Agents admit forceful pat-downs were conducted when officials opted out from body scanners
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
June 17, 2011
As the resurrected TSA anti-groping bill cleared the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence, and gathered enough support to pass both chambers, Texas state officials have recounted disturbing stories that highlight how the TSA is using forceful pat-downs as a form of “punishment” to those who opt out of the full body scanners.
“Let me put this delicately. I was still feeling the effects of the pat-down as I sat in my seat from New Orleans to Houston, and then Houston to Austin.” Chairman of the Texas Public Utilities Commission Barry Smitherman told Fox 7 News.
Smitherman described the groping as “aggressive” and recounted an admission by a TSA supervisor that he was being “punished” for opting out.
Texas State Rep. Barbara Nash also told Fox 7 that a TSA agent “moved my legs apart and went up my legs, all the way up, and then she made me stand a different way where she could go all the way up the front., and then all the way up the back of my dress.”
State Rep. David Simpson, who sponsored the original anti-groping bill, House bill 1937, noted “This is a sexual assault in any other activity. If that happened right now, it would be sexual assault.”
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Barry Smitherman, Chairman of the Texas Public Utilities Commission, and Texas State Rep. Barbara Nash tell about their experiences with "aggressive" TSA groping. State Rep. David Simpson discusses his bill to prohibit the TSA from groping innocent travelers without probable cause. Fox 7 Austin's Camille Williams reports.
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