TSA Inspector Accused Of Stealing iPads

April 17, 2012

Fort Worth Star Telegram

By Dianna Hunt

“Where are they finding these people to work for the TSA?  Prisons?”  –KTRN

A Transportation Security Administration baggage inspector at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport has been indicted in the theft of Apple iPads from luggage over eight months.

Clayton Keith Dovel, 36, of Bedford was arrested Feb. 1 and has been suspended indefinitely, officials said.

The investigation led to the recovery of eight stolen iPads, including one that was among Dovel’s possessions at Terminal E when he was arrested, airport police said.

According to airport police, a traveler reported Jan. 24 that his iPad 2 had been stolen and that he had traced it electronically to a home in Bedford owned by Dovel.

Click here for the report.

Video: Woman Sobs During TSA Grope Down

April 17, 2012

Prison Planet

By Paul Joseph Watson

“After this woman sobs during her pat down, no one form the TSA even tries to console her. It’s as if they don’t even care.” –KTRN

A video clip shot at a security line at Dane County Regional Airport in Madison shows a woman, most likely suffering from some kind of rape-related post traumatic stress disorder, quietly sobbing as she is subjected to a TSA grope down.

As the National Center for Victims of Crime website highlights, rape-related post traumatic stress disorder can be triggered by the victim “re-experiencing the trauma,” specifically, “any event that symbolizes the trauma of rape,” which is a very real possibility given the scope of TSA security procedures.

A retired police officer with experience of rape cases who contacted the Gateway Pundit blog said the woman in the video was probably sobbing because the TSA grope down triggered her PTSD.

“That kind of response is from a woman who was traumatized before,” he remarked, adding, “It makes my old retired cop blood boil. The TSA isn’t the police, but they play them in airports and the real police take it in the shorts. There would have been NO police officer on my department that would have allowed such treatment of a crying woman like that. None!”

According to the FBI’s new definition of rape, an act of rape occurs when there is “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

As we have previously covered, advanced TSA pat downs now include screeners literally touching people’s genitals as part of the process.

In November 2010, we reported the story of how radio host Owen JJ Stone was told by a TSA screener that his pat down would include the screener putting his hands down Stone’s pants. The TSA worker directly patted down his testicles, penis and backside while his hand was inside Stone’s pants. Stone was initially embarrassed to reveal the full scope of the groping but related the details of what amounted to nothing less than outright sexual molestation.

Click here for the report and video.

TSA Screener Throws Hot Coffee In Face Of Pilot Who Asked Her To Stop Cursing

April 6, 2012

Info Wars

By Steve Watson

“When you give someone a fake badge, this is often how they will act.” –KTRN

A TSA screener working at JFK Airport in New York was arrested after launching a cup of hot coffee into the face of an airline pilot who asked her to stop swearing in the terminal.

Off duty pilot Steven Trivett was leaving terminal 8 at JFK early in the morning last week when he encountered a group of TSA workers engaged in what was described as a “profanity- laced conversation”.

Concerned that passengers, including young children could hear the screeners, Mr Trivett asked them to tone down the exchange.

Mr Trivett advised the screeners that they should “conduct themselves more professionally in uniform and not use profanity or the n-word,” Port Authority police sources said.

The sources then described how one of the screeners reacted to Trivett, telling him to “mind his own business” and cursing him out.

Mr Trivett then attempted to get a closer look at the screener’s ID tags, presumably in order to report the incident. The screener, 30 year old Lateisha El, then reportedly shoved the pilot and hurled a full cup of hot coffee at his face.

Police said that Mr Trivett thankfully walked away without being seriously hurt. El, from East New York in Brooklyn, was arrested and charged with harassment and misdemeanor-assault.

Click here for the report.

‘Get Your Freak On Girl’ TSA Screener Fired

October 28, 2011

Prison Planet

By Paul Joseph Watson

In a rare example of the federal agency caving to public outrage, the TSA has been forced to fire the screener who left a lewd message in lawyer Jill Filipovic’s checked bag after conducting an inspection and finding a sex toy.

After arriving at her hotel, Filipovic discovered that her bag had been searched and a TSA inspection form had been amended with the words “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL” written on the reverse side.

Having initially only suspended the TSA screener responsible, the federal agency was forced to go a step further only after the story went viral and caused substantial public outrage.

“[The TSA] has initiated action to remove the individual from federal service,” a TSA spokesperson said. “Like all federal employees, this individual is entitled to due process and protected by the Privacy Act. During the removal action process, the employee will not perform any screening duties.”

Ironically, the TSA refuses to reveal the name or gender of the culprit, citing the Privacy Act.

Filipovic rightly suggests that the TSA’s decision to lay the blame on one person only serves to hide the all-pervading disregard for privacy within the whole agency.

“It’s easy to scape-goat one individual here, but the problem with the note is that it’s representative of the bigger privacy intrusions that the U.S. government, through the TSA and other sources, levels every day,” wrote Filipovic. “The invasion is inherent to the TSA’s mission, regardless of whether a funny note is left behind — the note only serves to highlight the absurdity of all this security theater. As much as this is a funny and titillating story, when I put the note on Twitter for what I thought was a relatively limited audience I was hoping it would open up a bigger conversation about privacy rights (or lack thereof) in post-9/11 America.”

Click here for the full report from Prison Planet.

TSA Screener Charged in Distributing Child Pornography

April 25th, 2011

Philly.com

By: John Shiffman

A passenger screener at Philadelphia International Airport is facing charges that he distributed more than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook, records show.

Federal agents also allege that Transportation Safety Administration Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, who routinely searched airline passengers, uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.

Homeland Security agents arrested the TSA officer March 24, and he is being held without bail.

Although the case was unsealed Thursday, neither the indictment nor the news release mentioned Gordon’s job searching airline passengers for TSA.

Click here for the full report from Philly.com

TSA Screening Supervisor Admits to Stealing from Passengers

February 21st, 2011

AOL News

By: Fran Golden

A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport screening supervisor at Newark Liberty International Airport has admitted to taking kickbacks from a subordinate who stole cash from airline passengers.

Michael Arato, 41, admitted in federal court he was involved in stealing from passengers going through security screening at the New Jersey airport’s Terminal B. He was arrested for the crimes in October.

Prosecutors say Arato and his screener co-worker stole $10,000 to $30,000 in cash from passengers’ carry-on bags over a period of 13 months. As the boss, Arato made his subordinate give him a kickback on anything the man stole.

The two screeners reportedly targeted their victims, who were mostly non English-speaking women flying home to India.

The men were blatant in their thievery, even splitting up the cash in front of airport security cameras, according to authorities.

The other screener, who has not been named, cooperated with the investigation.

Arato faces a maximum of 15 years in prison at his sentencing on May 24.

Click here for the full report from AOL News

Homeland Security Hasn’t Made Us Safer

January 7th, 2011

Foreign Policy

By: Anne Applebaum

Hardly anyone has seriously scrutinized either the priorities or the spending patterns of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its junior partner, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), since their hurried creation in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Sure, they get criticized plenty. But year in, year out, they continue to grow faster and cost more — presumably because Americans think they are being protected from terrorism by all that spending. Yet there is no evidence whatsoever that the agencies are making Americans any safer.

DHS serves only one clear purpose: to provide unimaginable bonanzas for favored congressional districts around the United States, most of which face no statistically significant security threat at all. One thinks of the $436,504 that the Blackfeet Nation of Montana received in fiscal 2010 “to help strengthen the nation against risks associated with potential terrorist attacks”; the $1,000,000 that the village of Poynette, Wisconsin (pop. 2,266) received in fiscal 2009 for an “emergency operations center”; or the $67,000 worth of surveillance equipment purchased by Marin County, California, and discovered, still in its original packaging, four years later. And indeed, every U.S. state, no matter how landlocked or underpopulated, receives, by law, a fixed percentage of homeland security spending every year.

As for the TSA, I am not aware of a single bomber or bomb plot stopped by its time-wasting procedures. In fact, TSA screeners consistently fail to spot the majority of fake “bombs” and bomb parts the agency periodically plants to test their skills. In Los Angeles, whose airport was targeted by the “millennium plot” on New Year’s 2000, screeners failed some 75 percent of these tests.

Terrorists have been stopped since 2001 and plots prevented, but always by other means. After the Nigerian “underwear bomber” of Christmas Day 2009 was foiled, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano claimed “the system worked” — but the bomber was caught by a passenger, not the feds. Richard Reid, the 2001 shoe bomber, was undone by an alert stewardess who smelled something funny. The 2006 Heathrow Airport plot was uncovered by an intelligence tip. Al Qaeda’s recent attempt to explode cargo planes was caught by a human intelligence source, not an X-ray machine. Yet the TSA responds to these events by placing restrictions on shoes, liquids, and now perhaps printer cartridges.

Click here for the full report from Foreign Policy

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 11-17-10

Today, Kevin abolishes all rumors and gives you the truth behind inflation, the TSA and the government. Plus, Dr. Bob Marshall gives you the facts behind the dangers of Magnesium Stearate & Stearic Acid!

Self Help:
Cure Your Fears
Loss Weight Fast
Begin Here
Enjoy A Free Cruise!

Health:
Eating Healthy Is Bad For Economy
10 Things Snack Food Companies Don’t Want You To Know
Antibiotics Often Unnecessary For Kids Ear Infections
Drug Companies Exploit Legal Loophole

Wealth:
Inflation Is Already Here
Income Is Going Down, Inflation Is Going Up

TSA:
Video: The TSA Is Out Of Control
Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer
TSA Screener Terrorizes 3 Year Old Girl
Pilots & Passengers Angry Over New Airport Pat Downs
Body Searching Children A ‘No’ For Army, ‘Yes’ For TSA
Backlash Over TSA’s Naked Strip Searches
TSA Rage Hitting All Age Demographics Now

UK:
Sunscreen Causing Rickets In Middle Class English Children
British Gitmo Inmates Win Huge Payouts From UK
Manchester Airport Trials New Recognition Technology

Everything Kevin:
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TSA Screener Terrorizes 3-year-old Girl

November 17th, 2010

The Examiner

By: Joe Newby

Imagine taking your family to the airport and watching as Federal agents terrorize your 3-year-old child.

That is exactly what happened to little Mandy Simon.

She was first forced to surrender her teddy bear, and ended up getting flagged for further screening.

As the girl’s mother held her, the TSA agent scanned her with a wand, and then proceeded to give the girl a more thorough search. As the screener searched her, the frightened girl screamed for the agent to stop touching her.

The girl’s father, Steve Simon, works as a reporter for CW-39 from Houston, Texas, and managed to capture the encounter on his cell phone camera.

In the video, the girl is clearly traumatized as the TSA screener attempts to search her.

But the question remains – what is the TSA doing screening toddlers like this? Do they honestly think the little girl is concealing a bomb in her stuffed toy?

Terrorists have been known to use children in places like Iraq, but Houston does not have a history of bomb-wielding toddlers.

The TSA is charged with providing security on our airlines, but many are questioning their methods.

The Dallas Morning News reported last Monday that:

The TSA recently changed its hand-search policies. Before, the officers would use the back of their hand to check a person; now they are to use their open hand and fingers to go over one’s body, including the genital area and breasts.

Mike Cleary, President of the US Airline Pilots Association, issued a statement which read, in part:

“Let’s be perfectly clear: the TSA procedures we have outlined above are blatantly unacceptable as a long-term solution. Although an immediate solution cannot be guaranteed, I can promise you that your union will not rest until all U.S. airline pilots have a way to reach their workplace … the aircraft … without submitting ourselves to the will of a TSO behind closed doors.

“This situation has already produced a sexual molestation in alarmingly short order. Left unchecked, there’s simply no way to predict how far the TSA will overreach in searching and frisking pilots who are, ironically, mere minutes from being in the flight deck.

“As we all know, it makes no difference what a pilot has on his or her person or in their luggage, because they have control of the aircraft throughout the entire flight. The eyewash being dribbled by the TSA in this instance is embarrassingly devoid of common sense, and we will not stand for it.”

The agency is also under fire for the use of a scanner that can see through a passengers clothing. As reported by CNN Travel, passengers and pilots alike are up in arms over the scanners.

A group called National Opt Out Day is calling for travellers to opt-out of the screenings on Thanksgiving Day – traditionally the busiest flying day of the year.

After the incident with Mandy Simon, TSA officials said that screeners would undergo “sensitivity training” in order to deal with children better.

Perhaps the TSA should include a course on common sense followed by a course on the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

In the meantime, they should keep their hands off our children and our bodies and instead focus on keeping terrorists off of commercial aircraft.

Click here for the full report from the Examiner