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Women passengers complain that TSA agents are targeting them for extra screening.

The Transportation Security Administration has a policy to randomly select people for extra screening, but some female passengers are complaining. They believe there is nothing “random” about the way they were picked.

A Dallas woman says TSA agents repeatedly asked her to step back into a body scanning machine at DFW International Airport. “I feel like I was totally exposed,” said Ellen Terrell, who is a wife and mother. “They wanted a nice good look.” When Ellen Terrell and her husband, Charlie, flew out of DFW Airport several months ago, Terrell says she was surprised by a question a female TSA agent asked her. “She says to me, ‘Do you play tennis?’ And I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘You just have such a cute figure.’”

Terrell says she walked into the body scanner which creates an image that a TSA agent in another room reviews. Terrell says she tried to leave, but the female agent stopped her. “She says, ‘Wait, we didn’t get it,’” recalls Terrell, who claims the TSA agent sent her back a second time and even a third. But that wasn’t good enough.

After the third time, Terrell says even the agent seemed frustrated with her co-workers in the other room. “She’s talking into her microphone and she says, ‘Guys, it is not blurry, I’m letting her go. Come on out.’”

When TSA agents do a pat down on a traveler, only female agents are allowed to touch female passengers. But the TSA allows male agents to view the images of female passengers.


(I mean, SERIOUSLY??)

Ellen and Charlie Terrell are convinced that the extra screenings were unnecessary, possibly even voyeuristic. “I think it’s sexual harassment if you’re run through there a third or fourth time,“ responded Texas State Representative Lon Burnam of Fort Worth. “And this is not the first time I have heard about it,” said Burnam, who adds that a number of his constituents have voiced concerns about privacy.

CBS 11 News dug through more than 500 records of TSA complaints and found a pattern of women who believe that there was nothing random about the way they were selected for extra screening. TSA redacted the names of the passengers who complained, but here are quotations from several complaints.

•“I feel I was targeted by the TSA employee to go through the see-you-naked machine because I am a semi-attractive female.”

•“The screener appeared to enjoy the process of picking someone rather than doing true random screening. I felt this was inappropriate. A woman behind me was also “randomly selected.”

•“TSA staff ‘trolling’ the lines looking for people to pull out was unprofessional.”

•“After that, I saw him going to the private room where x-rays are, to speak to the guy on that room.”

•“I know he went to that room to see my naked body through the machine with the other guy.”

•“When I looked around, I saw that there were only women that were “told” to go through this machine. There were no men.”

•“Maklng American citizens unwilling victims of a peep show by TSA employees using full body imaging devices is an over-the-top invasion of privacy to which I strenuously object.”

CBS 11 News first contacted the TSA in mid-January to request a one-on-one interview on camera. A TSA spokesperson told us that no one was available for that kind of interview. The TSA held a news conference the following week. “Privacy issues is the main point,” said Amy Williams, Federal Security Director for Dallas Love Field. http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/02/03/female-passengers-say-theyre-target
ed-by-tsa/, "2/13/2012 update: This story has led to new legislation being introduced in the U.S. Senate."

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One of the most powerful senators in the country is taking action after watching a CBS 11 investigation. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer from New York saw our story uncovering a pattern of women complaining about the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents. Now, Senator Schumer wants to give passengers a way to complain if they feel mistreated.

Senator Schumer kicked off his news conference in New York on Sunday by referencing Ellen Terrell, the female passenger who spoke out to CBS 11 earlier this month.

And, Schumer was not only familiar with Terrell’s claims but also the complaints our investigation exposed from other female travelers.

The Senator announced that he is introducing legislation this week that will mandate TSA post passenger advocates at every airport in the country who can be summoned by passengers to hear their concerns if they feel they’ve been inappropriately treated by TSA officers.

The RIGHTS act would specifically:

•Require the TSA to establish an “Office for Passenger Support”

•Require every airport where TSA operates to have at least one TSA Passneger Advocate on duty at all times

•Mandate every airport where TSA operates to have clearly visible signage explaining that a TSA passenger advocate can be summoned

•Establish best practices to resolve frequent public complaints and conduct training of TSA officers to resolve frequently occurring passenger complaints

•And field advance notification calls from individuals with medical conditions or disabilities to pre-arrange for a screening process at the airport that ensures the safety of the flight without causing undue hardship for the disabled passneger.

In response to the proposed legislation, Ellen Terrell told CBS 11 she likes the idea of a passenger advocate. She believes the Senator is on the “right track.” Terrell, however, would like a “third party, unbiased person” to become the passenger advocate, not a TSA agent. http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/02/13/cbs-11-investigation-leads-to-new-t
sa-legislation/ ho, investigative journalism ISN'T (completely) dead!

This one blows my mind!

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Most people feel annoyed and a little exposed when they find a TSA inspection note in their luggage. But when blogger Jill Filipovic opened her suitcase after a recent flight, she got a personalized (read: invasive) message along with her notice.

Filipovic, a lawyer who writes for the site Feministe, saw that one ever-so-discreet TSA inspector had written some encouraging words on the note he or she slipped into her bag. “Get your freak on girl” read the scribbled remark. And to what did Filipovic owe this bit of unexpected support? The TSA screener had apparently found Filipovic’s vibrator in the bag.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/10/26/tsa-agent-leaves-creepy-message-fo
r-traveler-on-inspection-note/ just voyeuristic, but stupid, too, apparently:

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Vanessa Gibbs, 17, says the Transportation Security Administration stopped her at the security gate because of the design of a gun on her handbag. Gibbs was heading home to Norfolk, Virginia from Jacksonville after the holiday weekend when an agent flagged her purse as a security risk.

After agents concluded that the gun was pure decoration, TSA officials told Gibbs to check the bag or turn it over, she told News 4 JAX.



Gibbs, who is pregnant, had missed her flight by the time security finished inspecting the bag. Southwest Airlines sent her to Orlando instead, without telling her worried mother, who was waiting for her in Jacksonville.

Vanessa and her mother were skeptical that anyone could mistake the design on the purse for a real gun because of its small size and the fact that it’s hollow. http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/12/04/young-gun-teen-stopped-by-tsa-over
-pistol-embroidered-purse/

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Okay, I now agree with every awful thing you guys have said about TSA and their "terrorism deterrent" methods!