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TSA Sued Over Sex-Assault Complaints – ‘It was as extensive as an exam from my physician…’I felt violated’
Bob Unruh / WND
The government watchdog organization Judicial Watch has gone to court to try to pry loose from the Transportation Security Administration information about allegations from airline passengers of sexual assault by its employees.
The organization is following up on a Freedom of Information Act request submitted last March that seeks details of passenger claims of sexual assault by agents at airports in Washington, Chicago, Denver, Miami and Los Angeles in 2013.
“With 56,000 employees and a $7.7 billion budget, the TSA is a massive government agency that requires diligent oversight,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is bad enough that many experts argue that it is unnecessarily intrusive and ineffective. The fact that TSA would stonewall basic information about potentially egregious and criminal assaults on airline passengers is a further proof this agency is out of control.”
Fitton said the agency “now must answer in federal court for its illegal secrecy.”
“President Obama, despite his supposed commitment to transparency, continues to allow his agencies to flout our nation’s basic open records law without consequence,” he said. “When will President Obama take personal responsibility for his administration’s repeated violation of federal law?”
The charges began in 2010 when agents were ordered to routinely conduct full-body pat-downs. But the outrage reached new heights in January when the Denver CBS television affiliate documented Jamelyn Steenhoek’s experience, which led to a sexual assault investigation by Denver police.
Steenhoek, 39, said she was patted down by TSA agents Dec. 26 as she was escorting her 13-year-old daughter to a flight bound for Philadelphia.
“I feel like someone who works for a powerful agency that we are afraid of used their power to violate me sexually – to put me in my place,” she told the station.
“[The agent] did a pretty invasive search. They are just areas of the body I’m not comfortable being touched in. On the outside of my pants she cupped my crotch. I was uncomfortable with that,” she said.
Read more at WND:
http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/tsa-sued-over-sex-assault-complaints/
