I’ve only ever had an ear piercing and I was never asked to take it off before I could board a plane. I can’t imagine how painful this was – but I cringed when I read it:
A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation. […]
“After nipple rings are inserted, the skin can often heal around the piercing, and the rings can be extremely difficult and painful to remove,” Allred said in the letter.
TSA officials said they are investigating whether the agency’s policies were followed.
“Our security officers are well-trained to screen individuals with body piercings in sensitive areas with dignity and respect while ensuring a high level of security,” the agency said in a statement.
What I do know is that I fly quite frequently. I don’t consider the majority of TSA screeners to be well-trained or respectful. Sorry if any of you work for the TSA, but I consider many of them to be fat, lazy benefactors of one of the most useless “feel good” bureaucracies ever created. When I hear stories like this, it just confirms it for me.
P.S.: My friend Andrew has to book every flight using the name “Drew.” Someone who has the same name is on the terror watch list. If he books using the name Andrew, it takes him forever to get through security.
Davis X. Machina
Bruce Schneier coined the term ‘Security Theater’ for such measures.
mokk
I’m with you, man. Oh, and letting a booking of “Drew” get you past the security measures is just WONDERFUL evidence of how thorough and meaningful the whole goddamn process is. What a wanking system. The TSA folks themselves are only human, milking a stupid job opportunity. But the stupidity of the job, my god…
jake
Oh bullshit. These bumbling asshats can’t keep track of their uniforms and we’re expected to believe they attended a seminar on body piercings? Let’s see the Powerpoint slides for that one, dickhead.
Yep, at some point during their comprehensive training on how to deal with pierced pubes the women were told “If a female passenger has a ring through her tit, clit or labia, call a bunch of guys over to talk about it.”
That’s some Grade A training right there.
merlallen
A hotel I once worked at in Tukwila Wa had a group of TSA people staying there. I have never met such a large group of stupid, drunken assholes. One woman who was sober walked through two doors clearly marked “Employees Only”, ended up in the laundry and got pissed at ME because she couldn’t find the large glass elevator in the lobby. I asked her how it was my fault she was stupid, I’d never even met her mother.
Never fly into or out of SeaTac if you can help it.
Scott H
Get used to it: the DMV comes to an airport near you!
Like that money pit, the Department of Energy, formed during the oil crisis of the mid-1970’s to make America energy independent, and that equal pipeline of taxpaper billions to nowhere, the Drug Enforcement Administration, no bureaucracy will ever work itself out of a job. Not the nature of the creature, doesn’t happen. Ever.
So, you will passively endure any indignity, comply with any arbitrary inconvenience, because you want to be safe, don’t you? Well, of course, you do!
gypsy howell
I don’t understand this at all. I fly all the time, and I’ve never had to remove my jewelry, pierced or otherwise.
We’ve allowed this whole TSA/ homeland security/ enhanced police powers apparatus to fester and spread like a malignant tumor. And like cancer, it’s going to kill us eventually.
calipygian
I fly a hundred thousand miles a year. If you want people who set off metal detectors boarding with just a “Don’t worry. Its just my body piercings,” good for you.
I don’t.
Things ARE stupid, I grant you that, and not just in the USA. I had a one way ticket, bought at the last minute from Frankfurt, GE, to Dulles. I am in the target age demographic. Despite the fact the US government bought my ticket and I have a well used Diplomatic passport, I still got the full monty in a backroom at the gate.
The woman has a choice – she can fly, or she can have body piercings, but she can’t do both. I don’t have a problem with that.
Thepanzer
I know a Senior Master Sergeant in the Air Force, career intelligence speciallist with a top secret clearance and wait for it…wait for it…his name is on the terrorist watch list. : P Or some other dude with his name anyway. I always get a sick chuckle when I think of him getting the 3rd degree every time he tries to fly anywhere. Whenever I hear someone say that they have no problem with gov’t surveillance because “they haven’t done anything wrong” I like to whip that story out as an example. Clueless white people always assume they have to do something wrong to get in trouble, not that government agencies are fucking incompetent and capricious and that having the same name as someone else is enough to get you labeled as a terrorist.
(as a side note, the SMSGT is a white dude with a white name. It’s not even a weird name at that for any trolls thinking he’s Ahmed Akbar or something. Not that having a muslim name should get you the scarlet letter either but this IS brown-shirt America 2008.)
gypsy howell
Let’s stipulate, just for the sake of argument, that TSA screenings have jackshit to do with airline security. After said airline passenger was willing to show them her naked titties, what possible reason was there to make her REMOVE the offending nipple ring?
Thepanzer
Calip that’s exactly the attitude that allows this sort of nonsense to continue. The last 8 years of insanity are directly linked to the active and especially passive support of the American public. For as long as apathy and “that’s just the way it is” continues as the public mindset that’s how it will be.
In the interim, enjoy taking off your shoes and removing any body piercings you have with pliers. For new mothers be prepared to drink your own breastmilk to prove it isn’t liquid explosives that only appear to be milk in a sippy cup. Never talk in line or do anything to give a TSA employee an excuse to take out their frustrations on you cuz you could get tazered and DIE like that other fellow recently. Also, don’t take too big a tube of toothpaste cuz the terrorists win if you do that, and hope to god some other guy who has your name hasn’t been visiting daily kos or talk left or you’ll be on the watch-list and really get to have a fun time when you travel. For that matter you’d best not be a foreign national from pretty much anywhere. Be careful what reading material you bring since the TSA apparently gets to comment on that also. If you’ve ever publicly admitted to drug use that’s grounds for not being allowed into the country unless, of course, you’re a republican then it doesn’t count unless you’re a low level republican then it probably does. : P
But hey that’s just how it is right? Happy flying.
SkipT
“The last time that I checked, a nipple was not a dangerous weapon.”
Au contraire, Ms. Allred. A nipple is a powerful force, and in the wrong hands it can in fact be very dangerous.
Josh
I propose a Pussy Watch List for people on this board (or any other) whose smugness, apathy, cowardice and ignorance help perpetuate the continual unamerican and ungodly encroachment of our rights and dignities by our government.
Calip..first name on the Pussy Watch List.
Michael D.
Those who are willing to trade freedom for security deserve neither, and so on and so on…
bago
Dealing with the variety and selection of piercings I have dealt with over the years, it is no wonder everyone DRIVES to burning man. I can see the argument over a prince albert…. As we all know loose piercings sink ships, or something. The problem isn’t so much the west coast where a minority of
bago
Help! Help!I’m being oppressed by nipple rings!
Someone save me!
In about 5 days or so.
Praedor Atrebates
There was a period when me or my brother would ALWAYS be picked for the extra security checks at airports. I started using my military ID as my photo ID and that nonsense became MUCH less prevalent. My brother isn’t military and lives out of the country…I don’t know if he still enjoys the special attentions of the “special” employees of the TSA when he flies.
It is ridiculous and NONE of what the TSA is doing is making flying safer. It is just wasting tax dollars and time…and making flying so friggin’ unpleasant that I avoid if whenever I can. Tis better to drive if you can for the added benefit that the feds cannot so easily track your movements. THAT irks me more than anything, the fed assumption that they have a right to know ANYTHING about you without a warrant.
bago
It may because she lived in Reno, it may because pearls are non-magnetic, but thank god for the TSA not existing betwixt reno and vlak rock city.
Michael D.
Calip: Would you have a problem with the TSA mandating that women no longer be allowed to wear make-up on airlines because it disguises their natural appearance?
Evinfuilt
I travel a bit, just a few times per year. I can say this though. The TSA in Austin seems to be 100x better than elsewhere in the nation.
I don’t know what the difference is in their hiring practices but its very evident and makes me even more upset. The Airports can do it the right way, its possible.
scott
I used to be an Intelligence Officer, worked at the Pentagon. I fly overseas semi-regularly. I have a beard and ear rings, yes, that went over well at times in the Pentagon.
I’d fly to place like China….in 1990, the year after Tienanmen. I was on my official passport (which differs from a diplomatic passport). I never had any trouble going into or out of China, or S Korea or Taiwan or Japan or Hong Kong. In fact, in screening lines, they’d see the official passport and made things easier for us to get thru. It was a great gig while it lasted.
But EVERY FUCKING TIME I’d come back into the US, my fellow federal employees would look at me and say to themselves “drug smuggler”. I’d be pulled aside, asked my favorite color, what’s the average airspeed of an unburdened swallow, etc etc.
One year, one asshat asked me “who do you work for”. I pointed to my official passport he was holding and said “same firm as you, Uncle Sam”. I then added “I have an easier time getting into COMMUNIST CHINA than I do my own country who’s government I also happen to work for.” That resulted in me being pulled into a seperate room and allowed to chill for 30 minutes. It’s anybody’s guess what they were doing until they decided to release me.
So, TSA has pulled this “corporate ethic” from a generation of asshole airport personnel and merged it into the new generation of moronic, idiot “screeners”. I’m sure the Cheney Administration is simply taking the old blueprint and making it even more incompetent than before. This group excels at that.
Now they look at me when I come back and say “turrist” since my beard makes me look like Yassir Arafat participating in a Ringo Starr look-a-like contest.
rachel
Denny Crane!
calipygian
Michael – Do you have a problem with just letting people who set off metal detectors before they board the plane on with just their word that whatever set off the metal detector is harmless?
I do.
rachel
She showed them her tits. What more do you want?
Kirk Spencer
I’m up to 12 hours avoidance, now. That is, if I can drive there in 12 hours, I automatically choose that over flying. At 6 hours or less I get there faster than I would have by flying – and depending on various additional stupidities 8 hours could be a tie. The extra four hours is worth it for the convenience of having all the things I want to bring AND not having to deal with TSA and other airport/airplane annoyances.
calipygian
And this isn’t a freedom issue, this is a basic safety issue.
Is it stupid that TSA can examine your laptop for prohibited literature, Soviet-style? Absolutely.
Is it stupid to not admit people to the country because of moral turpitude, Soviet-style? Absolutely.
Is it stupid to target people based on their age, gender, race, ethnicity or reading habits? God knows, yes.
Is it stupid to jack up mothers carrying their babies and a supply of breast milk? You bet.
Is it stupid to jack up people who set off metal detectors? Absolutely not.
Punchy
Cue Thymezone’s full-hearted agreement in 3….2…..1….
I’m with gypsy — why in hell, after she shows them what’s setting off the alarm, would they proceed to make her remove them, other than for a sick, twisted, immature power trip?
Do they force amputees to remove their prothsetics (sp?)?
4tehlulz
There is one; it’s the membership rolls of the Republican Party.
Punchy
I’m guessing at this point Cali is just pure spoofing. Nobody honestly equates a nipple ring with a Glock 9 in a pant leg.
calipygian
Actually no, I’m not.
What I am baffled by is why in the world anyone would be stupid enough to get body piercing that they can’t readily remove.
Perry Como
Unless she was wearing nipple shields, those metal detectors were way too sensitive. I have 00 eyelets with 6 ga. rings through them and I’ve never set the metal detectors off. Outside of a nipple shield, there is no way she has more metal than that in her nipples.
LITBMueller
Which goes to show just how STUPID the Watch List is when all you need to do to defeat it is remove two fucking letters from your first name.
Idiots.
Perry Como
Removing isn’t usually the problem. The problem is getting it back in.
Incertus
Between TSA, overbooked flights, uncomfortable seats and the disdain leveled at flyers who have been shat on by said airlines, I’ve stopped flying. If I can’t get there by driving or taking the train, I don’t go unless it’s an emergency.
And in that rare case, I take a nonstop flight, even if I have to drive hours to get to an airport that has the flight I need. If I never get on a plane again, it won’t bother me.
Porco Rosso
Goodness gracious, don’t you people realize that this would be a perfect way to conceal safety pins for “grenades” in a sexbot. Yes, I know that ordinarily this is where one would expect to find the barrels of the so called “submachine titties”, but think of the scorn you would heap on the TSA if they didn’t take every possible precaution to ensure that breasts do not explode midflight.
BC
I know some TSA people who tell me that people who pack heat are NOT the problem – a true terrorist would be very careful not to pack heat. Really, when it comes down to it, we are being subjected to searches because Michael Chertoff is such a wuss that he panics about every possibility. And I think TSA is just a run at STASI or Gestapo, anyway. So, TSA knew this woman was not a threat, but they just wanted to make her life miserable. And they did. And calipygian is okay with that. Because it makes him feel safe. Not that it objectively makes him any safer – he just feels safer.
calipygian
Fine. You know what would make me feel REALLY safe? If TSA just issued everyone Glocks with their boarding pass. What terrorist would dare execute his or her dastardly plan if every passenger were packing heat?
TheFountainHead
I definitely have had WAY more trouble getting back into this country than I do getting into any others. Vietnam, cakewalk. Malaysia, they barely stopped the train. Thailand, the lines are long, but at least they smile at you the whole time. Cambodia, I could have had a passport made of construction paper. Laos, where was the border? But in the US of A, good lord, “You’re a younger adult who’s been in Southeast Asia, we’re gonna suspect you of at least a half-dozen criminal activities before we even think about looking at your luggage.”
libarbarian
Are you REALLY sure he’s not the terrorists?
“Suspicion Breeds Confidence!”
“Don’t Suspect Your Friend; Report Him!”
*Bonus points to he who knows the movie reference I am making :).
The Other Steve
TSA = Thousands Standing Around
CrazyDrumGuy
Great idea! Everyone just open fire at the a guy in the turban… err, I mean, the Ay-Rahb Mooslim terrorist in 6B.
Of course, if even one of my fellow patriots were to miss and put a hole in the plane, well…
Hawise
A true terrorist doesn’t fly unless they are planning on turning the plane into a weapon in the first place. I drove across country crossing the Canada/US border with a car full of camping gear. At the family picnic my uncle’s comment on this situation was- they won’t let me fly with a bottle of water but they will let you cross with that huge cleaver, what is wrong with this picture?
I drive.
Anticorium
I know someone who has a metal plate in their skull.
calipygian, should they chop off the skin on their forehead on demand to make you feel safer? Or should they just never fly again because they chose to have a bone smashed that they couldn’t easily remove?
Shinobi
I have nipple piercings, and they have NEVER set off the metal detectors in an airport. These guys were clearly harassing her.
My mom has a metal joint, they don’t make her take it out when she gets on the plane. (She just shows a little certificate.)
Also, those little wands always beep when they go past women’s breasts. Probably 75% of the bra’s women have have metal under wires in them. And last I checked they weren’t making women take their bra’s off before they got on flights. (Which could actually hide a razor fairly effectively…. if anyone wanted a razor that close to their boobs. *shudder*)
Frankly, removing my and or reinserting my piercings at this point would be so painful I would rather just not fly. I would have walked out and sued them for the cost of my trip, plus pain and suffering.
Goob
I just traveled to Rome and on the return flight I ‘mistakenly’ left a bic lighter in my jacket pocket. I made it from Rome to London Heathrow (insert messed up delay here) to London Gatwick to Atlanta to Des Moines without ever being stopped.
I passed through at least 6 security stations (due to delay at Heathrow) and was ‘selected’ for extra security checks once as well. Never did any TSA agent once stop me for having a lighter, never once did an x-ray machine operator stop my jacket and remove the lighter, and never once did a metal detector find or stop me from passing due to the lighter.
I could go on about many other issues that occurred but to sum up the TSA and it’s regulations are a joke. They have no conformity from airport to airport and the people are worthless. To make a lady remove a nipple ring but yet let me pass with a lighter, which is one of the really big items to never be allowed on a flight, is a total joke.
b. hussein canuckistani
If pierced nipples weren’t dangerous, then Janet Jackson wouldn’t be a threat to America. Isn’t that obvious?
bootlegger
Now you’re talking! I say drop the screening all together and let us go armed on the plane. No, I’m serious, though not with Glocks because they would punch right through the hull. I’m talking about hand-to-hand weapons. So when some hijacker stands up to take over the plane, BAM, he get’s a serious beat-down from pissed off passengers.
That screening process is a fucking joke and you all know it. I fly several times a year and I never fail to gag as people’s toiletries are dumped, our shoes are scanned and someone’s grandma gets the wand. Feel safer? Ha.
I was on the “extra scrutiny” list right after 9-11. For two years I got extra searches every time I flew. When I finally realized the ticket agent was writing a code on my boarding pass I asked why I was being screened. “You’re on the list” they said. I then joked, in earshot of everyone, “you mean because I’m tall, young and dark complected?” Serious panic on their face, “no, no sir, we don’t discriminate based on appearances.” “Then why am I on the list?”. “We don’t have that information sir, there are over 100 reasons people can be put on the list.” It got better after that, I don’t what changed but I’ve only been searched once since then.
TSA is a joke and this thing with the nipple rings only proves it.
calipygian
There are established procedures that, with a little bit of reasonablness beforehand on the part of both parties, are adequate for dealing with those situations:
I can’t believe you people are making me defend what is otherwise the indefensible TSA.
There is even a special set of procedures for injured military people.
Salvo
Also, it’s pretty clear that TSA didn’t follow procedure here. Their own freakin’ website discusses the issue of body piercings, and says that if they set off a metal detector you are subject to a pat down, or, if you refuse a pat-down, then you have to remove them. The website further says that any part of the body may be patted down.
This woman offered that. Instead, snickering TSA agents directed her to remove painful piercings…with a pair of pliers! You can’t legitimately argue that this was a safety issue. I’m sorry. You just can’t.
You want further scary? The FARK thread on this last night featured a poster who claimed to work for the TSA(grain of salt and all that). He stated that regardless of what the website said, TSA’s own internal rules stated that this treatment was what they had to do, but these rules are not allowed to be shown to the public. In other words, TSA is telling the public one set of things, but they actually have a secret set of rules that you’re not allowed to know about, that you could run afoul of at any time. Yeah, I feel safer already.
Zifnab
We could issue everyone box cutters. Brilliant!
Better yet, we could issue everyone nipple rings. Because when genital piercings are outlawed, only outlaws will have genital piercings.
bootlegger
No, everyone brings their own.
I use to carry a midget sized Swiss Army knife on my keychain, a gift for being in a relative’s wedding. I had to mail that thing to myself every time I forgot to take it off before a flight. Finally it got lost when I stashed it in my checked bag and it somehow fell out on the way. But that scary knife, all 1.5 inches of it, was definitely a threat.
Salvo
Oh, and cite for TSA’s relevant part of the website:
Hidden items such as body piercings may result in your being directed to additional screening for a pat-down inspection. If selected for additional screening, you may ask to remove your body piercing in private as an alternative to the pat-down search.
Anticorium
You have a choice – you can post comments that show that you’re willing to defend a ridiculous decision that does not actually contribute in any way to a safer flying environment, or you can not be laughed at, but you can’t do both. I don’t have a problem with that.
Cyrus
If you honestly think that this comparison is at all meaningful, then you’re a moron. And as people have pointed out two or three times already, don’t you think the woman offering to take off her shirt and bra should have been enough?
Wait a minute, what the fuck? That alone should have been too much. This is insane. Michael D. was right at 7:29. Call me a DFH, but if government employees can order you to take your clothes off in front of them apparently on a whim, with no warrant or anything, just as a condition of getting on an hour-long flight from one part of your home state to another, something’s wrong.
If calipygian is spoofing, well, I’ll consider myself trolled. But even if so, you know a lot of people actually believe what he’s saying, or this story wouldn’t have happened.
qwerty42
perhaps, just perhaps, it isn’t actually any of your business. and, like you, i also pee in my pants every time the alarm goes off in the screening line.
christ, you might at least try to grow some and not act like a sheep. if this fear and cowardice has become commonplace, we should expect – not dislike or hatred from other countries, but contempt.
gypsy howell
The very fact that the crew have to go through the same screenings tells you how little any of this TSA bullshit has to do with actual airline security.
As a friend of mine who is a pilot says – “uhhhh… I don’t need a gun or a boxcutter to crash the plane. I could just… you know… crash the plane.”
Anticorium
See also: John Gilmore.
Mr Furious
Unless her nipple was pierced with a functional handgun, this action by the TSA is complete bullshit.
Setting off a detector is cause for a more thorough inspection, a hand/wand detector, a pat-down, and finally a same-sex visual inspection if needed. Once the metal “threat” was identified as a piercing, she should have been thanked for cooperating, apologize to for the inconvenience and sent on her way.
jrg
Hurray for our “small government”, “conservative” leaders!
Read the linked article, calipygian. They forced her to remove the nipple ring (after they identified it), yet left in a belly-button ring. The TSA officials were laughing while they did this.
This has nothing to do with transportation safety, and everything to do with harassing and intimidating citizens.
redman
if you read the tsa website, and actually knew a screener. you would know that a. the person is not suppose to show you a private area. and in the story it said she offered too. didn’t say she did it. and goob if you checked the tsa website. you would see that bic lighters have been allowed now for almost 2 years. and when the screener called the male over… 10 to 1 it was probably her supervisor because in that instance that is what they are required to do.
Punchy
You’re the one trying to defend the TSA asking a woman to remove a tiny piece of metal from a very sensitive part for absolutely no reasonable rationale. This is why you’re Today’s Idiot (R) (don’t worry, I’ve been that a few times before)
Perry Como
Ok, saw the video where the woman demonstrated how she had to remove the jewelry. I’m shocked something that size would trip the metal detector. And she’s right about potential pain in removing nipple piercings. Without some sort of lubricant, they can be stubborn to remove.
Schneier is right. This is security theater.
Dayv
P.S.: My friend Andrew has to book every flight using the name “Drew.” Someone who has the same name is on the terror watch list. If he books using the name Andrew, it takes him forever to get through security.
We are extremely lucky that no actual terrorist would ever think of such a devious method of escaping notice.
tBone
How do you know it wasn’t? I know you liberals like to downplay the threat of Al-Queda fembots entering the country, but I for one salute the brave men and women of the TSA for going to any lengths necessary to prevent mammary-housed weapons from being used on US citizens.
rachel
Make that sexually harassing and intimidating citizens. calipygian, if you keep defending this behavior, U R Dum.
Evinfuilt
I think its time for TSA to require all saline implants be removed before boarding. After all, they’re well over the 3oz allowed.
Mark Gisleson
I used to write and edit federal hiring and promotion forms for clients. I stopped doing that after Bush got elected because by late 2002 it was obvious that the federal hiring process had been irrevocably gamed by partisan hacks. TSA is a perfect example.
One client showed up at the initial hiring “fair” here in the Twin Cities. He claimed 99% of all recruits were current or ex-military, and that 100% of all recruitment advertising had been run in military-only publications. Up until I talked to him I had no clue there had even been such a hiring fair.
Two clients did get hired, but both quit after being passed over for promotion by candidates without any obvious qualifications other than a shared evangelical church with the supervisor making the promotion recommendations.
I should point out that while everyone thinks they got screwed when they don’t get a job, in this case both my clients were exceptionally overqualified for their entry level TSA jobs, and both were proven supervisors. One was Republican, the other a very conservative Democrat. They were not, however, blind followers of George Bush and were ostracized by their coworkers for being insufficiently gung ho. Both described their experiences in TSA as “cult like” and both found TSA to be grossly mismanaged, a good old boys network in the worst possible sense of the word.
Argently
On a recent flight out of LaGaurdia, my 12 yr. old daughter packed a small, store bought and sealed container of yogurt, in a carry on bag. The container was spotted and then confiscated. As the TSA agent held the container I said, “The old exploding yogurt, oldest trick in the book.” The agent got angry and said, “How do I know it’s yogurt? This would be enough C4 to take down a plane.” She then casually tossed the container into a public garbage can six feet away.
Dave_Violence
If Derek Smalls had to remove the cucumber, this idiot should have expected to remove her nipple ornaments.
Tit for tat.
Anon
For the record, nipple rings can be painful. I had mine for three years. They never healed completely. Every time something jostled them, I held my breath wondering if I’d feel excruciating pain or no problem. For three years.
If they had finally healed and someone had told me to pull them out, re-tearing the tissue, I’d have thrown a fit.
And they let her through with the navel piercing. They were just being bullies, and I’d like to see them out of work.
Moreover, people suggest she should have just left. I agree, but had it been me, I would have been afraid they would then retaliate with anything from putting me on the watch list to disappearing me under “arrest”. Once you’ve started submitting to the security requirements, backing out looks even worse.
Tsulagi
Hmm, now if she’d had a clit ring….ouch. But being a gentleman, I would have offered my assistance in its removal no matter how long it took. Well, unless she was a granny terrorist.
Have never had a problem with TSA or Customs. In fact, one TSAer was very helpful about the time they started randomly requiring passengers to remove their shoes. So I didn’t have to pull off some cowboy type boots I was wearing, the agent quietly told me how I could shuffle through the metal detector likely without the tacks in the soles setting off the detector. Worked. Seemed appropriate it was at George Bush Intercontinental in Houston.
Krista
That is weird that the ring set off the metal detector, but yeah, it was probably her underwire, not the ring.
It must just depend on where you go and what kind of mood they’re in (which shows that obviously there’s a problem, if they’re not being consistent.) When I flew to and from New York for my honeymoon, my underwire set the thing off. My belly button ring didn’t. The screener was very professional and gave me a brief patdown, and then thanked me for my time, apologized for any inconvenience, and sent me on my way. The HSA agent we dealt with in Halifax was actually really pleasant and nice.
Poor girl. She was being cooperative, doing everything you’re supposed to do, and in my opinion, they were just being dicks.
Kilkee
Worst TSA story ever, at least for pure stupidity. A friend presented his boarding pass and Maine drivers license to the TSA agent in LaGuardia, who then demanded his passport. Puzzled, he asked why he needed to show a passport. Long story short, TSA agent thought Maine was a foreign country (in fairness, traveller is Hispanic!). After some discussion, agent apparently realized Maine is (barely) in the US, and passed him along the line, not with an apology, but with “I’ll let it go this time.” This in LaGuardia, by the way, not, say, San Diego. (Which I understand is a long way from Maine.)
gratefulcub
This is encouraging. So, all an actual terrorist has to do is buy the ticket as Drew instead of Andrew?
gratefulcub
This is encouraging. So, all an actual terrorist has to do is buy the ticket as Drew instead of Andrew?
Blue Raven
Well, speaking as an ex-pat New Englander from Massachusetts, I’d say that it’s a combination of a New Yorker thinking he’s in the center of the universe facing someone crazy enough to live in Maine. No wonder he got confused. Lots of us “flatlanders” find Mainiacs to be a bit alien. ;)
Oh, look, someone decided we’re all a batch of elitist whiny liberals because the TSA has flare-ups of a tinpot dictator problem. I’ve never had a problem going through airport security myself, but that doesn’t mean the TSA is above criticism.
Helena Montana
I have a brand new shiny knee joint made out of titanium. Every time I fly, my knee sets of the metal detector and I get wanded and patted down. The TSA people have been unfailingly courteous and thoughtful while patting me down. I walk with a cane, and if there’s any kind of line waiting to get through security, they always whisk me ahead of the line. I have to say, TSA is usually the pleasantest part of my flight (especially if I’m doomed to fly USAir).
Liberal Masochist's wife
A few years ago, my husband attempted to bring a paperback copy of Charles Bukowski’s “Pulp” through LGA security in his carryon luggage. The book has a drawing of an old-fashioned revolver on the cover. The agent at the screening area stopped him, made him pull out the book, and demanded to know why he had it, what was up with the cover illustration, etc. Husband explained that it was a novel (not a terrorist manual) and offered to keep it zipped up in his bag in the overhead compartment for the whole flight; we couldn’t see what the problem was. She got huffy and suggested that if there was turbulence, the book might fall out, other passengers might see it, and panic might ensue. After a minute or two of trying to get this woman to give us an explanation that made sense, husband placed the book on the table and said, “You can just throw this away, then.” She actually backed up a couple of steps and said she wasn’t going to touch it. Then she summoned a uniformed, armed military guard (this was in 2002) who told us we would have to go back to the front desk and put the book in a checked bag if we wanted to keep it. Unbelievable.
The voice of common sense
Ok now. Lets see a show of hands from people who DON’T know that the TSA regs are very tough, and that metal is an issue.
Hmmm. I don’t see any hands out there.
Wait, I see one now. That frumpy looking lady that is screaching about wanting an apology from TSA. The one that even hired an attorney, just to get an apology. Hmmmm.
I have believed for years that stupid people should not breed. I guess now we should include that stupid people should not fly either.
Is the TSA staffed by a number of idiots, with idiotic rules? Sure they are. Do we argue those rules at the last minute, right before our flight? Well, Duh… NO…..
And to the relatives of this genetic failure of a woman who have also posted here about meat cleavers, and crashing planes by pilots – do you have any clue how nonsensical those statements are? Yes, a pilot could crash a plane, but the other members of the flight crew could stop him, unless he had a weapon. Yes, a meat cleaver is more dangerous than a bottle of water, but driving your family car with one, where you would only hijack yourself, is just a bit different than hijacking a plane…….
Salvo
Yeah, nice try. You’d be right….except that TSA has on their website, where anybody can check before hand, the exact regulations regarding body piercings. Which the guards in question DID NOT FOLLOW, instead choosing to subject this woman to a ridiculous amount of pain. So, yes, she set off the metal detector. And TSA would have been within their rights to pat her down. Instead, they committed false arrest, and possibly an assault. The woman should sue, and when she does, she’ll win.
b. hussein canuckistani
Let’s have a show of hands from people who think The Voice is angry because that evil slut made him think impure thoughts about … pierced… nipples…hunh…hunh…hunh…ooooh.
Asti
I go through a metal detector about three times a week and I always wear underwire. I’ve never set that thing off, I don’t understand, what gives?
Dayv
Well, that, and take out their nipple rings.
Martin
Remember, to anyone in Queens, the United States consists of the 5 boroughs, Long Island, Atlantic City, and Florida.
Salvo
It wasn’t her underwire. She made it through the normal metal detector, but was selected for a special wanding. It was the wand that detected the rings.
Dayv
Just to be perfectly clear: calipygian’s [sic] support for the TSA in this case has nothing to do with security and everything to do with their disapproval of kids today with their crazy piercings and the hippity-hoppity music, and we should all get off of his or her lawn.
Soylent Green
The steel plate holding my left collarbone together sets off the metal detector, so I always get pulled aside to get wanded. I show the TSA guys the x-ray of the implant and the scar over the bone and my federal agency ID for good measure. So far so good; I expect nothing less. More than once though they have left me standing there while three or four of them engage in discussion as to whether I am attempting to smuggle a weapon aboard via my skeleton. Or so I assume.
I’ll concede I would rather see them display absurd caution than carelessness.
I’m reminded of that Sarah Connor Chronicles ep wherein the hot girl terminator sets off the machine and tells the guy she has a metal plate in her head.
Paul L.
By bashing the TSA, you are agreeing with the Lady of perpetual outrage.
I remember after 9/11 the Democrats/Progressives demanded that airport security should not be handled by private companies. But instead by unionized government employees who will be more efficient and professional. Chickens coming home to roost.
Just remember that when the Democrats/Progressives say they can “improve” healthcare by taking it out of private hands and putting it into the more efficient and professional hands of the government.
Tax Analyst
I had vowed to give up flying after a ridiculous, unpleasant experience in December, 2000…the airline cancelled my flight at the last minute, offered to put the passengers on another flight which only went 2/3 of the way to where we were booked to go and then put us on a bus the rest of the way…we had about 5 minutes to decide and the other flight was at the other end of the LAX terminal. A mad dash ensued. I asked them to call my friend who was picking me up so he wouldn’t be waiting 3 extra hours at the Santa Rosa airport…they said they would…they didn’t…this was well before 911. But I foolishly took another flight to visit the same friends in Northern California last September. TSA wasn’t too bad, although they tossed through my luggage on the return flight…nothing but socks, underwear, t-shirts, shorts and toiletries. I figure they chose mine because it was really old, beat-up looking luggage and I didn’t bother to lock it, so it was easy to check. If I ever decided to blow up a plane I’d just buy newer luggage and lock it and probably wouldn’t have to worry about it being checked. I didn’t feel safer before or after the flight. I did get delayed an extra two + hours on the return flight because of some stupid air show at the airport ran overtime…all incoming/outgoing flights were delayed. Anyway, I never liked flying and won’t do it again. 600 miles to my friends place…I like Kirk Spencer’s idea…12-hour rule…works for me. I’ll drive.
Fuck airplanes and Fuck the airlines in particular.
The nipple-ring episode was absurd and patently abusive and anyone who can’t fathom that is a moron.
LiberalTarian
You know, Temple Grandin suggested that if they really want to have good security at airports they should functional autistic people to man the xray machines. Since they don’t tend to generalize shapes (has to do with the way the mind categorizes everything it sees), they are much much better at spotting things like guns, etc. And frankly, it isn’t as if you don’t hear about the 3-out-of-4 inspectors who get through the gates after having been inspected on a fairly regular basis.
But what still really bothers me about the whole scenario, is that we are accepting harassment on a regular basis to exert our right to travel in this country. If they really want to blow up planes their best bet is to simply ship freight. It isn’t as if they go to great lengths to be sure it is safe, even though a good number of terrorist attacks on planes have been by bomb and not attached to a human at all. I tend to want to believe the folks that say the TSA’s main job is to harass the uppity public into behaving in a suitably docile manner.
While I am glad the man with the titanium knee finds the TSA very nice and charming, my roommate with the brain tumor finds going to the airport a complete nightmare. In order for someone to go with him through the gate they have to go to extraordinary measures–call the airport in advance and get a special airport pass. Then, of course, since he has a number of special items to help him with his paralysis, it takes a tremendous amount of going through everything he has to get through the security check. Since speaking is difficult for him, you’ll be glad to know that as they ask him for detailed information about every item, it only takes an hour or so for him to get through security.
Now, you can say, well, if you choose to have a brain tumor you should not fly, in fact, you should just never travel. Everybody knows how dangerous those paralyzed people with cancer are. Buddy, if that is really your stance, the terrorist have already won.
Tax Analyst
So you’re assuming a Private Contractor would hire a higher-caliber of employee for this task? WHY?
Remember, lower wages means higher profits. It’s the watchword of Private industry these days.
God, you are SUCH a feckless DICK.
Paul L.
So these TSA agents and the State Department contractors who peeked at the Passport files are high caliber employees?
Krista
You’re forgetting the first part of the equation, my friend: electing an efficient and professional government.
Right now, yours is neither.
rachel
Instead we get absurd caution and carelessness.
Ciarin
It’s not about the stupid nipple ring. It’s about the fact that there’s a piece of metal on someone’s chest and making sure the only thing alarming is the nipple ring. The only way to do this is to have the passenger remove the ring. The TSA is not permitted to pat down breasts or look at exposed breasts(in fact, anyone who exposes themself at an airport will be removed by state troopers).
But I guess no one’s ever heard of people smuggling crap on to a plane, and there’s simply no reason why the TSA shouldn’t take a person’s word for it since we know everyone who flies is completely honest and forthcoming.
And I guess the bra bomb thing never happens…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9dA5Ksw7d8
She was ready and willing to show off her tits in front of people, but I’m supposed to believe this whole thing was “humiliating”? And since when does removing your rings involve pain? I remove my nip rings many times throughout the year and it’s hurts no more than removing an earring. If she hadn’t ever rotated or cleaned her rings, then she’s gross.
She’s just trying to scam money from the government and get media attention. Maybe she’ll be on a reality show now.
TenguPhule
Shorter Paul L: Watch me shoot my own argument in the foot!
Jeremy
Oh, she was NEVER going to remove it?
That’s too bad, honey…what do you want next, to let some Muslim Burka-clad woman tell the TSA the bomb isn’t making the alarm ring, it’s my clit-ring. fuck you, take the thing off, it’s a private-company plane and if you want to get on it, get with it.
And tell that to your money-sucking sheister lawyer. Put me on the jury, you’d see how much of the American public’s money you’d be getting. Traumatized? My ass…you weren’t traumatized when some grease-monkey was putting metal through your body, how ‘traumatized’ were you when YOU removed it.
Pig.
grandpajohn
Well to many of us that has been obvious for several years now
Salvo
Wow, nice way to completely gloss over the fact that the regs that TSA posts to the public say that they can do pat downs, and removing the body piercings are an alternative to avoiding the pat downs.
Did you even read the entire thread where I posted those regs, or do you just react all knee jerk like?
By ignoring their own regs, TSA screwed up and will get rightfully sued.