(NaturalNews) When flying commercially, it is literally the US Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) way or the highway. And a woman from the Nashville, Tenn., area recently learned this the hard way when she faced arrest after refusing to allow TSA agents at Nashville International Airport (NIA) to molest her daughter with an "enhanced" pat down.
Reports say that after 41-year-old Andrea Fornella Abbott told agents that she did not want her daughter to be "touched inappropriately or have her crotch grabbed," police arrested her for disorderly conduct and hauled her off to jail.
"(She) told me in a very stern voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray," said Sabrina Birge, an NIA security officer, concerning the incident. Birge apparently also proceeded to rehash the line that naked body scanners are 10,000 times safer than cell phones (which is false). But Abbott still refused, emphasizing that she did not want TSA employees to see her and her daughter's naked bodies, much less be allowed to grope them.
Reports do not indicate the age of Abbott's daughter, but most likely she was very young. She may have even been under the age of six, which means that the girl is not even eligible for an enhanced pat down, at least according to statements made by TSA Administrator John Pistole last November (
http://www.naturalnews.com/032975_TSA_young_children.html).
Actually, according to the US Constitution, neither Abbott nor her daughter -- nor any other air traveler, for that matter -- should have to be poked and prodded as part of the TSA's enhanced security protocols, as this type of unreasonable search and invasion of privacy contradicts the Fourth Amendment.
Regardless of whether or not Abbott threw a fit in the airport, which according to reports is how the situation went down, the woman's outrage is validated in light of the heinous reality of modern airport "security." Travelers have two choices -- the naked body scanner or an enhanced pat down -- and neither one is truly justified as a necessary, or even legal, security measure.
Contrary to
TSA claims, the naked body scanners at many US airports are not safe, and the TSA is basically lying to the public about this, and covering up all evidence that contradicts their false claims (
http://www.naturalnews.com/032425_airport_scanners_radiation.html). And enhanced pat downs, no matter how much rhetoric is used to dress them up, are nothing more than unwarranted sexual assaults that provided no added security benefits.
However, instead of just deciding not to fly at all, which is what some have suggested is the solution to the TSA problem, maybe it is time to actually disband the TSA and restore to Americans their Fourth Amendment right to protection against unwarranted searches. Taking naked images of innocent travelers and feeling up their private parts is a clear violation of this Amendment, and it must be stopped.
Sources for this story include:http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110713/NEWS01/307130115/Police-ch...
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