<p>I feel so bad for this woman.</p>
<p>[Michelle</a> Dunaj, Woman With Cancer, Asked To Lift Shirt, Bandages At Airport (VIDEO)](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost)</p>
<p>EK, I’ve been thinking about this article since reading it on-line a few hours ago. It is so disturbing. The degree of insensitivity and heartlessness exhibited by the stupid screeners is mind-boggling. I wish someone would do something extraordinarily kind for Ms. Dunaj.</p>
<p>I will preface this by saying that personally, I am not sensitive to issues of privacy. Because I have a hip replacement, I used get patted down most of the time when I fly. The TSA agents have always been kind, appropriate, and professional. Reading the article, it is not clear whether she was asked to lift her shirt further than the lower abdomen to show the bandages and the feeding tube. To me, that seems not particularly intrusive. I understand why it would be to some, but also understand why the TSA agent would not think so. I suspect she didn’t ask for a private screening until after the TSA official saw what they needed to see. But yes, I feel bad for Ms. Dunaj. The ill deserve dignity.</p>
<p>A friend of my kid’s had a similar experience years ago. He has metal legs. He has all kinds of documentation, but a TSA agent insisted he take them off. He asked for and was denied a private room…the TSA agent claimed there was a waiting line for it. He could wait if he wanted to but would miss his flight since it would be “hours” before he could get a private room. </p>
<p>So, he took his legs off… This meant he was “standing” on the floor on his stumps. A little child was frightened by seeing someone without legs and started screaming hysterically. Everyone in line was horrified by the TSA agent’s insensitivity and people who weren’t traveling with him but were waiting in line started yelling at the TSA agent–especially the mom of the screaming child, who at least blamed the TSA agent.</p>
<p>He used to travel a lot and this was the only time it was a problem, so most TSA agents acted appropriately.</p>
<p>The Gestapo are a alive and out there in the form of "little " people in positions of authority. I have seen some rudeness and incompetence on the part of the TSA and very little accommodation and kindness. I hope someone or some agency goes after the tapes showing this procedure, If indeed, it went as the airline is saying after they reviewed the tapes (so they say), then that’s it. But if not, there should be consequences.</p>
<p>I believe the procedures are needed, but a private room or sheltered area should be available for such patdowns and searches. They should be mandatory and can easily be set up. The procedures are necessary, IMO, because if I were going to sneak something in there, if anyone lookeing infirmed or unlikely is exempt from search, I would go that route. It’s an unfortuate reality, but there should be a private screening area and tapes of the screening should be running and made available upon complaints.</p>
<p>We just went on a trip. TSA stuff was a piece of cake. On the outbound screening, we just did all of the usual stuff and went through the millimeter machine. Coming back, we went through the metal detector. They only used the body-scanner rarely - if they did the lines would have been massive as the body-scanner takes longer. I didn’t see any issues at all with any other passengers on our travels. What did surprise me was the number of TSA agents in the screening area.</p>
<p>My guess is that this is a case of the vast majority not having a problem with TSA. But a few passengers run into agents that don’t think - in any large organization, you’re going to have some problem employees. Incidents with these employees get a ton of press.</p>
<p>Travel through Tampa frequently. I think that they have the most rude, non-thinking TSA agents that I have come across.</p>
<p>I went to Detroit last year from Seattle. Seattle took much longer with almost everyone (& had a line to match), Detroit was ultra casual & waved me through.</p>
<p>So when I get a knee replacement it is going to take even longer?
:p</p>
<p>I’m not really that modest, but I think being on an “end of life” trip and entering hospice when you return would make even Madonna more sensitive.</p>
<p>Both of our flights were very early in the morning (purposely to avoid long lines) and were out of Manchester, NH and Atlanta, GA. The folks in Manchester were more casual than the folks in Atlanta.</p>
<p>Horrible. The incident described by jonri made my skin crawl in horror.</p>
<p>Manchester has the most laidback TSA folks I’ve ever encountered, rivaled maybe only by the staff of Ontario, CA airport. Here at Seatac, we have some nasty TSA people, therefore, I “profile” the people working the lines and get into one with the friendliest-acting staff and no body scanners. 
It is easy to do when the airport is busy.</p>
<p>When I made a cross country tirp a few months ago, my bag was taken at the door of the plane because they had run out of space to store it. I had to stand there and insist on a receipt/tag or something for my bag and nearly did not get on the plane as a result. I threatened to report them, and I did get a tag/receipt and I held up the plane according to them. It was a very ugly scene. I needed the items in my bag at my destination and did not trust them as my bag did not make it on a plane one time. They swore the bag would go on the plane and I recorded that, which caused even more of a stink when some supervisor told me that it “should” not be would go on that plane after being assured, promised, guaranteed by the stewards that it would even as I did not get a tag (they were out of them).</p>
<p>While this was happening (during the early stages) a woman left her wheelchair at the same spot and did not get her tag either, but she did not complain. When we got to our destination, I did get my bag, and the woman did not get her wheel chair and the airport people were asking her for her tag and saying that no wheelchair was checked in at the door. I went over there and said I had personally seen the wheel chair when it was taken and said I would join this woman in her complaint. There were also a number of others who did not have their bags and had no tags or receipts. I gave my name and number to the woman whose wheelchair did not make the trip and told her I would have an attorney contact her. She called me that evening and said that her wheelchair came later and her family had to go back to the airport to “identify it” and get it. Had she had a tag, they would have delivered it to her home. This is the sort of thing that I have seen with the airport personelle. Not impressed at all.</p>
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<p>This seems more like an airline issue rather than a TSA issue.</p>
<p>We flew Southwest Airlines (my current airline of choice) and purchased the earlybird option for both flights which means that we get early boarding and a much better choice of seats. I saw no problems with luggage having to be checked though. It may be that their customer base is better about not bringing a ton of stuff on the plane or that they enforce the rules on what you can carry on and where it has to be stored but it isn’t the zoo that I’ve experienced with other carries (notably United) in the past.</p>
<p>I had flown out of Vienna in 1985 only a few days before the coordinated attacks on the El Al counter in Vienna and Rome which together killed 19, including a child and wounded over 135. You had to undergo an individual, intensely probing body search done in the Vienna airport’s entry into the boarding area. At the same time, you were under armed survellance. I’m glad that security was tight. I just wish it had extended to entry into the terminal. It might have saved a lot of lives. In the La Paz, Bolivia airport in 1989 the search was equally as intimate and probing.</p>
<p>I bet the families of the victims of 9-11 wish the screening had been extraordinarily rigorous. I would trade my personal embarrassment for everyone’s safety. </p>
<p>I wonder if the anger and disappointment and often embarrassment and outrage is at least in part over American issues about the body?</p>
<p>No, for me it has nothing to do with the body - it has to do with the attitude of people in charge (as someone said, Gestapo is alive) and the fact that millions of taxpayer money was wasted on inefficient equipment due to heavy lobbying of a few co’s, which in turn slowed down development of truly promising methods (biosensors, chemical sensors, mass spectrometry, anyone?). Also, it bothers me that companies developing medical devices have to go through so much trouble to get their products on the market, while a couple of machines that are clearly medical devices did not get any scruitiny and are being used on millions of people.</p>
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<p>No, it’s about senseless security theater. </p>
<p>Ever flown El Al? There’s a lot of profiling. We get asked by the security people about what synagogue we belong to, who we’re going to be seeing in Israel, etc etc. No pat-downs. No full body scanners. No removing shoes. Extraordinarily rigorous searching is not the same as, for example, forcing the medically fragile to remove their adult diapers, or breaking passenger’s medical pumps because a TSA agent roughly handles the equipment, or holding up a nursing mother because she asks that her pumped breast milk not go through the x-ray machine, as is supposed to be allowed per TSA’s own policy.</p>
<p>I don’t think that Americans are unusual to not want to be poked & prodded and partially undressed by strangers in public.
:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Seatac has some real harda$$es. When my youngest was returning home from a six month trip abroad after high school, she hadn’t slept for about 48 hrs. Unfortunately there was a identical bag to hers on the plane & she grabbed it without checking the name. ( it probably didnt help that one of her connecting airports was Abu Dhabi International)
They practically called for a SWAT team.
I understand why they did what they did, but it doesn’t make it any easier to experience.</p>
<p>I don’t think El Al’s techniques are germane to a discussion of the TSA’s errors. Their program works great for a country with one airport. There’s no way it could be replicated on anything like the scale of the U.S. air travel industry.</p>
<p>Hey, I agree fully with the screening and I don’t think the babe in arms, granny in the wheelchair, the terminal cancer patient should be exempt. Not one moment and I believe I so said in a post. But the rudeness is an issue and if the person needs extensive checking out, a privacy screen can be set up. A lot of those provisions are in place on paper, but the personelle just can’t pull it together. I don’t know for certain if the cancer patient is telling the truth about this as the films have not been released, but she should have gotten a privacy screen when her shirt was pulled up. According to the airlines, there is a tape–don’t know how complete it is on what happened, but if push comes to shove perhaps it can be released.</p>
<p>A young man was denied boarding a few weeks ago due to behavior–he has autism and was making strange noises. The claim was that he was not out of line, by the parents; the pilot says he was not comfortable flying with such behavior on his plane and he gets to make that determination. A lot of disability groups are jumping on the airlines because though they can be rude and not give anyone thier rights, the inconveniences and misery inflicted on those with special needs and the right to have them met by the ADA are particularly troublesome. I’ve personally been involved in a couple of cases where the airlines took advantage of those more helpless than usual when they needed seats for an overbooked flight. </p>
<p>I know that TSA and airline employees are separate categories but when it comes to refusal to accommodate and be plain rude, it goes right across the employee lines. </p>
<p>I left my jacket at the TSA screening my last flight–a brand new one. I was not permitted to get it,nor would they hand it over to me due to regualtions. This was when I was asking nicely. I was told that I had to apply for it and pay the postage. I just went through the screening process again and “Stole” my jacket from the counter where they placed it to be processed, narrowly making my flight. They had denied someone elses something under the same circumstances before my jacket situation and he was fighting with the authorites even as I went back through the line. I would have missed my flight if some kind passenger in line did not let me cut.</p>
<p>Should we blindly copy El Al? Of course, not. But this is a country with abundance of great minds and inventive ideas that with appropriate funding can move the Earth. The current body scanners are just smoke and mirrors.</p>
<p>BTW, the TSA claims that the images are read in private - LOL. At SFO, the monitor of the computer used to read scans was clearly visible to me, a person of an average height, because the computer was located right next to the scanner and the monitor was turned towards the line waiting to go through the scanner. Yup, the images are pretty graphic - and you know who they belong to because you see who stands inside the scanner :)</p>
<p>Also, it bothers me that companies developing medical devices have to go through so much trouble to get their products on the market, while a couple of machines that are clearly medical devices did not get any scruitiny and are being used on millions of people.</p>
<p>Exactly.
If the scanners are safe, why not allow independent testing?</p>
<pre><code> PressTV - US Congress slams TSA
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