Most Despicable: Woman Says TSA Forced Piercings Removal

["Paul Ferguson" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

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Via CBS5.com (AP).

[snip]

A Texas woman who claims she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers
in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal
security agents and a civil rights investigation.

"I wouldn't wish this experience upon anyone," Mandi Hamlin, 37, said at a
news conference in Los Angeles. "My experience with TSA was a nightmare I
had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way."

Hamlin said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb.
24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent
after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in
front of Hamlin's chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman that she was wearing nipple piercings. The
female agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she
would have to remove the body piercings, Hamlin claimed.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked if 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 removed, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped nipple
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.

Hamlin showed reporters at the news conference how she took off the second
ring by applying pliers to the torso of a mannequin that had a
peach-colored bra with the rings on it.

She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She
was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was
wearing a belly button ring.

[snip]

More:
http://cbs5.com/local/nipple.rings.flight.2.686288.html

This is simply inexcusable. The ability for the TSA to continue
to humiliate and defile American travelers is completely despicable.

These practices must be stopped, and the offenders severely punished
to the ultimate extent of the applicable laws.

These Gestapo-style tactics are unacceptable, and can no longer be
tolerated.

I hope she sues their collective asses.

I'm so embarrassed by the actions of my government, and I
utterly and completely and ultimately reject this jackbooted
thuggery.


- - ferg

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--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


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