TSA Screenings Outrage Some Airline Passengers
Travelers come forward with tales from airport security lines.
July 16, 2011— -- intro: A 94-year-old Florida woman is the most recent traveler to come forward with a bone to pick with the TSA, saying that the physical pat down she endured at the Raleigh/Durham International Airport earlier this month went too far.
But she's certainly not the only one. TSA screenings and pat downs have become part of the airport-goers' routine in recent years, but as airport security becomes more stringent, so does the volume of incidents that might make one wonder: the TSA did what?
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category: Stories From Airport Security Lines
title: 94-Year-Old Woman Gets Pat-Down in North Carolina
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text: Marian Peterson, 94, was going through airport security in Raleigh, NC., was taken out of her wheelchair and patted down by TSA agents for what she said lasted for over 10 minutes. Peterson was trying to board a flight home to Florida.
"They groped her. All of her body. Her crotch, her breasts. And everything else," the woman's son Joe Peterson told ABC affiliate WTVD.
Peterson's daughter described the episode that resulted in her elderly mother being forced to stand with her legs spread apart.
"[The TSA agent] said it would be in-depth. She started the pat down, and at that point, she asked mom to spread her legs. She stood there with her legs spread and she checked every place thoroughly," Malone told WTVD.
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category: Stories From Airport Security Lines
title: Donald Rumsfeld Gets Stopped by TSA Agents
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text: Even the former secretary of defense can't escape the TSA. A photo of Donald Rumsfeld was snapped by TMZ Wednesday as he walked through airport security and was patted down by a TSA agent. He smiled as he stood for the additional screening at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago.
Afterwards, Rumsfeld tweeted: "It takes those of us with two titanium hips and a titanium shoulder a bit longer to get through TSA."
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category: Stories From Airport Security Lines
title: Woman Arrested After Allegedly Being Verbally Abusive to TSA Agents
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text: Andrea Abbott, 41, of Clarksville, Tenn., found herself arrested last week after she reportedly screamed at TSA when they tried to begin a security screening of her daughter at a Nashville airport.
Airport police would not release the age of the daughter, but spokeswoman Emily Richard told ABCNews.com that Abbott's daughter was a teenager.
Abbott reportedly attempted to use her cell phone to take photographs of the security screening and was asked to put the phone away, prompting her to become disruptive, police said. An affidavit retrieved by ABC affiliate WKRN stated that Abbott said she wasn't going to stand for her daughter to be "touched inappropriately," have her "crotch grabbed," or screened any further by TSA agents.
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category: Stories From Airport Security Lines
title: Daughter Says 95-year-old Forced to Remove Diaper
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text: A woman who was escorting her ailing mother through a Florida airport in late June claimed that TSA agents removed the 95-year-old's adult diaper in order to complete a thorough body search of the passenger.
The TSA issued a statement in which they denied demanding the request, but Jean Weber of Destin, Fla., told ABCNews.com that's "a lie."
"My reaction was, 'Do you people have any common sense?'" Weber says. "There's no way my 105 pound frail mother can be a threat to national security. That's insane."
Weber said that a pat down of her mother, Lena Reppert, resulted in TSA agents saying they felt something suspicious and requested that Reppert's adult diaper be removed.
The TSA released a statement after the incident, claiming that their agents were acting appropriately.
"We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally, according to proper procedure and did not require this passenger to remove and adult diaper," the statement read.
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category: Stories From Airport Security Lines
title: 6-year-old Gets Frisked
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text: A video that hit the internet earlier this year showed a 6-year-old girl being frisked by a TSA agent while walking through security in New Orleans.
The footage shows a TSA agent running her hands up and down the girl's thighs and running her fingers along the waistband of her pants.
"We struggle to teach our kids to protect themselves, to say 'no, it's not ok to touch me in this way in this area," the girl's mother, Selena Drexel, said. "Yet here we are saying it's ok for these people."
"I did ask for alternatives, I asked for her to be rescanned," Selena Drexel said. "They just refused and said they were going to do what they were going to do."
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