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Journalist: TSA Agents Are Wearing Badges UPSIDE DOWN To Stay Anonymous
Writer threatened with arrest after asking for agent and supervisor’s names
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Nov 19, 2012
A prominent talk radio host and author who has had previous run ins with the TSA noted Sunday that many TSA agents are wearing their identification badges upside down, making it more difficult for travelers and anyone attempting to film the agents to identify them ahead of the Infowars led Opt Out And Film Campaign this week.
Amy Alkon, who is regularly published in over 100 newspapers in North America, described a recent exchange she had with TSA agents at JFK airport, during which agents “groped” her extensively and then refused to identify themselves when asked for their names.
Alkon and her partner were flying home from New York after attending the National Book Awards when they encountered TSA agents at the security lines.
“…there was no reason whatsoever to search me — to grope my breasts, graze my vagina, or touch me or my possessions in any way. But all of that was done to me, and Gregg was groped as well.” Alkon writes.
In an email to TSA press liaison Nico Melendez, Alkon describes the incident in more detail:
As usual, I was pulled out for more screening. (It is odd that I, like many large-breasted women am always chosen — always by men at the metal detectors — to go for further screening. Every time I fly.)
The serious issue at hand here: The light-skinned black woman who screened me, last name “Moore,” was wearing her photo ID upside down so her first name could not be read. After she ran her hands, most disgustingly, all over my body, grazing my labia and touching my breasts and inside my turtleneck on my bare skin, I told her I needed her first name. She refused to give it to me.
Furthermore, when I went over to agent Moore’s supervisor, the supervisor, Mr. Grant, a light-skinned black man seated at a podium in the corner, also refused to give me his first name.
Alkon adds that TSA supervisor Roger Grant refused to provide a complaint form, then threatened to have her arrested if she did not cease asking for the agent’s first name.
“It seems to me that when a government worker is doing a contested activity like groping my body for “security” purposes, sans probable cause, or engaging in any search of me as a citizen, I am entitled to that person’s full name and badge number.” Alkon writes, demanding to know if the agent and the supervisor will be reprimanded.
“A good many TSA workers seem to wear their badges upside down — I suspect, so they cannot be identified on blogs…” the radio host notes. See below for he full text of Alkon’s email.
In 2011, the radio host was threatened with a defamation suit by TSA’s lawyers after she alleged that an agent at LAX physically penetrated her vagina with her hand four times during an aggressive patdown. Alkon described the incident as rape on her blog and identified the TSA agent in question. Her attempts to file charges of sexual assault were shot down.
