Sunday, November 21, 2010
Thomas D. “Tom” Sawyer, 61, of Lansing, MI — a bladder cancer survivor is the latest victim of enhanced TSA security procedures President Obama claims we must endure in the fight against terrorism.
Perhaps the current nitwit in the White House needs to talk to Thomas D. “Tom” Sawyer, 61, of Lansing, MI.
Mr. Sawyer beat bladder cancer but couldn’t beat TSA agents at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The retired special education teacher on his way to a wedding in Orlando, FL, when he was left humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after TSA agents worked him over in an enhanced pat-down procedure.
On Nov. 7, Mr. Sawyer went through the security scanner at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. “Evidently the scanner picked up on my urostomy bag, because I was chosen for a pat-down procedure.”
Before starting the enhanced pat-down procedure, a security officer did tell him what they were going to do and how they were going to it, but Sawyer said it wasn’t until they asked him to remove his sweatshirt and saw his urostomy bag that they asked any questions about his medical condition.
“One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.”
The security officer finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, “He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn’t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.”
Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer said he had to walk through the airport soaked in urine, board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean up.
“I am totally appalled by the fact that agents that are performing these pat-downs have so little concern for people with medical conditions,” said Sawyer.
From the Left 
There isn’t a day that passes where a story like this one comes to the fore. The TSA needs to be disbanded and replaced. I am stunned, angered and appalled by the treatment of Americans by the TSA. The TSA is the terrorist organization. As for Obama saying this is needed, he’s either a fool or part of the problem. Enough is enough.
I agree, they’re out of control and need to be disbanded.
Christopher, I like the new digs – your site looks nice 🙂
Obama said this? Seriously? A 61 year old bladder cancer survivor represents a terror threat to this nation because he wants to travel to a wedding in another state?
Rest assured. The current mess known as the TSA is going to be a major issue in the 2012 General Election.
If the abuse of American travelers doesn’t end, either people will stop taking flights and the airline industry will shrink even further leading to more unemployment of voters will elect to punish Washington in ways that make 2010 and 1994 look like love fests by comparison.
Do you see a troubling pattern here? I sure do.
* The TSA forced a disabled four year old boy to remove his leg braces in full view of the public at an airport.
* The TSA forced a breast cancer survivor to remove her prosthetic.
* The TSA damaged a bladder cancer survivor’s appliance splattering him with urine.
This is goon behavior and these TSA thugs are sanctioned and protected by Homeland Security. Our government, our president, just smile and say, it’s all to protect us from the evil terrorists. Well I would prefer to take my chances with a terrorist than to be treated like an inmate in a Peruvian prison.
Obama/Napolitano’s TSA is pushing back hard against the growing outrage and backlash over naked body scanners and intrusive pat down searches of the private parts of air travelers.
The TSA is warning Americans that they may be arrested and fined $11,000 if they refuse to cooperate with the agency’s invasive and unconstitutional techniques.
The TSA warns: Any “would-be commercial airline passenger” who enters an airport checkpoint and refuses to be subjected to “the method of inspection designated by the TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport” (emphasis added).
The TSA will work with local police in order to make sure the person remains on the premises and answers questions. “Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest,” reports the Palm Beach Post.
Are we living in the USA or, the USSR? Looks like terrorists win after all.
I think this is only the beginning of the Fed’s intrusion on our rights.
The irony is, none of this airport foolishness stops terrorists. An explosive sniffing dog with 10,000% more olfactory abilities is 10,000% more effective than some TSA agent who is annoyed by having to touch a businessman’s junk before lunch break.
Long ago, the USA got it right. Now, we’re just the laughing stock of the world.
Yes, this is not good policy and procedure BUT when you are hiring agents for $8-10 a hour, you’re not hiring people capable of properly handling the job and who are more likely to abuse their power.
It may be have been left out of the article but anyone with a medical device or condition should carry documentation (my dad got a credit card like card for his pacemaker) and should inform the agents first thing.
Carry documentation? Curious.
The guy has a urostomy bag which is basically a permanent hole in your body where the urethra tube is relocated to, with a bag to collect waste, so I don’t quite understand what more evidence this poor fellow needs?
Plus, you’re assuming the TSA agents can read? Realistically, don’t you think this is a big leap of faith?
Here’s the answer: boycott flying. It’s simple.
Drive, take a train, a bus or don’t go. Once the airlines are brought to their knees, my prediction is, the TSA will suddenly be brought under control.
Even Hillary Clinton says enough is enough. Check this out.
Clinton: TSA Should Try to Make Airport Screening Less Intrusive
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/21/clinton-tsa-try-make-airport-screening-intrusive/
She says she understands “how offensive it must be” for some people to undergo the searches. She says there’s a need to strike “the right balance” and to “get it better and less intrusive and more precise.”
Would she submit to a pat-down? “Not if I could avoid it,” Clinton
says. “No. I mean, who would?”
She made the comments in interviews aired Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
It has been suggested TSA adopt the Israeli passenger screening methods that rely on the intelligent and experienced screeners to ask passengers questions, so passengers are not needlessly subjected to humiliating body searches and X-ray scans. It should be noted Israel is a small country with few commercial airports compared to America. Israel can staff its limited airports with a sufficient number of educated/intelligent interrogators to screen air passengers; TSA on the other hand is hiring the extreme opposite. TSA screeners appear short on education, interrogation skills and some apparently lack the ability to think and solve simple problems. It is questionable whether U.S. Taxpayers could afford the costs to pay Israeli educated level and experienced screeners at most American airports. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are revolting, won’t stand for being stripped naked/ invasive pat downs and touching by current level TSA screeners and or radiated by X-ray scans every time they fly; problematic in the future to include taking a bus, train and stops at TSA vehicle check points. TSA’s mistreatment, humiliation and general abrasive handling of Americans at airports, may be a portent to Americans (next) getting a Boot in their face if they refuse to be stripped searched or x-rayed before boarding—any form of public transportation.
Another problem with TSA strip-searching and X-raying Citizens, is that it can be used by the government in power to selectively target individuals that lawfully speak out or write against U.S. Government, harassing targeted Citizens at every mode of transportation with relentless body searches, pat-downs and X-ray scans to the point Americans will be reluctant or afraid to travel anywhere by plane, bus or drive their vehicle on the street because of TSA Check Points. In Northern Ireland not many years ago, it was alleged numerous times over decades that British soldiers at roadway vehicle check points, waved Irish Catholics though, then machine gunned the occupants claiming the vehicle failed to stop. Irish Catholic communities protested and complained. The Northern Ireland British Government would call a committee to investigate taking 18-months to determine cause of death. In the interim another alleged British atrocity would take place against Catholics overshadowing prior killings and alleged false arrests and imprisonments. Catholics traveling were intentionally harassed by British troops and police at highway check points, forced to submit to humiliating searches; political activists were delayed or taken away so they could not drive to a political meeting or speak at an event that opposed British polices. Could U.S. Citizens be similarly targeted e.g., Tea Party Members, anti-war activists and others after TSA overseen by Homeland Security, extends its body searches and X-ray scans of passengers, boarding trains, buses and at vehicle check points?
I still don’t understand how rousing a cancer patient trying to board a flight makes us safer?
As long as the TSA is running the airports, I’ll just drive. I don’t need the headache.
I do not know what the correct balance is for security. But what I do know is, I became an American citizen in 1988. I have flown for business and pleasure many times since and I have never had a problem. But in the past two years, I am always singled out for additional security checks. The last time I traveled — to Seattle to see my brother and his family, I was interrogated and asked more than 20 questions by the TSA agent. I felt like a criminal and I have not so much as had a parking ticket or returned a library book late in my life.
I’m waiting for the first pedophile to be uncovered. But why the hell are they groping kids? Kids are a security threat? No. They want the youngsters to learns early on that they are serfs who will do what they are told. Thai Noodles is right. Boycott air travel and write the airlines and tell them why you are doing it. If enough people did that, the airlines would scream so fucking loud this would end. It’s all about keeping the military industrial complex fed and treating us like criminals, but it might be trumped if it looked like the airlines would go belly up. Because iin the end, money trumps everything. And Feminazi, Obama doesn’t give a shit about this because he and his family and assoiciates will never have to go through this humiliation. People who fly private jets never have to see this. Never.
What’s next? A fare-paying customer with an colostomy bag ripped from his or her body by a TSA agent and human feces strewn all over the terminal because they might represent a terrorist threat?
This has reached a fever pitch of insanity. The Feds are testing our patience and I predict something very serious is going to happen.
The TSA had better be careful or someone is going to get hurt.
Disgusting and INFURIATING! We have got to STOP this NOW, or we will live in a police state. Resist, refuse the full body x-ray because if you travel frequently you will be at risk for skin and breast or testicular cancer. The fondling by TSA agents must be outlawed. By the way, the terrorists have won and we are no safer.
Mark my words, the day is coming when the TSA, along with Homeland Security, will haul you off to a FEMA camp is you refuse to be nuked with screening radiation of refuse to let a TSA agent fondle your junk.
America is gone. It’s a footnote in history books.
The USA has a reputation as a fairly litigious nation. I am unclear why more lawsuits haven’t been brought against the TSA? Boarding a flight in Britain is fairly straightforward and passengers don’t have to endure the violations you Americans must face. I haven’t been to the States in about 15 years but in light of the airport circus that has become the norm over there, I think I’ll just stay home.
These stories are scandalous and illegal.
The Feds don’t have unlimited rights to treat the American public like wanton criminals guilty until proven innocent. How far we’ve fallen as a nation if we tolerate this behavior by the Feds.
The TSA agents hate the flying public.
This is what one male agent wrote: “Even worse is having to try and feel inside the flab rolls of obese passengers, and we seem to get a lot of obese passengers!”
Then get a damned job cleaning toilets at McDonalds.
The problem with Janet Napolitano and Homeland Security is, after the so-called Christmas Underwear Bomber, she became reactive instead of proactive. Like it or not, we need to profile more and accost elderly women and disabled Americans less at the nation’s 350 airports. The Israeli model is preferable to the current mess we have in the US of A.
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I am the Tom Sawyer that the TSA patted down at Detroit Metro. Many of the quotaqtions that I have reaqd about myself are laughably wrong and in some cases totally fabricated. The story is very true and the events are also true. I am still very involoved in making sure that the TSA go forward and retrain all agents in how how to deal appropriately with people like myself.
Thomas Sawyer.
I cite as my source for this blog piece MSNBC. If they got anything wrong and by extension, I reported inaccurate information, I invite you to set the record straight.
What you suffered at the hands of the TSA is beyond comprehension and I can’t begin to imagine what you endured. If it were me, I would bring a lawsuit against the TSA, Homeland Security and Janet Napolitano.
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