Permission given under duress does not constitute consent.

June 27, 2016

I was plucked from security line at Midway for a secondary screening…which took way over an hour. I was alone there with at least12 agents. They wouldn’t let me use the restroom after a 3 hr flight. They poked, probed and swabbed everything on me and my purse EVEN though I had TSA prepaid clearance. I stood there for 20 min while one guy was on phone resolving problems and wouldn’t tell me why I was there. He didn’t call a female screener for 15 minutes, after four calls and much later, a rude woman says”follow me”. No explanations.They were nasty, rude and I felt like it was racial discrimination…for the first time in my life. Only one nice man apologized somewhat and said the man on phone should have let me go to bathroom. They had my phone and IPad, so I couldn’t call my husband. The woman made me go through screening machines 3 times and yelled at me to go back twice. After that, I got a total body search, hands on breasts, crotch, etc.She ambled along retrieving my passport for 10 minutes, which was just feet away.i have proof that our flight arrived at 5:16, and proof that at 6:55 I messaged my husband that I was still being held. I am furious. Filed a complaint with TSA and Midway. Never, ever been treated like this. I don’t want money, but would like to know how to punish horrible employees and make TSA accountable! I learned later that by law, I was allowed to have a witness/ husband with me, but they wouldn’t answer me. What can I do? I am a 61 year old grandmother,btw.

Linda Sparrow
1009 Old Cannons Lane
Louisville, Ky 40207
502-639-6870
By: Linda Sparrow

I was lagging behind the other passengers as we walked down the ramp to the jetway at JFK airport about a week ago because I didn’t want to have to hear the cell phone conversations of two men in the line. A TSA officer had a bomb sniffing dog (I guess; which I’ve never seen before near the jetway, by the way). He asked me to join the group about 30 feet away but I said I didn’t want to be by the guys on their phones and turned away (I had headphones on). When I turn around to see if the guys are off the phone, the guy with the sniffer dog (who was just 15 feet from me and could have easily come over to me to have the dog check me on his way out, since I was the last passenger), is freaking out, like I’m purposely disrespecting him. He must have pushed some alarm button or something on a walky-talky…. Anyway, some muscular brute immediately comes on the scene. I try to take a photo of the dog guy (which is my perfect right, it turns out), when the brute tells me I can’t. I ask to see their superior. A guy that I guess is their superior comes and asks me to step behind a wall near the door to the jetway. Together with the brute, they give me the third degree: they ask for my passport, which the superior goes away with for 5 minutes; ask my name, occupation (retired), ask what I did before I retired, where I’m going, how long I’m going for, how much money I have on me (and I have to prove it). The brute takes my cell phone and goes through all my messages, saying he has every right to do so. Finally, just before the door to the aircraft is closed, they let me go. They’re intoxicated by power, and unfortunately, too many don’t know their rights in a situation like this and anyway, figure they’d better not stand up for them else they miss their flight.

By: Dave

March 6, 2016 between 10 pm. and 12 am. I was harassed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport by TSA employees trying to steal my money. I had come from Atlanta (DL1107) and stopped at the Delta counter S-1 to make some inquires. When I was leaving the security area, I noticed I had forgotten my passport at the counter, but I could not go back since a airport security guard did not allow me to do so, guiding me to the entrance. After some difficulties, I got a security checkpoint clearance card and as I was standing in line, I heard a TSA employee say that people were not supposed to leave even papers in their pockets. I found it very strange but took some precautions anyway: I put my 1,000 Canadian and 800 US cash wrapped in a paper inside a wallet, the wallet inside a pouch, the pouch inside the zipped internal part of my purse since i had heard many stories about people being stolen by TSA employees. After around 30 minutes, I was cleared by the body screen machine but obviously my purse and Mac laptop were not. A TSA employee told me the x ray machine had detected traces of explosives inside my purse. I though it be impossible because I had never left the airport and had been cleared at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. They patted me down twice (in private, an odd woman insisted touching improperly the private parts between my legs). They screened my things twice until a TSA officer (they told me he was a explosive specialist) said he was going to scan my things again and walked toward a non functioning x ray machine (It was off probably because the time). He put the tray where I could not see my things but I could see that, in a hurry, he was searching inside my purse. Fortunately because I was very concerned with my things, I started to walk toward him when he came back, and told me I was free to go. Nevertheless I noticed that the pouch with my money was loosed on the tray, and immediately solved to check my things out before leaving the area. I remember that I thought everything so surreal because the explosive specialist had a horrible appearance (long curly black hair and make up) and both women who patted me down looked like men. I lost about two hours at the security checkpoint, but now I wonder what would happen if I had a fly to get, or even if I did not know that TSA employees are not police as their uniform may appear to people coming from another countries, such as Japan for example. One of the several TSA employees who was trying to converse amicably (maybe trying to distract me) thought I was from Japan (I look Asian but I was born in Brazil). In my opinion, they aim at a foreign people who barely speak English (probably will not complain), preferable in middle or old age also.

By: Sonia Takeda