TSA posts video of "TSA Agents Took My Son" incident:

If it is, I think she owes a lot of people an apology.

TSA had to blur the wanding of the lady?

and also by the dishonest inflammatory post by the mother. it seemed to me that the time she had to spend in security was excessive and they wanded her an awful lot, but she was not separated from her child.

You don't either, especially if you are relying on the video.

There are missing time periods not captured on the video. The time clock jumps and seconds are left out of this video Sure, it appears that it wasn't more than seconds, but for someone prone to anxiety (she had her xanac with her), seconds can be days if trying to make a flight especially if you have a child to be concerned with.

What is truly sad is that she was required to unzip her pants, in public, in the presence of men, while she was "wanded". The exposure is so sensitive, the TSA blurred the video as she was wanded. I counted at lest 3 men walking around the area as the video was blurred. The additional screening appears to be in the public view as well.

No one should be required to expose themselves.

As a screener cautions:



If she was required to expose herself in public her rights were violated.

And please realize, TSA policy provides that if one fails to walk through properly or if the person causes the WTMD to alarm, they only get one chance. Two people went through the process, she should have been afforded a second chance.

Did she lie, I don't know. Did she exaggerate, it is possible but that is not something that is uncommon or unexpected given her circumstances and that does not explain away the TSA violating her civil rights.

.

And the blurring means there is no proof that her rights were violated. You're just assuming that. If they truly were violated, her future attorney can file a FOIA request for the unblurred tapes. i bet that never happens because she knows already what the video will show.

"hold" to be so sensitive that they blurred the image before releasing it to the public. Go notice that it was blurred, then not blurred and then blurred again.

The video is missing segments. What happened from the time of her first walk through until she had to stand in the box? Approximately 21 seconds are missing. During that time the TSA fellow could have held the child.

There are other portions of the video that time periods are skipped - it is not a continuous video.

You're grasping here. She's a liar and one that has been caught in her lie. This is nothing more than a case of White Privilege exposed. After all, THEY are only supposed to look at the scary foreigners.

21 seconds that is displayed. See how many passengers are allowed to grab their things and leave while she is in that glass box (while she is detained).

There is another 19 seconds missing after she leaves the box and before she is allowed to sit down, notice how the TSA lady has to bring her the stroller and how so many huddle around her, including some man talking to her child?

A whole lot of activity for this to be a huge exaggeration on her part and an incomplete video sure doesn't equal transparency.

Less in a crowded airport. In an open field she could have cleared 45 feet in that time. More if she was running. In a crowded line, much less. Those missing seconds are wholly unimportant. Anything significant that would have happened during them would have the results evidenced immediately afterwards on the tape. Stop grasping at straws. Do you know this woman personally or have some beef with the TSA? Your attempts to back her up are just laughable and desperate straw grasping.

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Even though it was blurred, you could tell that she was being wanded around the perimeter of her body and the inside of her legs. I guess that even liars deserve a little privacy.

The TSA agent put the wand down and patted her donw, they are not authorized to do that.

And TSA would not have edited the video to put that blur over the wanding and pat down if there were no concerns about her privacy and/or the actions of the TSA.

I love how so many take the video at face value.

... at all.

Go watch again and notice how the time clock jumps.

Did she exaggerate, probably but you cannot tell from that video is she lied.

See post 10.

In the few seconds the tape skipped. :sarcasm:

You are way too quick to blame the government here and take her side. Do you have an axe to grind with the TSA for some reason?

Her rights were violated. The constitution is pretty clear about unreasonable search and seizure. To require any citizen, whether it be a man or a woman, to unzip their pants/slacks/jeans and expose themselves in public, in the presence of the opposite sex, is a violation of the civil rights of that citizen.

That happened on camera and is so sensitive, even the TSA blurred the image. The blurred image is proof that the TSA considered the viewing in public to be unfair to the woman.

I dislike any authority figure or person holding a job of responsibility who abuses that position to violate another's civil rights and who refuses to use compassion when performing their job.

Simple compassion and a lot of common sense would have had this woman through the process in a matter of minutes without the need to blog.

I have a problem with TSA claiming transparency when there is time missing, when the video is not complete and when they have to blur images.

Edited to add: I find it most comical that you complain about the woman exaggerating in her blog as you exaggerate and distort the truth in your posts.

Most comical indeed.

I can be an exaggerating blowhard on the internet when I'm not making false criminal accusations against government employees. There is no direct evidence that her rights were violated. If she truly thinks the unblurred tape will prove they were, she can have her attorney or any pro-bono civil rights attorney file a FOIA for the unedited tape to prove her case. I bet that never happens. She knows that she lied on her blog. Like most bloggers, she's an attention whore and thought this false accusation would bring readers to her blog. It did but she got caught in her lie.

and I see the poor handling of a citizen by the TSA.

You have not proven a lie.

The video does not prove a lie.

The 19 seconds missing between the time she makes the pass through until she is in the box is ample enough time for a man to grab her child from her.

Notice how the white haired man with the beard scrambles from the pass through section to the additional screening section while she is in the box. Notice again how there is a 21 second gap between the time she leaves the box until she is allowed to sit down. The next thing you know others come to her side, bring her the stroller and that same white haired, bearded man comes to talk to her and to the play with the baby.

Again, the video is clear about one thing, the TSA considered the wanding episode so sensitive that they blurred it. They had time to edit the video by blurring that portion of the video and there is missing time.

Their transparency is not as transparent as they want others to believe.

You said: "The 19 seconds missing between the time she makes the pass through until she is in the box is ample enough time for a man to grab her child from her."

But that is not when she said the child was taken. She describes very very clearly that she was allowed to sit down with her son, which the video shows her doing. She says very clearly that the man came over to wand her son, which the video shows. She then has a very, very long narrative about the man taking her son out of her sight. Her yelling "where is my son" and calling her mom and dad.

There are no breaks in the video for this part. It is simply not true. The guy does pick up the kid, and he is off camera for like 5 seconds, but she isn't even freaking out about it, and she certainly didnt reach for her bag and get her phone, and she didn't make a call.

TSA is a pain in the ass, but she was simply annoyed that she had to put up with TSA security and she decided to lie in a blog post about it. She is a liar. You have some emotional reason for trying to deny that.

No, you don't because there is no video of that portion of the video.

:rofl:

Are you aware that citizens of other countries are now choosing to go on vacation to other places, many because of these kinds of abuses in the name of the so-called WOT? Tourism is down by 17%. In fact I have friends from Europe who will not come here anymore, and from Canada, because unlike the cowed citizens of this country, having been indoctrinated into submission by the scare tactics of their government, they do not accept being treated like cattle.

Why are YOU defending these people treating other human beings as if they were criminals? Did she threaten anyone, wave a weapon around, what exactly did she do to warrant this treatment. And I'm not talking about HER version of the story. Just what's in the edited tape should be a cause for concern in a free society.

You seem very willing to give up OUR rights to not be harassed by the government without good reason. If you want to do that, fine, but you don't speak for the rest of us. I hope she does sue. These abuses would be even worse, as they were when all this nonsense first started, had many citizens including a female member of Congress, not stood up against them.

It's disturbing how easy it was to get so many scared people to go along with giving up their rights just so they could 'feel safe'.

That requires a follow up investigation by the TSA. She was detained a total of 8 minutes to verify that what set off the metal detector wasn't anything that would cause harm to the passengers on the plane.
That's like claiming that the drug sniffing dogs smelling your weed are invading your privacy.

I have no interest in weed personally, I cannot believe that it is illegal. Grown up adults should have the right to smoke it if they want to. What a nanny state this is. All these 'Wars' on whatever, are nothing more than ways to take away rights and to make money, or provide an excuse to interfere in other countries. But one thing they are NOT for, is the welfare of the people. If the safety and well-being of the people was what this was all about we wouldn't have tens of thousands Americans dying every year because their government doesn't believe they have the right to live, would we?

That video is so disturbing to me. Looking at how she was treated, and I have not read her version of the story yet, I am appalled. To place someone in a 'box', to embarrass them in public like that, when did this ever become acceptable? You say it was all because she set off a metal detector? Well, let's say she had a knife. Aside from the awfulness of the whole procedure, they left her alone for so long, that if she had wanted to cause harm, she had plenty of time to do so. It's a sham, this whole 'security' game.

If that scene was meant to make anyone feel safer, it fails miserably to do so. A comment from that blo pretty much expresses what the rest of the world thinks of America these days:

.... I'm personally disgusted that a woman with a baby would be put in a glass cage for everyone to see - it must be humiliating. Fortunately I live in a civilised country, unlike the US..

I'm disgusted by it also and I do hope she and anyone else treated this way, files a complaint at least, or better yet, a lawsuit. That's the only way to stop this kind of treatment. I find it sad that anyone would excuse it.

Edited to add this comment which also expresses how that whole video will appear to people who value living in a really free society:

Anonymous said...

Setting aside the utterly dystopic visuals of "free Americans" being forced to disrobe or stand in plastic boxes as a government-imposed condition of travel, this video does not portray any kind of reasonable screening process.

Why is the mother, carrying a heavy-ish child, forced to stand in "the box" for all that time? And what, exactly, is happening when the TSO apparently sits her down for what appears to be a lecture?

While it is nice that TSA didn't abduct the child as claimed, I would expect TSA's explanation of this video to go a little bit beyond the very low bar of "see, we're not really kidnappers".

Show some professionalism, and explain the long "time out" in the box, and the apparent long period of hectoring thereafter, and how these comport with TSA's expectations of TSO conduct and performance.

Lots of good comments from people who obviously value respect for other people and the right to not be treated like this ever, in a country that claims to be all about freedom.

She wrote a very specific narrative of what happened after she left the plastic booth and sat down with her son. The video edits that you are talking about happened before that.

She alleged that she sat down with her son.. true.
She alleged that the male wanded her son while he sat on her lap... true
She alleged that he took the son out of her sight.. false.
She alleged that she was freaking out about this and screaming for him... false
She alleged that she grabbed her phone from her bag, which was out of her reach... False.
She alleged that she called her mom and dad... False.
She implied this all took a long time.. it took 8 minutes.

SHE IS A LIAR

Googled the blogpost to read her version and it comes up.

But when you press HOME, it goes blank.

Never separated from her child. She passed through the metal detector at 11:02, and was on her way at 11:10. 8 minutes total elapsed time.

A couple of her movements before being wanded were pretty abrupt, and reading her body language I'd say she was agitated, which I'm sure she was.

I think she was just pissed that she got so stressed out, and wanted to lash out.

and placed in a little glass booth while being "wanded," after the freaking underwire in her bra set off the metal detector. She was traveling with a babysitter, thank God, or I don't know what would've happened. Our son totally freaked out, but the TSA people wouldn't let him in--or my wife out--of the glass booth, and became very annoyed when she got agitated. I think the "not separating parents from kids" policy was put in place relatively recently. This was at MSP in 2008--and I'm not exaggerating or making it up.

I am an advocate of making appropriate complaints as often as necessary. In the case of the TSA it does no good to make a complaint while in the security area -- your only choice is to put up with the behavior or miss your flight. That passive coercion to the screening process tends to make many people grouchy, panicky, or otherwise unhappy to fly.

However, I do think that the more noise people make about hating and mistrusting the process by writing letters of complaint, the more reactive TSA is.

Too quick to bash the President.
Too quick to bash the cops.
Too quick to bash the TSA.

There should be a 24 hour waiting period between when something is posted in LBN and when someone can comment on it in either of the GD sections.

Edited to add time increment per poster below.

Too many authoritarian followers here I would say.

And yes, there are authoritarian followers on the left as well as the right.

Being against authority is fine when authority abuses its' power. They didn't here. This was nothing more than white privilege at work. How dare THEY inconvenience HER like that? After all SHE isn't Muslim.

n/t

Definitely white privilege.

no thanks.

has an equal and opposite strawman argument (woman was racist).

If the TSA really is the Gestapo does that actually make Obama into Hitler?

Certainly not every time and every single situation but there are always people who will abuse power they hold.

Actually I was commenting more on your desire for a 24 moratorium on comments regarding news items than I was on the particular case in the OP, it seem very authoritarian to me to wish that the comments of others should be limited in such a manner.

when the entire incident isn't really known yet. It makes us look like freepers demanding a hunt for the non-existent black guy that attacked the "Backwards B on face girl"

What would it be without snap judgments and wild accusations?

Boring, that's what.

That's just the way humans roll, we all have prejudices and when something triggers them we go off half cocked.. To mix an unfortunate metaphor.

You are Hitler! :evilgrin:

Video explaining why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

That means I just lost the argument.




Aw crap.... :dunce:

Why do we put up with it?

When's the last time that you, or anyone you know, or anyone that you've heard of was strip searched by TSA?

Don't sweat the small stuff, right?

Blindly, I might add. Am I on another forum?

because it was against the authority of the Bush administration and was a safe place for anti-authority people.

This is DEMOCRATICUnderground, not ANARCHISTUnderground. We have a Democratic administration and the goal of this forum is to support Democrats. That includes our Democratic President.

"Fight the Power" people are a waste of oxygen. There will always be someone in power. Being Anti-authority is like being anti-oxygen, there is no place on this planet it doesn't exist. But if it makes you feel good to think you're keeping the "man" in check, knock yourself out.

All people of authority should be treated with suspicion. It is in the nature of power to corrupt anyone who gets it. It's the responsibility of the people to resist any authority who succumbs to it. To do otherwise is to live as a sheep.

sig line sums up how I feel about authority. This country has devolved to the point where the only freedom left, as a recent song lyric puts it, is the freedom to obey. No thanks. Not me.

This was posted elsewhere, but I agree with the timing:


11:01:39 through metal detector

11:02:00 asked to wait past metal detector. Her stuff is backing up the convey. The mom is visibly annoyed at this point.

11:02:48-3:00 other lady moves her stuff for her

11:03:30 the mom is yelling and waving to get TSA's attention

11:03:49 Female TSA agent lets her out of the first holding area

11:04:07 the mom is yelling

11:04:11 covers mouth, looks like she's going to cry

11:04:32 sitting in the screening area with son on her lap

11:04:04 TSA supervisor (presumably) asks her to calm down, TSA is moving her stuff near her

11:05:28 Male TSA agent screens the kid while he's sitting on his mom's lap

11:05:42 the mom puts the son in the stroller

11:06:15-6:50 The female TSA agent screens the mom. The son is in the stroller 3 feet in front of the mom. The mom removes something from her shoe and puts it on the table.

11:07:20-9:35 The female TSA agent rescreens the mom

11:09:35 the mom is cleared to go. She loads her stuff and leaves at 11:10:29

To summarize: She begins to get annoyed in 30 seconds, and starts yelling after 2 minutes. All told, she had to wait 8 minutes exactly.

Notable discrepancies -- the son was not picked up by the TSA agent. The son was not moved out of sight by the TSA agent. And the lady didn't make any secret cell phone calls.

I don't like the TSA - otherwise known as Thousands Standing Around - but they actually did it right this time.

Wait, no I'm not shocked at all.

As for the "she had Xanax, she has anxiety issues!" how many people do we all know who get a script for Xanax or Ativan when they fly, or a couple pills from a relative or friend? That she had some pills means nothing; it'd be just as accurate to assume she's a junkie since Xanax is a widely abused drug, and she was jonseing for a fix.

:shrug:

Period. They never ever do anything right, they're all lowly paid fascist on a power trip.

I think that about sums it up with some posters.

Some of us do, at least. I didn't buy BalloonBoy or XanaxMom, but lts did because there was a child in the fabrications.

Some realize that there's always at least two sides to every conflict and the chances of getting the complete, unbiased, and objective story from one side are pretty much nill. I process all sorts of adversarial situations at work and it's pretty common(and almost exclusive) for even otherwise honest people to lie about conflict if they are directly involved, and even if they give you factual answers they will lie by ommission. That's why video evidence is so valuable. It's completely non-subjective. The other alternative is to listen to both sides and try to find the truth, which is usually somewhere in the middle.

She was stuck in a holding cell for a long time.. forced to hold a child in her arms.. with no place to sit and no air conditioning.

She waved her arms.. and no one came to her rescue. Cruel ande unusual punishment.

What is the legal definition of arrest?

A seizure or forcible restraint; an exercise of the power to deprive a person of his or her liberty; the taking or keeping of a person in custody by legal authority, especially, in response to a criminal charge.

The purpose of an arrest is to bring the arrestee before a court or otherwise secure the administration of the law.
-----------------------------------------------------------

What was this women's crime? She had a baby bottle clip that set off the alarm?

Did they offer her legal counsel or help her when she was shoved into the glass holding cell with no probable cause? And no one here on DU thinks ths kind of treatment is over the top?

I'm not ok with it. This country has gone down the tubes.

It was approximately 2 minutes.

When someone is selected for secondary screening they must be isolated in order to prevent them from handing a potentially dangerous object to someone else. You could do this by having additional manpower at each checkpoint, or you could shut down the entire checkpoint so that additional manpower could be redirected. Both of those options are pretty inefficient. Remember that it's your tax dollars that is paying for that extra manpower to just stand around most of the time or it's you waiting in a stalled line while TSA clears the secondary screening que. The other option is to que them in a glass booth until the next secondary screener is available.

I am OK with it, and no I don't think the country is "going down the tubes" because someone has to wait in a glass box for 2 minutes.

Its not a plastic box. Its not a holding cell. Its not even completely enclosed. What the woman was standing in next to the x-ray machines is the queue for additional screening directly forward from the walk-through metal detector. It has to have walls (verses just tensabarriers or such) otherwise someone who could be trying to bring forbidden materials through the checkpoint could pass them to someone who passed the screening. So she's in that area for 1 minute and 49 seconds. That's not a long time by any stretch of the imagination.

The area the woman was after taken to is away from the x-ray and metal detectors. This area has partitions which are about the height you would find on the walks of a cubicle in an office: they don't go all the way up to the ceiling. She isn't even standing; she's sitting in a chair to the right of the table for most of the time.

The only time you don't see the woman in the video is the 19 seconds between when she's in front of the metal detector and then brought to the additional screening area. I would assume that there were no camera covering that space. 19 seconds. She leaves the "additional screening queue" with the child in her arms and arrives at the next area with the child in her arms. Now she's either sitting in the chair with the child in her arms or the child is in the stroller (which a TSA agent brings over, by the way). The child is never out of her sight.

I'm going to say it how it is: she lied. The main crux of the story is that the TSA agents took her son away. That just did not happen: the child is either in her arms or in the stroller. Just about every detail of the "horrible" way she was treated is plainly false.

You don't fly much, do you?

Holding cell? No A/C? Cruel and unusual? Are you even paying attention?

I've been in that exact same "cell" that woman was. It's annoying, yes, but that's it. It's annoying. It's almost as annoying as standing in line at the food court for a $5 cup of coffee that turns out to be cold.

repeated who knows how many times a day at airports all over the US. Each and every person with a plane ticket on a commercial airline is considered a terror suspect until proven otherwise. It doesn't matter if you are an infant or an elderly infirm person with Alzheimers. You are subject to detainment and your person can be searched without probable cause and without a warrant.

And the American sheep go along with this nonsense out of abject fear and because no one in authority stands up for people's rights and calls bullshit.

Who the hell thinks that someone determined to bring down an airliner is going to let TSA goons stand in their way? The money spent on having these morons feel up housewives ought to be invested in smart security that might actually do some good.

She was stuck in a holding cell for a long time.. forced to hold a child in her arms.. with no place to sit and no air conditioning.

It was 2 minutes! Hardly a long time...She could have put the kids down.....the top is open and there are holes in all sides.

She waved her arms.. and no one came to her rescue. Cruel ande unusual punishment. Hahahahahaha!



As for the rest of your post........HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another drama queen exposed.

that plastic box is creepy. Why stick a mother in there for 10 mins, holding a heavy older baby, with no place to sit? And where everyone can walk by and stare. It's like we are cattle.

TWO WHOLE MINUTES!!! Waiting while an agent could be freed up to personally screen her. TWO MINUTES!!!!! OOOHHH THE INHUMANITY!!!!!