Happy Holidays from the TSA

Disabled woman beaten to bloody pulp thanks to TSA

But I'm the one who's the freak for refusing to support this insanity. Yeah, right.

From Raw Story:

Disabled woman beaten bloody by TSA agents 

after becoming confused and afraid 

at security checkpoint

(Photo of Hannah Cohen courtesy of WREG)

LaGuardia TSA agent arrested for sexual assault

UPDATED BELOW. A TSA agent at LaGuardia Airport in New York has been arrested for sexually assaulting a 22-year-old woman. The only reason he was arrested was because he molested her in a bathroom. If he had followed standard operating procedure, he would've molested her at the checkpoint, where it's usually done. 

Give to TSA Watch

The fundraising drive at TSA Watch has been stuck at $6,921 for weeks. The TSA is sexually assaulting people at airports in this country every day. We and many other organizations have been documenting it for years. I don't know what else people need to know in order to care.

Oh, wait a minute -- for some people, getting robbed is more serious than getting sexually assaulted. Okay, fine. The TSA is robbing people at airports in this country every day. 

Shoshana Hebshi settles lawsuit against TSA, Frontier Airlines

Shoshana Hebshi, the Ohio woman who was handcuffed, hauled off a plane at gunpoint, and strip-searched in a jail cell -- all without probable cause -- has settled her lawsuit against the TSA, Frontier Airlines, and other government agencies. 

TSA rigged system to grope men’s genitals

From KCNC, the CBS affiliate in Denver, comes this completely unsurprising "news": TSA clerks at Denver International Airport deliberately messed with the strip-search scanners to alarm on attractive male passengers so one of the blue-shirted goons could grope them.

No, Virginia, say it ain't so! 

Redditor finally discovers the TSA is abusive

From a thread started at Reddit by someone who is just now discovering that the TSA is abusive. Duh. Sorry, patience is admittedly not one of my virtues, but I really can't take it anymore -- not only the surprise exhibited by people who seem to have been living under a rock for the past, oh, six years, but worse, those who deny, deny, deny what's right in front of their faces.

Another TSA abuse, another day in the USA

Unfortunately, Blogger is on the fritz and has been for days, so I can't update the Master List of TSA Crimes and Abuses (see menu at top of the page -- Pages 1 and 2 both). I give up. So here's an addition (along with my reply to her) that might someday be added to the list, if Blogger ever gets its act together. From February 2, 2015:

Trish24 • 2 days ago

I may never fly again and I am serious thank you TSA. I was TSA prechecked but my hands got wanded and supposedly something showed up. My carryons were totally dumped out including my wallet I was taken to a room for full pat down..breast, groin they reached inside my pants...degrading, humiliating and frightening..I am a 63 year old woman with high blood pressure they are lucky I didn't stroke out! As I tried o repack my carryons and tuck in my shirt I heard the agents state that I was the fifth false positive that morning and they knew the wand was defective. Not going back to RSA Fort Meyers!

Judicial Watch sues TSA/DHS over sexual abuse complaints

This is what it takes to get answers from the TSA and DHS: you have to sue them. And even then you'll be stonewalled. 

Actor Verne Troyer pawed by TSA

Since I was away for three weeks, I missed a lot of TSA stories. They didn't get reported at TSA News, either, so forgive me for being late to the party. 

Partial kinda sorta victory for Shoshana Hebshi

We’ve written about Shoshana Hebshi twice here at TSA News and about the hideous, Kafka-esque injustice she suffered at the hands of the United States government, via our friendly abusers at the TSA, Frontier Airlines, and law enforcement, aka the police. 

"Jane Doe" Raped by CBP and Hospital Personnel Settles Part of Lawsuit

The case of a woman who was raped -- repeatedly -- by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and by medical personnel at the University Medical Center of El Paso has been partially settled.

I first wrote about the case here. Though this kind of thing goes on all the time at borders (and in prisons and detention centers), this particular case was so egregious that even the mainstream media reported on it. 

New passenger discovers TSA grope policy

ADDENDUM March 1, 2016: Since I originally wrote this post, two years ago, the weasely, lying, criminal TSA has, of course, eliminated several of the pages to which I linked. If you click on those links today, you'll get an error message: "Page Not Found." Why is it not found? Who knows? Because the TSA is incompetent? Because it doesn't want people to learn what its policies are, we the people who pay every stinking salary at that stinking agency? I don't know. But I do know that I've gone through hundreds of past posts I've done at TSA News and corrected, repeatedly, broken links, only to find, later, that they become broken once again. I give up. The TSA is trying to hide its policies because its policies are abusive. And when it doesn't outright hide them, it tries to obfuscate them with weasely language. So take what you will from this post. Everything I wrote here is accurate and true and was backed up with empirical evidence. The TSA's hiding or removing of that evidence is par for the course.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Charlotte Ann Kimbrough is a 57-year-old retired law enforcement professional. She worked for 32 years in an administrative capacity with the U.S. Attorney's Office, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and other federal law enforcement agencies. She has two metal hip replacements.

UPDATE to Cecily McMillan Case

A couple of updates to the case of the injustice carried out against Cecily McMillan, which I wrote about earlier today. 

The updates are from the UK paper the Guardian, which has given this story comprehensive coverage throughout, unlike the American mainstream press, which, if it covers it at all, usually buries it -- in the case of the New York Times, in the NY Region section, even though it's a case with national implications. 

(Oh, and I'm still looking for it at NPR, whose website shows nothing about the case. Surprise, surprise.)  

Cecily McMillan, Victim of Police Assault, Found Guilty, In Jail

In the continuing cavalcade of innocent people put in prison in this country -- the vast majority of whom are poor and/or people of color -- we now add Cecily McMillan, an Occupy activist who was assaulted by a New York City cop and who is now in jail for it.

You read that right. She was assaulted by him. Yet she is in jail. And he -- with a history of committing abuse -- is walking free.  

TSA and CBP: comrades in arms -- and crimes

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are two different agencies operating under the aegis of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Therefore, it shouldn't come as a surprise that they have sensibilities, practices, and impunity in common. The major difference is that the TSA has no law enforcement authority while CBP does. That power makes the latter even more dangerous.

Same old same old: TSA harasses, punishes man in Hawaii

Nico Melendez is a spokesman for the TSA. Meaning he's a professional liar.

We have the latest example of his gift for lying in a story from Hawaii.

TSA strip-searches another victim

In the on-going sordid history of TSA agents bullying, harassing, robbing, and sexually assaulting people, we have a new story, this time about a cancer survivor.

No criminal charges pursued in Denver TSA assault

Predictably, the Denver District Attorney has decided not to press charges against the TSA agent who assaulted Jamelynn Steenhoek.

We first reported on Steenhoek’s case here. We lauded the fact that the local police seemed to be taking her seriously, though without hope that anything would come of it.

Denver police initiate sexual assault investigation after TSA pat-down

UPDATE BELOW.

Finally! Someone in law enforcement is taking seriously the charge of sexual assault by TSA workers.

Jamelyn Steenhoek, 39, was accompanying her 13-year-old daughter to the gate for the daughter’s flight. Steenhoek “alarmed” when she went through the metal detector. Then her hands were swabbed and they “alarmed.”