TSA Groping Out Of Control

Everything you need to know about the security takeover and why airport oppression is already being rolled out on the streets
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Prison Planet
Nov. 08, 2010

TSA abuse in airports is completely out of control with more and more cases of security workers groping women, fondling children, abusing naked body scanners, and interrogating passengers emerging every week, and yet the government’s answer to the epidemic of oppression is to hand TSA thugs more power with which to harass American citizens.

The story of Infowars employee Michelle, who along with her child was sexually assaulted by TSA staff after refusing to go through a naked body scanner, has gone viral on the Internet after it was picked up by the Drudge Report, a website leading the charge in the backlash against airport oppression at the hands of the TSA that has now led to the world’s largest pilot’s association boycotting the use of naked body scanners.

Michelle’s traumatic experience represents just the tip of the iceberg.

The launch of naked body scanners, which were hastily installed in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt despite the fact that they would not have stopped the attack, has only worsened the levels of abuse dished out to passengers.

The body scanners were vigorously promoted by people like former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and others who stood to reap a financial windfall from their implementation, despite the fact that scientists at Columbia University and the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, along with other scientific bodies, have all warned that the devices increase the risk of developing cancer.

Stories about TSA officials abusing the use of the scanners have become commonplace.

44-year-old Rolando Negrin beat his supervisor with a police baton after he had cracked jokes about Negrin's small manhood when he walked through a naked scanner as part of a training exercise at Miami International Airport. The story underscored the fact that authorities had been lying all along about the claim that the scanners did not show sensitive details of genitalia.

The aggressive campaign on behalf of governments and the media to sell the public on invasive body scanners has been accompanied by the reassurance that the devices do not show details of genitals, an obvious attempt to counter the fact that the machines represent a virtual strip search as well as violating laws against child pornography.

Despite assurances from the TSA that the scanners do not show the shape of genitalia, sample images from their own website clearly display the outline of the penis. In addition, after nearly a year of authorities lying in claiming that the technology used in airports did not allow the naked images to be saved or transmitted, it emerged that police agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service, who were using the same systems, were storing naked body scanner images. The TSA’s own documents also confirmed that the machines must "allow exporting of image data in real time" and provide a mechanism for "high-speed transfer of image data over the network."

Indian film star Shahrukh Khan told a BBC talk show that naked images of his body from the scanner were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London. Heathrow denied the claim but Khan himself never retracted the story, and had no apparent motive for making it up.

Heathrow authorities were unable to deny a later example of the scanners being abused, when it emerged that a Heathrow worker had perved over a naked image of a female colleague after she passed through one of the devices, before commenting, "I love those gigantic tits".

Jo Margetson, 29, reported John Laker, 25, to the police after she had entered the x-ray machine by mistake and Laker took the image before making lewd comments.

Airport security staff workers are among the least trustworthy people to operate these machines. These individuals are routinely caught abusing their authority for their own ego trip or sexual perversion.

As the video below illustrates, the fact that naked body scanner machines in the U.S. are manned by TSA thugs who are routinely caught abusing their power in treating the public like prison inmates only heightens the danger posed by the use of the new devices.

The systems are being manned by people like a TSA agent who flipped out and began screaming, "I am god, I'm in charge," shortly after he got off duty at LAX earlier this year.

With innumerable reports over the past ten years of TSA agents completely abusing their authority and going on petty power trips with little other motivation than to humiliate and degrade old people, pregnant women, and the physically disabled, while proclaiming themselves to be "Gods," the fact that these people are now feeling up our children is revolting.

Indeed, we’ve spoken to airport workers who were asked by their employers if they support the naked body scanners. Workers who indicate that they oppose the scanners have quickly been demoted or even fired. The TSA is now openly pursuing a policy of hiring thugs who enjoy using the scanners to fulfil their sick sexual kicks or little-Hitler mentality.

We need to halt the epidemic of TSA abuse not only because it interferes with our freedom of mobility but because everything being rolled out in the airports is eventually designed to hit the streets.

Today the airports and tomorrow the world – sniffer dogs, checkpoints and pat downs are now taking place at bus depots. Americans are being radiated by scanners at vehicle checkpoints. Mobile body scanners are set to be used on crowds at public events.

We have documented numerous examples over the years of TSA workers abusing their power and behaving like thugs.

At the start of the year we highlighted the case of war reporter Michael Yon, who was interrogated without reason by TSA goons who demanded he give them his private email passwords. We also wrote about another case where Steve Bierfeldt, a Ron Paul Campaign For Liberty treasurer, was hounded and harassed by TSA agents for the crime of carrying cash and Ron Paul campaign material.

Incidents of TSA agents behaving like secret political police and embarking on petty power trips to harass innocent people have exploded way out of control and it has to stop now. Even overlooking the primary issues of gross violations of rights and privacy, the fact is that a large number of people have simply refused to travel to America anymore because entering the country is like trying to get into the old East Germany. This is killing the tourism industry and costing hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

A 2006 investigation by the Discover America Partnership found that tourism to America had sunk due to "a climate of fear and frustration that is turning away foreign business and leisure travelers from visiting the United States and damaging America's image abroad."

No less than a third of tourists vowed never to return to America after experiencing the treatment of Homeland Security officials at ports of entry. By early 2007, the U.S. had lost around 60 million visitors as a result of the stifling and intrusive security measures implemented since 9/11, which were proven to be completely flawed in light of the underwear bomber incident on Christmas Day.

America has not only lost its crown as a beacon of freedom and hospitality, turning instead into a feared police state shunned by tourists, but it has also sacrificed almost a third of its tourist industry as a result of TSA and Homeland Security thugs being given the power to treat everyone who enters the country as a potential terrorist who is guilty until proven innocent.

In the meantime, a cadre of minimum wage goons are being trained to run nationwide checkpoints. The Stanford prison experiment taught us that people will obey orders no matter who brutal and inhumane, to the point of torture and even death. A whole legion of such individuals has been turned loose on the American people and soon they will hit the streets.

The national security police state has been advancing for years but now that the true takeover of American society is in full swing, Americans are finally beginning to understand that everything supposedly aimed at terrorists is in fact directed towards them.

If Americans continue to blithely accept their abuse at the hands of TSA thugs, it sends a clear message to the authorities that they are quite prepared to suffer any indignity whatsoever, which will inevitably lead to a feeding frenzy unless Americans begin to stand up for themselves against airport oppression in greater numbers.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.