US airport check 'left me feeling sexually assaulted'

it seems to be getting worse !

Nancy Campbell, a 33-year-old from Brooklyn, reveals how the experience left her feeling as though she had been "sexually assaulted".

news.bbc.co.uk...

But it is an interaction which continues to leave some people, like former Miss USA Susie Castillo, who was patted down after refusing a full body scan in Dallas, furious and distressed. "I was crying because I'm really upset that as an American I have to go through this - and I do feel violated - I didn't think I would when I had to opt out of the machine but I completely feel violated," she said.

news.bbc.co.uk...

i don't know how this has been allowed to continue, also this is putting off a lot of people from traveling to the USA !

People have been put of travel to the US for the past decade now.

This is nothing new.

I have been "patted down" and found it to be a pleasurable experience - it was a UK airport.

However, US airport personnel are frankly rude and hard-faced, but at the end of the day (whether they are rude or polite) they have a job to do. They will get the grief and the nightmares if by their omission – or fear to offend the prudish - there was and a catastrophe.

Regards

Originally posted by paraphi
I have been "patted down" and found it to be a pleasurable experience - it was a UK airport.

However, US airport personnel are frankly rude and hard-faced, but at the end of the day (whether they are rude or polite) they have a job to do. They will get the grief and the nightmares if by their omission – or fear to offend the prudish - there was and a catastrophe.

Regards

Never had a "pat down" in any UK airport in my life.

Do you mean where if you beep in the detector they simply just lightly feel your legs and arms, big deal lol, that is very rare as those detectors are not oversensitive in my experience, at least no the airports I go through (Heathrow mostly).

Travelling frequently within the EU (and not budget airlines) I find it relaxing, especially non UK airports.

I hear the worst airport in the UK is probably Manchester or there abouts as they started doing the photographs and photographing children from Northern Ireland without parental conscent, that is illegal there under child protection laws, that was a huge uproar.

"sexually assaulted"? the lady in the article sounds like a drama queen. I have seen / experienced many a pat down and sexual assault is not something that comes to mind. maybe these people who are so damned uptight can either use the train or maybe they could ride that high horse of theirs to their destination. bottom line; they need to either get with the program or get out of the way. this stuff is getting old, time to move on to the new "bitch du jour" ...............

reply to post by LooksLikeWeMadeIt


You might enjoy having your rights stripped away from you in the interests of "National Bullsh#@" but most of us who live in the 'real world' do not.

It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever travel anywhere where I would have to be personally invaded like that.

Congratulations on swallowing their bollocks.

reply to post by Kryties

Well put for that. I'd recently flown across the country and couldn't help but overhear an Australian in the row behind me going on about the differences in air travel there. It made me feel rather crappy to hear how free, open and easy going Australian domestic air travel was while we line up to be electronically strip searched or molested if we don't like being zapped.

Australia is in the war along side us and just as much a target as we are according to the people who announce such things for the Taliban/A.Q.. So... Could it be Australia is realistic and my nation has just become paranoid to the point of clinical illness? I'm sure thinking that way these days. They shouldn't let us Americans get around others. It makes us realize how badly we're really getting it these days.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Kryties

 

Well put for that. I'd recently flown across the country and couldn't help but overhear an Australian in the row behind me going on about the differences in air travel there. It made me feel rather crappy to hear how free, open and easy going Australian domestic air travel was while we line up to be electronically strip searched or molested if we don't like being zapped.

Australia is in the war along side us and just as much a target as we are according to the people who announce such things for the Taliban/A.Q.. So... Could it be Australia is realistic and my nation has just become paranoid to the point of clinical illness? I'm sure thinking that way these days. They shouldn't let us Americans get around others. It makes us realize how badly we're really getting it these days.

Critisism is hard to take, to the point that Americans go into denial and then start attacking other parts of the world by claiming they are communists or nazis.

Fact is, America is actually WORSE than the countries americans criticise.

Blind patriotism.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by JennaDarling


I agree with what both of you said. In my dealings with many Americans they seem to be of the belief that the rest of the world has followed suit with the over-the-top security protocols - yet they couldn't be more wrong. When I try telling them that though and I immediately get painted as an 'America Hater' or 'deluded', or my personal favorite: 'jealous'.

I haven't had a chance to travel by plane since the TSA pat downs have been put in to place. And now that I'm married and have a 2 month old daughter I HIGHLY doubt I'll be flying anywhere anytime soon.

reply to post by DanaKatherineScully

US airport check 'left me feeling sexually assaulted

I was at the Birmingham (AL) International Airport a few months ago to see off a relative. She told me before she waved goodbye at the door that... if the TSA groper her, she was going to start making groaning noises and threaten to rape them on the spot!

I about fell off my rocker... but upon reaching home, I found an email saying that she had no problems going through security.

I was like, darn! That would have made a great post at ATS!

I think people tend to be a little uptight about their bodies. Not saying all the pat-downs in USA are okay - body cavity searches i think cross the line a lot of times. But seriously, having someone check for concealed weapons in a thourough manner is a far cry from "sexual" assault. The intent is very different. I wonder do these people feel assaulted after a pap test or breast exam? I am not saying people should skip gayly through the checkpoints and love the process, but really all we are talking about is a temporary loss of personal space and privacy. It is not that big of a deal, unless they yank you out of line and want to look up you rbutt....eeeek. In the end, who knows if these measures are even doing any good? I know that if they weren't inplace and another attack happened, america would cry out and blame the government for not having done enough to save them. I know the increased security measures have given a lot of people jobs, and that is a bonus too. It may not be pleasant, but it is certainly a far cry from sexual assault!
reminds me of a bunch of ralph wiggums - wish I could embed that simpson's scene where he cried "that's my special area" when someone touched his shoulder.

oh and here come the replies about "our RIGHTS, darnit" - no ones rights supercede the rights of others. When it comes to the possibility of death or destruction from hijacking, the rights of the people on the ground, piloting the plane, sitting beside you, all come before yours, until you also pass through the checkpoints and can join them as having your rights protected. Imagine if you were a captain post 9-11. dont you think you would feel a lot better knowing it was getting harder to smuggle dangerous things aboard planes? Wouldnt your family feel better? Cry about lost rights where it applies, and remember, YOUR rights are no more valid than everyone else's. 100 people on a plane that went through the checkout have the right to know that the rest of the people boarding that plane have all gone through the same process and they are safe too. ok hate me all now if you must - just my opinion.

Frankly "patting down" an overweight middle aged American woman is not my idea of job satisfaction or sexual fantasy.

This commercial comes to mind *g* Enjoy.

reply to post by chrissiel123

There are two aspects I'd like to add to this for consideration on why it grates some people so badly. First, the TSA are not cops. They aren't Police of any type. To be quite frank, they are well paid security guards with a GS level. The net has recruiting information for them and it's scary. You could literally go from flipping burgers today and be patting down passengers in an airport within a shockingly brief period of orientation and a basic background check. We're also treated here to stories on a regular basis of theft, drug smuggling and other crimes comitted by TSA agents, right up to supervisory level. I suppose when you give little to no training, you get exactly what you ask for.

Second is simply the fact that of millions upon millions of passengers per year, we had exactly 1 successful attack that resulted in casualties. I admit it was a BIG one, and the casualties were on an unthinkable scale...but Pearl Harbor was still worse and that war took less than half the time we've been 'fighting' this one. It makes some of us sit back and ask just why these people have the right to feel out every intimate corner of our bodies in public.

If it were really about security, no one would mind, but it's just too much to keep saying that 1 attack justifies an endless FOREVER of security so extreme I feel like I'm in Israel more than America at times.

Why... why... WHY do you Americans tolerate this?

Your airport security is insane. Literally insane!

reply to post by DanaKatherineScully


don't come anymore.

too bad and all that.

so i guess you were just minding your own friggin biz and they just dragged you out of the line, right?

life sucks then you die.

stay home.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Kryties

 

Well put for that. I'd recently flown across the country and couldn't help but overhear an Australian in the row behind me going on about the differences in air travel there. It made me feel rather crappy to hear how free, open and easy going Australian domestic air travel was while we line up to be electronically strip searched or molested if we don't like being zapped.

Australia is a more free and much more desirable place to live than America in general terms. I hope we stay that way. If you don't believe me, feel free to Google some statistics.

Americans really need to get rid of the proverbial, "USA is #1!" mentality. About the only area where that's still true at the moment, is in terms of you having the highest incarcerated ratio of the general population, of any country on the planet.

America is an economically insolvent, fascist hellhole. You have virtually always been morally and socially inferior to just about any country in Europe, (particularly the north) and you've also always had a much higher level of economic inequality than places like Sweden, as well. The only reasons why you aren't on the streets protesting your government at the moment like many other countries, are a] because the government has very effectively brainwashed most of you into thinking that it is awesome, and b] said government would also quite happily shoot the lot of you if you tried it.

I'm also not saying that to be vindictive; but because a problem needs to be acknowledged in order for it to have any hope of being solved.

What I have to admit that I find strange is that I have worked alongside Americans for years... both in and outside of the aviation industry... numerous times my boss or colleagues got into fights with foreign customs officials for infringing on their rights..

Such was the importance they held their rights that frequently I would end shaking my head at them and rolling my eyes to the sky in the hope they would find some middle ground when it came to their rights and travelling to other countries.

I am therefore quite shocked that in less than 20 years it has swung the other way... (WTF?) and yet I still find myself shaking my head and rolling my eyes that they still can not find the middle ground.

Originally posted by thoughtsfull
I am therefore quite shocked that in less than 20 years it has swung the other way... (WTF?) and yet I still find myself shaking my head and rolling my eyes that they still can not find the middle ground.

There's a much smaller forum I post on, with several Americans. They're extremely socialist, and that fact was one thing which led me to want to come here.

I can't say if this is the complete explanation behind America's swing towards fascism, but for these socialists I'm talking about, the single thing they care about more than anything else, is making sure that they don't offend anyone. They also think that government should be part of the means of enforcement for making sure that nobody is ever physically hurt, offended, or victimised in any way; and they think that that is much, much more important than freedom.

Originally posted by petrus4

Originally posted by thoughtsfull
I am therefore quite shocked that in less than 20 years it has swung the other way... (WTF?) and yet I still find myself shaking my head and rolling my eyes that they still can not find the middle ground.

There's a much smaller forum I post on, with several Americans. They're extremely socialist, and that fact was one thing which led me to want to come here.

I can't say if this is the complete explanation behind America's swing towards fascism, but for these socialists I'm talking about, the single thing they care about more than anything else, is making sure that they don't offend anyone. They also think that government should be part of the means of enforcement for making sure that nobody is ever physically hurt, offended, or victimised in any way; and they think that that is much, much more important than freedom.

Socialism is not communism
Socialism is not nazism
Socialism is not fascism