Alaska Lawmaker and TSA Patdowns
Posted 2/25/2011
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You may already have seen this story about Sharon Cissna, an Alaska state congress woman, who refused an airport full body pat down and, instead, took a slow 4 day trip home by rental car and ferry. She has had a mastectomy and had an earlier airport experience when the full body x-ray picked up her prosthesis and stimulated a pat down.
This has happened to me, and, I know, to many other women. It came up yesterday when one of our NPs asked me if I knew anything about this issue. She had received a call from a worried patient who has a flight planned soon and wanted to avoid this scene. As far as I know, we currently have very few options. They are:
1. Take out the prosthesis before Security. Put it in your purse or carry-on and retrieve it on the other side.
2. If feeling feisty, flip it out and put it in the bin next to your shoes.
3. Ask a TSA screener if you can go though one of the older screening machines that don't result in this problem. At least at Logan, this strategy does not work, and you are randomly sent through one or another line. It does not help to tell the pre-x-ray TSA person because you will still need to talk with the screener on the other side of the machine.
4. For what it is worth, I just came back from Dallas where I went through the same kind of full body x-ray. There, I was not pulled aside for a further pat down. When I asked the screener why not, she said: "I guess they have seen enough of them now so they know what it is." Hope that is soon true everywhere.
Back to the story. Here is an excerpt and then a link from CBS News:
Alaska lawmaker returns home after refusing search
Alaska lawmaker returns home after refusing search
(AP) AUKE BAY, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska state lawmaker vowed Thursday to fight for the rights of travelers who have been subjected to what she considers intrusive airport searches by federal airport screeners.
A jubilant Rep. Sharon Cissna arrived by ferry in Auke Bay, just outside Juneau, after a four-day ordeal that began with her refusal to submit to a full-body pat-down at a Seattle airport ordered by Transportation Security Administration agents.
Cissna said travelers are "accidentally being abused by government," and it's an issue that must be dealt with.
Cissna, D-Anchorage, is a cancer survivor who has had a mastectomy. She underwent the full-body scan at the Seattle airport but was singled out for a further pat-down search, her second within three months.
Having vowed to never endure the pat-down procedure again, she decided to take a rental car and small airplane from Seattle to Prince Rupert, B.C., and from there, a two-day ferry ride to Juneau.
Her case is from far isolated and has turned the petite 68-year-old into an unlikely hero, applauded on Facebook and the state House floor for her stand.
"I feel really proud of Sharon," House Democratic leader Beth Kerttula said. "I think she stood up for thousands of Americans who are saying, why, when a woman has had a mastectomy, does she have to go through this?"
http://tinyurl.com/4k43ux7
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