Woman Says TSA Forced Piercings Removal

UPDATE:

The Transportation Security Administration said it will change they way its officers search passengers with body piercings after a Texas woman complained she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane.

Mandi Hamlin, 37, had demanded an apology and her Los Angeles-based attorney sent a letter to the TSA this week requesting a civil rights investigation.

Keep reading AP story.

This was in response to an incident at the Lubbock airport on Thursday.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

"Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her," said Hamlin's attorney, Gloria Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA's Office of Civil Rights and Liberties. Allred is a well-known Los Angeles lawyer who often represents high-profile claims.

Keep reading AP story.

Comments

[graffen48]

Hey, I wonder, who searches these jerks before they go to work at the airport???

[Lemeritus]

"TSA officials said they are investigating to see whether its policies were followed."

How many stories have we heard? How many indignities have we all suffered at the hands of these cretins in uniform? Every time a citizen of this country is treated this way, the terrorists win. TSA needs to be disbanded and its employees returned to the occupational schools they flunked out of.

[Lemeritus]

So upset, I ended a sentence in a preposition! I hate TSA!

[brooklyncitizen]

Texas.

[amanda85]

More like Tex-ass

[ashley927]

Personally, I am torn. If god forbid another 9/11 incident happened, even would be on the wagon once again about extreme security measures and doing anything possible to prevent the loss of life. However, left in the hands of individuals twisted enough to abuse this power is where the problem comes into play.

[LeftRight]

I gotta disagree with you. If we had another 9/11 it won't be for lack of trying on our part, it will be because they figured out a loophole that we either didn't notice, or did notice but thought that it was too expensive to patch the hole. That's what happened on 9/11, that's what happened to the USS Cole, that's what happened in the '95 bombing in Oklahoma City, that's what happened in the '93 attack at the WTC, and that's what happened in the Beirut bombing!

The fact of the matter is that I'm not prepared to give up enough freedom to plug every hole, even if it means that I must sacrifice my wife and kids, or myself!

[PDXTransplant]

This should really infuriate people. What is next - removing the braces off your F*(#&ing teeth? We have turned into a society of insanity. What a joke. I would have gone to jail because there is no way in hell I would remove my nipple bars, rings, whatever for the TSA. Janet Jackson better watch out!

[Chubbster]

Of course as we know by experience the TSA and it's people are all amazingly stupid.

[bogananda666]

Too bad she didn't have a clitoris ring as well.

[Moshe]

As a means of providing any real security, the TSA is a sad joke.

But as a means of desensitizing the People to the routine privacy violations of a fascist state: Mission Accomplished.

[CaptainHowdy]

EXACTLY, all this TSA nonsense is about one thing and one thing ONLY...

CONDITIONING the sheeple.

Wait 'till you are subjected to searches before going into malls or stopped at checkpoints in you car. And it WILL happen after the next terror attack happens... which will probably be just before the elections.

[WorkingClass]

No doubt Moshe. Its a "police state" thing.

[tomcatv1]

If the founding fathers could rebel over tea and taxation seems only fitting we should do the same to the TSA. For the Bush administration, there seems to be no difference between the application of torture to the innocent and guilty and the application of a little pain to someone flying between Lubback and Dallas.

[JerseyBob]

THE ANAL TRAVELER WITH THE ITCHY BRAIN
You just left the Larry Craig restroom. Now don't dwell on this too much but think of what you certainly have picked up on the bottems of your shoes (in addition to whatever else might have been there already). This might include small amounts of fecal matter, urine, spit, etc. Why, when walking the dog this morning you might have -never mind. You can take it to the bank-that horrible stuff is there. But it's on the bottom of your shoes so you don't half mind. Nothing you can do about it anyway. And you do have some control over this.

Whoops! You're going to lose control. Going through airport security, you put your shoes in a grey basket used by thousands before you. Your shoes along with other things you use. You may now consider them contaminated by an ocean of microscopic (some chunks maybe) vileness.

Comfortably boxed in on the aircraft you start thinking about your exposure to God knows what. What might these other people have stepped in? You think of the possibilities. You feel itchy. You scratch here and you scratch there. Why, even your brain feels itchy. You try hard not to think of the horrible filth that has now become part of you. Think instead of a running stream...whoops again. Never mind. Relax, treat yourself to that sandwich. Arrrgh! Your hands, your hands!

Have at it; scratch your brain.

[ENK727]

Of course Gloria Allred is on the case!! lol

[rini]

I read a letter in a medical journal with a story that was much more disturbing.

Apparently, a man suffered from severe rectal problems and had had surgeries. He had a mesh surgically placed in his rectum.

Unfortunately, either via metal detector or other means, the agents at the airport found out. The man was trying to get home to New York. He had a letter from his physician. This was not enough. He was forced to let a physician at the airport remove the mesh in order to get home. He later had to have surgery in order to have the mesh re-inserted.

[WrongwayFeldman]

"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for the children of Texas!"

-Miriam “Ma” Ferguson (Governor of Texas - 1925-1927)

Its sad that the evolutionary "epoch" of the human condition is based on something as trivial as a "nipple ring" :(

[outmost1]

Nipples are only dangerous weapons when you let republicans define dangerous

[flydoghead]

Simple abuse of power.......some, I repeat some of these TSA folks appear to take pleasure in abusing
the power they possess within their tiny sphere of influence.
Others do their jobs professionally. I fly every week and see it first hand. Just like in every walk of life there are bullies. Little people who need to be run over in the airport crosswalks.

[WilliePilgrim]

So which of our candidates has addressed this aspect of our lives that virtually everyone, regardless of political affiliation, finds to be an affront to our sense of freedom. These abuses by the TSA and the other Bush created security apparatus are as much a threat to our freedoms as the problems they propose to address...badly.
The fact that it resembles political theater more than actual security needs to be brought out into the public forum...or have the terrorists won and our actions are now fundamentally guided by fear...fear of our own govermnets power to get up into our faces and make us regret we ever questioned them.