TSA denies it mistreated ‘sippy cup’ passenger

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC/AP

The Transportation Security Administration is denying allegations that an airport screener seized a toddler’s sippy cup and mistreated his mother, taking the unusual step of posting security camera footage on its Web site.

The TSA said in a statement that the incident and the videotape demonstrate that its “officers display professionalism and concern for all passengers.”

At issue is whether Monica Emmerson, a former Secret Service officer, was improperly detained June 11 after she spilled water out of her child’s sippy cup at Washington’s Reagan National Airport.

---

The video that TSA posted on its Web site Friday shows Emmerson being escorted from the security checkpoint as she appears to take the top off the sippy cup and shake it upside down.




Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19266957/

[baldguy]

1. That 18-month old TERRORIST! was treated properly.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. I am flying constantly,

I can count on one hand how many times I have seen the TSA behave like adults, they are usually boorish, loud and needlessly aggressive. I have also had several female friends groped by TSA screeners.

A screener at LAX told one of my friends in Spanish that "your tits are fucking awsome" and licked his lips and when she complained the supervisor threatened to kick her out of the airport.

[hedgehog]

3. What do you think a terrorist looks like?

Are terrorists only Arabs, and are young white women in professional dress non-terrorists? Spilling the water may not have been a terrorist act, but it certainly created a slip and fall hazard for other people. The point is that no one knows what the liquid is. Water is not being banned because it is water but because it could be something else.

I write this as someone who has been pulled aside for further inspection several times. Once it was my own stupid fault - I was carrying several free items from an industrial convention and failed to realize that I was in fact, carrying box cutters in my purse. Having some odd wires and parts with me didn't help, either. I don't think like a terrorist so I never thought of the box cutters as weapons. Another time, I was carrying a garden gnome (don't ask) and I was pulled aside so that German security officials could make certain that I wasn't carrying a cleverly shaped bomb. Both times, my items were checked quickly and I was treated politely. I had to leave the box cutters behind, but that's my fault.

[daleo]

4. A three year old's water from a sippy cup

Could be a dangerous explosive or a chemical weapon? A slip and fall hazard is equivalent to a terrorist hazard?

This seems pretty over the top to me.

[XemaSab]

8. When garden gnomes are outlawed...

:D

[PSPS]

5. She deserved it

This was examined here earlier:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1124925

She had a fit because everyone didn't grant her "special treatment" due to her being a big important "former secret service agent" and "flashing her badge."

Apparently, this boorish woman felt that the rules, as silly as they are, only apply to "the little people."

Screw her. She had a tantrum and can't admit it. In other words, she fits right in with the bush cabal.

[maggiegault]

7. I agree. Your typical entitlement breeder, too. I've sprogged...now gimme gimme gimme

I was behind some moron recently at Phoenix Sky Harbor as everyone was trying to fly out for the Thanksgiving weekend. Nightmare. Moron, with Mommie Dearest and three children in tow, apparently felt as though the liquid restrictions just didn't apply to him and his brood, and that his carseat did not "deserve" to be scanned by TSA personnel, either.

The dumbass got everything so backed up with his entitlement attitude and general demeanor of intense cluelessness...and did I mention that, when his toddler went through the metal detector, he promptly turned around and ran helter-skelter back up toward the huge honking line?...that the TSA actually SHUT DOWN our line and forced everyone in the line at that time to be specially screened. That's right. We followed the rules, and I got to dump every single item out of my carry-on...including tampons, as is always the case, right ladies?....because the man before me was a moron.

TSA also made the guy get back in line, at the end of the line, after he retrieved little Junior, who had apparently by then made it to the Starbucks near the escalators down to baggage claim. "But we'll MISS our FLIGHT!" he whined. "We might too, because of your stupidity," yelled another guy in the "special screening" line with me and my spouse. When he went to the back of the line, at least a half-hour line, to be re-screened, the passengers waiting broke into applause.

It's always been my experience that, if you treat TSA with respect, they leave you alone. Just my experience though...your mileage may vary.

[DemBones DemBones]

10. "breeder?" "sprogged?"

Nice attitude there.

[yardwork]

11. I noticed that, too. Talk about entitlement attitudes.

[yardwork]

12. I've watched three of the videos, and I don't see her having a tantrum.

I see more than a half-dozen other passengers streaming by while the TSA officials watch, chew gum, and yawn. They're all carrying bags - one of the passenger appears to be carrying a plate of food - and none of them are stopped. Then a woman pushing a baby in a stroller goes by. For some reason, this particular passenger gets about four TSA officials all over her. They make her stop and completely unpack all her bags. Why?

What do you see in the videos that shows that "she deserved it?"

[jberryhill]

17. It's early on....

To find the place where she shakes the cup out, you have to see the point that she goes back to wipe up. When you watch that earlier part of the video, you can see her shaking the cup of water out onto a polished stone floor.

I was curious about the "they made her wipe it up" part. Watching the video it makes at least some sense since she was the only one there with a supply of paper towels (from the diaper bag).

Without audio, it's tough to tell what went on verbally, but it looks to me like she dumped a cup of water onto a polished stone floor in a busy airport hallway which, TSA or not, is a bonehead move.

[madrchsod]

6. i also posted about this today

what struck me is the amount of people who walked by with back packs,bags,and suit cases...i wonder if they had stuff in their bags?

of course we will never know the truth because there is no audio....

[northzax]

13. you know those people were going OUT

of the security zone, right? into the concourse, from the gates?

[yojon]

9. Everybody knows that female suicide bombers

blow up their kids with them. It's only natural. :sarcasm:

[jberryhill]

18. Using diapers, with babies in them

is not unusual for smugglers. Granted the TSA rules are utterly stupid <1>, but inspection on "suspicion" leads to charges of profiling.

<1> Example - the recently-published method of evading watch lists for boarding a plane:

Let's say your name is Ima Terrorist, and you are a known terrorist.

Step 1 - You buy a ticket online using an assumed name Notta Terrorist.

Step 2 - You print two copies of the boarding pass.

Step 3 - You digitally alter one copy of the boarding pass, and put your REAL name on it.

Step 4 - When you get to the security checkpoint, you show the fake boarding pass, and your REAL ID. At the checkpoint, they are looking to see if your ID matches the boarding pass. They both say Ima Terrorist, so you go through.

Step 5 - You hand the gate agent the real boarding pass, issued to Notta Terrorist, and you board the plane.

This was published months ago, and the procedures have not changed. Once the passenger has gotten through security, they are assumed "safe", so there is no ID check when you board the plane at the gate (for a domestic flight). It's mind-bogglingly stupid that they don't close this REAL hole, but they have everyone buying baggies for three ounce fluid bottles.

[Evergreen Emerald]

14. I have seen airport security act overly aggressive as well, in fact it is the norm

rather than the exception. In my latest jaunt, I purchased a bottle of water from the airport to take on the plane, forgetting that I could not take it through security. They were extremely rude and condescending and aggressive, confronting me as if I were a criminal. The airport sells the damn water!

This is not the first incident of excessive aggression directed at me. My last flight was canceled and they had to re-route me through a different airline. I was treated as a criminal, and hand-searched searched from head to toe when I went back through security to have the flight booked. They were rude and inconsiderate in their demeanor. And I was not acting the least angry--things happen. I got the feeling that they were power-hungry bullies.

[rainbow4321]

15. We've had them overreact and then underreact

My daughter had this industrial size safety pin, the kind that is used on a large laundry bag, maybe..she had it on her backpack as a decoration. We were approaching security when we realized that it most likely would be seen as a huge sharp object. So she reluctantly threw it
in the trash can prior to getting up next to the security people.
Within seconds we were surrounded by 3 TSA guys, questioning us, what had we just thrown in the trash, telling us to dig it out. So we did, showed it to them, they shrugged and said my daughter could keep it.
She happily kept it, but I the more I looked and felt huge, sharp, hard semi-plastic thing I couldn't help but think it could be used as a "weapon" of sort, definitely sharp enough on the end to puncture skin, cause a wound, use as a threat of some sort.
Really bizarre...to be surrounded by them one minute for throwing it away and leaving it, only to be waived on thru the next with it back on her carry on bag.

[jberryhill]

19. It's odd what counts as a "weapon"

A nail file is a weapon.

A large glass container could never be used as a weapon. Glass doesn't shatter aboard planes, apparently.

[Ms. Toad]

16. We must be running into different TSA folks...

(Ditto for the ones run into by policypunk.)

I've been through security at least a dozen times in the past two months - I haven't been hassled or witnessed any hassling (even when folks don't understand the rules/have forgotten about the rules/don't believe the rules don't apply to them). . . . . in fact, there are some I wish they had hassled, just because they were such a pain in line :evilgrin: