Rape Victim Refuses TSA Breast Grope; Handcuffed, Arrested by Police:
Claire Hirschkind couldn't go through the stripsearch scanner because of a pacemaker-type device in her chest. So she was taken to a female TSA officer to be groped.
"I told them, 'No, I'm not going to have my breasts felt,' and she said, 'Yes, you are,'" Hirschkind told KVUE in Austin.
After refusing to acquiesce, she was arrested.
"The police actually pushed me to the floor, and handcuffed me," she said. "I was crying by then. They drug me 25 yards across the floor in front of the whole security."
Hirschkind had planned to visit friends in California for Christmas. Now she's banned from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
Some day we'll have a sane security system that doesn't treat every citizen as if we were criminals.
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When are people going to wake up and realize this country has become as FASCIST as Nazi Germany ?!?
Yup, completely out of hand. Like the pilot whose house was searched after he was publicly critical of TSA's failed security.
I was uncomfortable the moment the name of the organization, "Homeland" Security was announced. Far too Orwellian. We know the President, Obama's not the fascist type. But we see the government continues to be bigger and badder than our elected officials.
Not a good sign. People in government have always abused their authority...but here we have an institutional attitude where the government has self-righteously and paternally decided 'better red than dead'. An unreasonable fixation on safety of the people at the expense of our sacred freedom.
It's going to be very difficult to get it back because people like this tend to protect themselves at any cost. Including the sacrifice of the people they're sworn to serve.
Forgive that I have cited a page for your perusal.
http://sites.google.com/site/radiomankc/Home/govt-and-rights
An innocent American citizen was arrested for refusing to submit to molestation by a government employee. This is how innocent people wind up riding trains to concentration camps and being gassed to death in ovens.
Misleading title, you may not like the procedures but please at least be fair to the people working atthe security stations. Its not as if they are pointing out rape victims and specifically targeting them for extra "groping".
It really turns me off campaigns when they start misrepresenting the facts to get their point across.
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
If you don't like how they treat you don't fly. If you doesn't like the scans and manhandling you are free to, drive, take a train, walk, hire a private plane or, do what most people do: put up with it but bitch, moan, and complain about the injustice. I'm glad to see that that later option is working out for everyone.
There is no right to fly on a commercial airliner. And until people avoid airlines in sufficient numbers to effect the bottom line your not going to see any great change in procedures. Last I checked the price of flying is going up, the general flying experience is continuing to deteriorate and searches haven't become less invasive but people flying. It doesn't look like any of this is going to change anytime soon.
In the mean time you are free to post blistering rants, foam at the mouth, and shake your tiny ineffectual fist at the demeaning process and injustice of it all while waiting in line to be groped and scanned.
Don't put up with this unconstitutional garbage! Boycott Flying ENTIRELY until sanity returns! Please join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Flying/126801010710392
@Art: You say if we don't like it then don't fly, but Homeland Security has come out and publicly said that they plan to institute this practice at all train stations, bus stations, on the highways, and in all public buildings! What are we to do, let them treat us all like we are in a concentration camp? For our own good, of course. If this were about security, don't you think they would screen airport baggage and maintenance employees (which they don't) and secure the borders (which they don't)? Open your eyes before it is too late.
Would people boycott the airports already? What is it going to take? Those of us that can drive to visit family, should.
Art - So then you agree to have your house searched if they decide to randomly? Or if they want to strip search you in a grocery store just because? How about if you're taking a walk? Eating out at a restaurant? Deal with it, right? Maybe you enjoy being groped, but as a woman I won't tolerate it and too bad you have zero sympathy for people who may not want to be degraded, especially with the way the TSA humiliates cancer survivors, people in wheelchairs and rape survivors and everyone else. Or do you work for the TSA maybe?
Sorry folks, but if you want to fly you accept the costs, if you feel uncomfortable, calmly and slowly ask for help. Saying no I'm not doing that is like telling a cop (of course these are people with that type of power) I'm not going to pull over.
When are people going to learn that the police and TSA are not here to protect anyone. The TSa is here to molest and rape your wives and children while the police watch the assault and get thier rocks off. I will not fly anymore because I will not allow the police to finger by daughters vagina and stroke my son's penis. We are over taxed, lets start cutting some spending by getting rid of the pedophiles on the TSA and police dept's.
Fascists. This is the Republican Dream State.
I've read the official statement of the TSA after the incident and it seems they've not even realized the pain she had to go through. It says: "Our officers are trained to treat all passengers with dignity and respect."
Austin doesn't even have the new machines. Who does this lady think she is that she can dictate the law as she sees it?
People who seek to have a confrontation with airport security deserve punishment so as to discourage this behaviour.
This silly woman should find alternative means of transportation, or, as they say, "get over it".
Good old USA, land of the free.
I really can't understand anyone defending the actions of your TSA and police.
Feel up a rape victim, good for jollies.
I'm happy to be living in one of those, so your media says, evil countries. At least this state hasn't plumbed the depths of licenced depravity yours has.
What will you do when you have to register to leave your state or town or street. Will you just shrug and say it's for security?
You'll be very very secure, but you won't be safe as your authorities will be free to assault you at will. All in the name of security.
The terrorists have won.
TSA did not start this - it was 9/11. Sorry for Hirschkind but security at airports is serious. If Ms. Hirschkind tried this at New York, Tel Aviv, Moscow, Seoul or Istanbul airports [to name a few] she would not be going home for the holidays. Those that support Hirschkind's behavior seem to forget 9/11.
DoakeedA medical device preventing her from using the pornoscanners, and PTSD from a rape made the patdown an emotionally scarring event. How is that "seek[ing] to have a confrontation"?
@Josh Rosenau: Austin has regular metal detectors.
You are misrepresenting the facts.
"An innocent American citizen was arrested for refusing to submit to molestation by a government employee. This is how innocent people wind up riding trains to concentration camps and being gassed to death in ovens".
And Godwin's Law kicks right in. As terrible as this case is, and as much as it needs to be fixed, please do not compare this to the murder of 6 million people. Please just don't.
Some of you are making comments that are totally scary. How can you possibly think that this is OK? Get some education! You don't know what you are giving away with your ignorance. Do you really think the Patriots (NOT the football team!) of this nation risked everything for you just so you can throw it away? Not to mention those brave soldiers of the past and present risking their very lives just so you can pretend everything is all right and just because it's the Government, it must be legal, ethical, moral, or lawful? Just how far do you want them to go? Do you want them to set up their "security" stations at the grocery store? The Mall? Your child's school? They're already talking about the subways and train stations.
You can bet if I am faced with this situation, I WILL put up a fight. I'm a 52 year old grandmother and I am going to do everything I can to protect this nation and the CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF ITS CITIZENS THAT IS BEING IGNORED AND MANIPULATED BY THE MEMBERS OF "AUTHORITY". I am not afraid to die. If it is my fate to blow up at 30 thousand feet, then so be it. I won't be sitting in my chair waiting for it to happen. I am afraid of where this nation is headed and the corrupt leaders we are allowing to send us there.
God bless you, Claire. You are a true patriot of this nation.
"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." - Edward Abbey
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
"We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights." ~Felix Frankfurter
"Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance." ~Woodrow Wilson
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." ~James Madison, speech, Virginia Convention, 1788
"Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have." ~Harry Emerson Fosdick
"It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you." ~Author unknown, sometimes attributed to M. Grundler
"Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves." ~Author Unknown
"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." ~Edward R. Murrow
"Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves." ~D.H. Lawrence, Classical American Literature, 1922
"Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Nations grown corrupt
Love bondage more than liberty;
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty."
~John Milton
"Most people want security in this world, not liberty." ~H.L. Mencken, Minority Report, 1956
"Freedom is never free." ~Author Unknown
"Live FREE or DIE - Death is NOT the Worst of EVIL." - General John Stark of New Hampshire
I have put myself on the no-fly list after a similar incident with the TSA at the Austin airport on November 28th. in which my boarding pass was confiscated and my i.d. was photographed. No more for me. I drove home from Austin to El Paso. I voluntarily cancelled two trips for myself and my niece who is mentally handicapped, and I have 3 "rapid rewards" tickets in queue. I will sell them, or just let them expire, I don't really care. I will not subject myself or my niece to this type of treatment again...ever.
I am a rape victim and hate being touched by the TSA. Next time I have to be touched I think I might calmly tell them that I am a rape victim and if they can be respectful. Hopefully I will not have to be touched but you never know. I feel for this woman and know what she went through. I understand her reasons not to want to be touched. Rape is painful and the effects are extremely horriffic. Everytime a TSA person has to pat me down I cry because I hate being touched.
Saying that, we have to protect ourselves from terrorists. We have to keep ourselves safe and I tolorate being groped after rape because I know that it is for my safety and the safety of everyone else. The TSA do not know that I am a rape victim and nor do the police who sit and watch. I think the TSA should treat every woman as if she is a rape victim because you never know. Every woman has had some kind of unwanted sexual advances happen to them. Not all were raped but all females have been a victim of some kind of sex advance/assault and the TSA needs to realize this and be respectful.
By the way, women touch women. Men are not allowed to pat down a female so it makes it a little better but not much for trauma victims. Just remember that they do it for your safety.
1. You do not give up your (bill of) rights as a condition to fly because these rights are inalienable, and cannot be bought, sold or given up.
2. You have a contractual right to fly when you buy a ticket and a statutory right to transit the navigable airspace under US law.
3. In accordance with the terms of your ticket, you consent to a reasonable search of your person for weapons and explosives.
4. TSA must ask for your consent before touching you, otherwise it is (assault and) battery.
5. Unless the TSA agent is blind, there is no reason for him to touch you.
6. TSA inspectors have smuggled prohibited items past scanners and patdowns, so to suggest either is necessary for security is not credible.
7. It is much more likely that you will meet a TSA agent with sticky fingers or a perverted imagination than it is for the TSA agent to meet a real terrorist.
TSA REPRESENT GOVERNMENT IS CORRUPT IN ALL COUNTRIES, INCLUDING ITS SOURCE, THE USA, IS MOST CORRUPT COUNTRY ON EARTH. AND, SADLY ITS CITIZENS ARE IN DENIAL OF IT, SORT OF LIKE THE STORY OF THE BOILING FROG, WHERE THE GOVERNMENT STEAL YOUR PROPERTY AND RIGHTS IN SMALL PIECES, UNTIL YOU WILL END UP WITH LITTLE OR NONE. &, TSA IS A BAD OMEN OF BAD THINGS TO COME: PROTEST AGAINST THE TSA IS WHAT ALL OUGHT TO DO, BUT SADLY MOST WILL NOT, SINCE MOST ARE IN DENIAL OF WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND THEM, THAT THE USA IS INCREASE TAX @ RATING OF 1% EVERY FEW YEARS, SINCE THE USA WAS FOUNDED & IMPOSING THE SAME ON EVERY COUNTRY ON THIS EARTH, THAT IS ALMOST TOTAL OF 66% TAX: IT WAS ORIGINALLY ONLY 1% TAX @ BIRTH OF USA, IS CAUSED BY ORGANIZED CRIME IN THE FORM OF GOVERNMENT: WAKE UP SLEEPING PEOPLE.