, the Transportation Security Administration started rolling out full Body Scanners that allow screeners to check for weapons concealed by clothing. If a passenger opts out of the scan, they must submit to an "enhanced" pat-down. A group of fliers is calling for people to Boycott the Scanners over the Thanksgiving holiday, forcing screeners to conduct the pat-downs, causing disruptions at one of the busiest travel times ...

Americans Brace for Thanksgiving Flights -- and Pat-Downs
The growing Controversy over intrusive U.S. Airport Security measures is more than just the punchline to an off-color joke. It comes on the eve of one of the busiest Travel seasons in the U.S.: the Thanksgiving holiday. It's also raising questions in the Travel industry about whether the invasive procedures could prompt some would-be passengers to swear off flying. "People are nervous. They imagine naked pictures of themselves on the Internet," says Blake Fleetwood, owner of New York-based Co...

Are TSA gropings helping keep us safe?
The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has been in the news non stop over the past week. Travelers claim the new “groping” policy is invasive and insulting. The TSA says it’s the only way they could have caught the “underwear bomber.” But wait, the “underwear bomber” was on the no-fly list. He was a known trainee for Terrorist operations, banned from the UK from entering. His father called the CIA and told them his son was a nut and may do some...

TSA: Touch Sensitive Areas
The website Mediaite dubbed it "The Junk Grabbing Photo You'll Be Seeing All Day Today." My buddies on "Morning Joe" had a good ol' time giggling over it, too. IT is the Denver Post photo of a Transportation Security Administration officer at Denver International Airport getting up-close-and-personal with a passenger during an enhanced pat-down. Go ahead. Get your chuckle on. But what many people view as an invasion of Privacy, I view as protecting my life and the lives of others. Yes, TSA must...

'G-Rated' Body Scans? US Not Most Extreme
Critics have blasted the Transportation Security Administration for putting passengers through graphic Body Scanners and enhanced pat-downs -- but technology and political pressure may move American Scanners in a more G-rated direction even as foreign countries are getting more invasive. More Video The TSA is testing new X-ray technology that will show a "stick figure" instead of a passenger's full-body Image. Viewers on the other end of the X-ray would see anomalies -- anything from a suic...

TSA sees sanitary napkins in naked body scans
© unk Body scan TSA sees sanitary napkins in naked body scans The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) now admits that Airport Scanners that can see through clothes to create images of the naked body can also detect sanitary napkins. New York Times reporter Joe Sharkey wrote that he was getting a lot of question from women who Travel in a little noticed article Monday. "Do the imagers, for example, detect sanitary napkins?" women wanted to know. "Yes," wrote Sharkey. "Does that...

Hold that (airport) pose
So who knew it would be that easy to respond to the increase in public outrage over intrusive Airport Body Scanners with, well, technology. At the start of the busiest travel season of the year, airline passengers are faced with two unpleasant choices: submit to revealing X-rays that gave screeners a fairly detailed view of what we used to call private parts or get an up-close and personal pat-down from an agent of the Transportation Security Administration. First pilots and Flight Attendants b...

TSA: Religion offers no exemption from airport screening
A couple of months ago we wrote about how Canadian were outraged to discover that at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport, Security personnel did not ask veiled Muslims women to lift their veils, show and ID, and prove their identity. The veiled women did not even interact with Security personnel: rather, a man traveling with the women would typically hand in all the passports and would be the only one to communicate with airline staff while the veiled women simply walked through, unch...

Bay Area prosecutors warn TSA agents not to be sexual with pat downs
A passenger is patted down at Terminal A checkpoint. Passenger have a choice to skip this and instead go through the new full-body Scanner. (Karen T. Borchers/Mercury News) As nearly 2 million holiday travelers pack Bay Area airports starting Friday, local prosecutors have a warning for overzealous security agents performing the new federal pat-down: touch passengers the wrong way, and we'll throw you in jail. Unsuspecting families and rookie travelers using San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland i...

TSA Touchin' Junk
At Denver Post, "Controversy Over Pat-Downs, Body Scans Lands at DIA" (via Memeorandum). PREVIOUSLY : * "'If You Touch My Junk': Man Ejected From San Diego Airport for Refusing Security Check." * "Janet Napolitano Defends TSA Full-Body Scans and Pat Downs." * "Free John Tyner!" * "Leaked Body Scans." ...

Lawmakers Move to Eject Nude Scanners From New York Airports
A New York City lawmaker on Thursday introduced Legislation to prohibit the TSA from using its advanced Body Scanners at New York Airports, including JFK, the busiest International Airport in the country. Democratic councilman David Greenfield says six fellow Council Members have signed onto the proposal, which comes amid growing unease over the so-called Advanced Imaging Technology Scanners, which allow airport screeners to see beneath a traveler’s clothes. Critics of the screening have ...

Airports consider congressman's call to ditch TSA
Atlanta – In a climate of Internet campaigns to shun Airport pat-downs and veteran pilots suing over their treatment by government screeners, some Airports are considering another way to show dissatisfaction: Ditching TSA agents altogether. Federal law allows Airports to opt for screeners from the Private Sector instead. The push is being led by a powerful Florida congressman who's a longtime critic of the Transportation Security Administration and counts among his campaign contributors ...

TSA: Scanners will show only 'stick figure'
The Controversial naked Body Scanners at Logan International Airport will soon be G-rated, as Boston’s Airport is set to be the nation’s first to get new X-ray technology showing a “stick figure” instead of the Controversial outline of a passenger’s assets, the Airport’s federal security director said yesterday. “All you’ll have is stick figure and a little block around each anomaly on you,” George Naccara of the Transportation Security Admi...

U.S. firm may have solution to airport screening uproar
WASHINGTON — After 23-year-old Nigerian Terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded a flight from the Netherlands to Detroit last Christmas with enough explosives to bring down the plane, officials at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport decided to build a better mousetrap. So they installed more than a dozen full-body Scanners capable of detecting metallic and non-metallic materials, including explosives, gels, powders and liquids. In the 11 months that the devices have operated, Schiphol l...

Balancing Liberty and Security: YOURE DOING IT WRONG
Keeping this from happening again should be our top concern. But “Strip and grope” Security won’t do the trick. Outrage over the Transportation Security Administration’s new “Strip and grope” airport searches seems unlikely to die down anytime soon, because most people sense a big difference between the mere hassle of being told what you can’t bring onto a plane and removing your shoes as opposed to the invasiveness of being put through full-body Scanners and ...

Federal TSA employees or private companies?
Florida Representative John Mica has become outspoken against the TSA, Transportation Security Administration, and the way it enforces the safety procedures in airports all across the nation.  He proposes that we kick the the TSA employees out of their jobs and give them to private contractors. Per federal law this is a perfectly legal option that airports have.  They are permitted to have private contractors provide their security as long as they abide by TSA standards.  The thin...

TSA chief: New pat-downs necessary, policies stay put
WASHINGTON — Senators assailed the head of the Transportation Security Administration on Wednesday over the agency's new, more invasive Airport pat-downs that have led to widespread Controversy. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, told TSA Administrator John Pistole that the huge "outcry" from travelers demanded that TSA soften its procedures. "There's got to be a way … for a Privacy concern to be addressed," Hutchison said at a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee. "I know y...