Do New TSA Screening Techniques Amount to Sexual Harassment of Muslim Women?

Don’t we always have the right to request a female screener anyway? I don’t like the new regulations any more than the next traveler, but calling them sexual harassment seems a bit much.

Our “security” measures are just a joke and a screen for dumb citizens who think by taking their shoes off we are actually catching terrorists. I am not saying that there shouldn’t be screening, but I also know that it is only a matter of time before we see one of those new scatter scanner pictures go up on the Internet.

Oh, and by law you don’t have the right to request a female screener. If they have a screener, they will try and get you one, but it isn’t a right. I feel sorry for those of the female persuation.

I appreciate Tabitha’s and Kyle’s question of why I (or in fact, the original author of the Town Talk piece) only related this as sexual harassment of Muslim women. Although issues with the procedures certainly could (and probably do) go beyond Muslim women, it has to do with what THEY would consider sexual harassment – i.e. an unknown man touching them at all – vs. what WE might consider sexual harassment (most western women wouldn’t consider being touched on non-private areas of the body in a security situation as sexual harassment).

Also, those from the Middle East are being targeted, and therefore are having to go through this process more often than westerners.

But, danmbob, the question being posed is–are these rules and regulations appropriate, for anyone? There are Muslim Americans, remember, and I agree with previous comments that new regulations could cause sexual harassment for women, and even broader, possible for men too. For ANYONE, it’s possible to be sexually violated by a security officer.

As for Muslim identity, clearly Mr. Doyle has not read the Koran, nor does he realize that the Koran is not solely the law in Muslim countries, therefore is not the immediate source of Muslim women’s oppression.

And “countering the terrorists’ aggressive acts” — let’s focus on terrorists, US govt! Because I’m pretty sure the MAJORITY of Middle Easterners/Muslims are NOT terrorists. Muslim and terrorism are not one in the same.

Christine, “needing to give up what they consider their rights around their body, based on the fact that we consider what they have to go through at home as being worse” — we are assuming we understand their whole experience because of a few news reports. With this assumption of experience comes ‘othering’ — separating ‘them’ as being ‘Middle Eastern Muslims’ as something different and potentially dangerous. So to your question: “But would we stand for white American women being “processed” in a fashion…” No, we wouldn’t stand for our own people to be processed like that because it’s ‘us’, not ‘them’. Therefore, it’s okay for ‘them.’

As per the new screenings, I agree pat downs and shoe/laptop removals are pointless and have been personally told by TSA employees that they are facades.

I don’t buy that we wouldn’t put up with this treatment of “white” women. But I’m more offended by the wording of the assertion. Most people from the countries of greatest interest ARE white (being Middle Easterners), while huge numbers of women who are not subject to these specific complaints are not. The only “other” is she who chooses to wear the veil; yet her “otherness” is completely irrelevent, the purpose of the screening to make sure dangerous materials aren’t being carried underneath all that clothing. Recall, suicide bombers have in fact dressed as women to get through checkpoints.

While we should always respect sensitivites as much as truly possible, we must also keep in mind that the fundamental problem is the manipulation of certain desperate Muslims by their psychopathic handlers for political reasons. As the buck of blame gets passed around for these inconveniences, it must ultimately stop at those Islamic leaders who are unwilling or unable to halt this terrible misuse of their faith.

What I meant by “calls Kornic jurisprudence” is where he refers to the supposed Islamic laws that make it “okay” for us to subjugate women, because they do it in their own country, so we can do it here….that was stupid, naive, and ignorant.

Give me a break. Have you ever had a pat down in (Muslim) Jordan? It makes the US pat downs look like a kindergarden party. They don’t want terrorists and take it very seriously. Two soldiers (women), a curtained room and no-nonsense pat down. Nothing left to the imagination. I was happy they were taking security seriously.

I like to see these same Muslim women complain about the King of Jordan and his rules of pat down. Oops. Can’t do that.

This is the new normal. Get use to it. I fly a lot. I don’t want to die. A pat down or scatter screening won’t kill me, a terrorist will.

Imagine a world where young 20 something males, that were once bag handlers are now given the power of a police with none of the police academy training. Imagine these teens can just randomly select a beautiful women and give her a “Full body Screening” or pat down. Imagine if this was your wife or child, imagine what you would do. Imagine there were 3 of them, smiling at your wife and talking about how hot she was or how hot her tits were. This is what is occurring, this is the TSA.

After some research we are are also finding multiple accounts of Pedophilia by male TSA agents against young girls and boys. We cannot allow grown men and women to grab the genital of your boys and girls for the sake of safety.