Thursday, December 30, 2010

Naked Wheelchair Protester Targeted by TSA Over Buttocks

Agents single out woman who stood up to airport tyranny, ban her from flying

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Dec 30, 2010

A woman who hit headlines earlier this month for protesting the invasive new TSA airport security theatre by donning just a bra and panties has been targeted and prevented from flying by TSA officials who cited an “unusual contour” around her buttocks.

Wheelchair user Tammy Banovac was once again groped by TSA agents at Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World Airport, where on November 30 she stripped to her underwear to protest what she described as persistent violation, involving the touching of her genitals at the hands of the TSA.

“If it happened anywhere else, it would have been sexual assault,” Ms Banovac has said, noting that she is hand searched every time she flies because of her disability.

Ms. Banovac’s protest led to an hour long interrogation at the hands of the TSA before she was denied access to her flight by officials who claimed they found traces of nitrates, which can be used in explosives, on her wheelchair

A video of the protest quickly became a viral Youtube sensation:

Now Ms Banovac has been targeted once again by the TSA.

This time she was fully clothed, yet TSA agents decided that after another full body groping, they were not happy for Banovac to board her flight to Phoenix.

“The stated reason was there was… They were unable to clear an unusual contour of my buttocks area,” Banovac told NewsOn6 in Oklahoma City.

According to the report Banovac was told she would be allowed to board her flight home the next day (Wed 29th December), after she had spent the night in the airport, for what purpose it is not clear.

“This is the most ridiculous sky security theatrics imaginable,” she told the reporters.

Banovac says that her earlier naked protest has backfired and that she is now routinely recognized by the TSA at airports.

Given the bizarre explanation or lack thereof for preventing her from flying for 24 hours, there can be little doubt that TSA agents are intent on punishing Banovac for her earlier protest by making her life hell every time she enters the airport.

Watch the NewsOn6 report:

This would not be the first time TSA agents have been caught pursuing a vendetta against a slave who has dared to step out of line and question the gods.

Earlier this year Stacey Armato was locked inside a glass box for almost an hour by TSA agents at Phoenix airport after she refused to allow them to put her breast milk through an x-ray device, a legitimate request that is even written into the TSA’s own guidelines.

Armato was informed by a police officer that she had been singled out by TSA agents who recognized her because she had filed a complaint against them regarding the handling of her breast milk the previous week.

Despite thousands of complaints over the security theatre, and even in the light of the revelation of gaping security flaws in TSA protocol, Big Sis Janet Napolitano has announced that the enhanced pat-downs and the naked body scanners are here to stay. Anyone who refuses to submit will presumably either be targeted in the same way Tammy Banovac has been, or simply arrested and carted off to prison, as in the case of rape victim and epileptic sufferer Claire Hirschkind.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor at Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and regular contributor to Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.