How to Fight Back After an Airport "Pat-Down" goes "over the line".

Submitted by Lance Corporal Matthew Reed (United States), Mar 4, 2006 at 15:45

There is an article detailing for female airline passengers and their significant others how to either protect themselves or retaliate long after they have been subjected to a sexually invasive type of "pat-down". It was posted at www.ifeminists.net on February 1 of this year and is title How To Fight Back Against Pat Downs By Airport Security Screeners. From the home page, click on the "more editorials" link and scroll down to the February 1, 2006 postings.

Essentially, what was done under the original "pat-down" policy of September to Mid-December 2004 clearly constututed sexual assault, i.e. uninvited touching or groping of a woman's breasts or genitals (none of the laws I could find made any differentiation between fronts or backs of the hands) or, the same ininvited touching done under "pressure or coercion". In other words, a TSA screener saying, "you will let us touch your breasts or crotch or we'll bar you from your flight" is uninvited touching of a woman's sensitive areas under "physical or verbal pressure, or coercion". So, you would have grounds to go back to the sex assault detail of the Police Department in whatever city you flew out of to file police reports and press charges. TSA screeners have relatively recently been arrested by local police in Honolulu and New York City for theft of passenger belongings and charged with Grand Larceny. If they can be arrested for steeling while "in the line or course of their federal duties", then obviously they can be arrested or charged with sexual assault while "in the line of duty". Unfortunately no one except a few women in Atlanta, who, I believe in October 2003 managed to get sex assault charges filed against screeners with Metro-Atlanta P.D.(although I'm not sure how it turned out in the end) have actually done this.

While I'm sure most people support "increased security", I don't think any man wants his wife, sister, mother or daughter to be sexually molested or harassed in order to achieve that greater security. The hitherto mentioned article from ifeminists.net is designed to give those women who have been sexually molested in any way by airport security screeners an "idea framework" with which to legally retaliate in an effective manner.

If we really want better, common sense security, how about a little "profiling" of those who actually fit the profile of an actual Islamic terrorist, i.e. Middle Easterners and not grandmothers, handicapped people, pregnant women or cute, young teenage girls.

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