Saturday, March 23, 2013

TSA abuses paraplegic Marine — again


TSA disrespects paraplegic Marine — again

Posted: 22 Mar 2013 06:09 AM PDT


As we reported here the other day, a wounded Marine wrote to his Congressman after being humiliated by the TSA at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

According to the AZ Family report, Phoenix TSA Assistant Screening Director Jeff Perez showed video of the incident to a 3TV crew. Perez says no footage is available showing the area in which the Marine claims to have been forced to take his prosthetic legs off.

How convenient that there's no video of the area where the incident took place.

Of course, no one who flies believes this denial because the TSA has done similar things to thousands of other people in the past and lied about it.

The proof that the TSA is lying comes from the same source: a photo of the incident clearly shows that although the Marine has two prosthetic legs, he only has one on while being searched by the TSA screener.

This comes on the same day as revelations that the TSA secretly tapped into passengers' Bluetooth devices in Las Vegas and Phoenix.

The TSA forced a US Airways flight attendant, Cathy Bossi, to remove her breast prosthesis in full view of other passengers. They separated a young mother from her 4-year-old son and forced her to remove her prosthetic leg and the liner sock and expose her residual limb in front of other travelers.

This denial is from the same agency that forced an elderly woman to remove her adult diaper during TSA search and disputed a CNN report that screeners in Philadelphia forced a 4-year-old boy to remove his leg braces and attempt to walk through the checkpoint. Not only did the TSA not apologize to the boy's family, they even lied about that and claimed they did, as the boy's father, Bob Thomas, revealed on the TSA's blog on February 22, 2010, at 2:52 pm.

In another truth-fail, the TSA denied strip-searching 84-year-old Dolores Zimmerman, along with two other women, then revised the statement to say that they thought Zimmerman's back brace, which their own site says is not to be removed, was a money belt and "mistakenly" forced her out of it, along with her underwear and dignity. They later half-apologized and are now being sued in Federal court over the incident.

The TSA has also lied to Congress. They lied about the detail of the scanner images and their safety. They promised three times to allow testing of the scanners and still have not complied. They promised to hold a public comment period, as required by law, on implementation of the scanners, and did not comply. They have refused to testify before Congress. They have promised new rules for children, the elderly, and the handicapped for two years. Yet the abuses continue.

The only thing the TSA can be trusted to do reliably is lie to Congress and the American public.

There have been 106 TSA screeners arrested in the last 27 months including 15 arrested for child sex crimes, 30 for theft, 12 for smuggling, and one for murder.

Personally, I'll take the word of the Marine over that of a corrupt agency staffed by corrupt bureaucrats who publicly label a wounded veteran a liar in an attempt to defend the irredeemable reputation of the agency.

(Photo: your tax dollars)

 

 

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