TSA Agents Force Woman to Remove Nipple Ring with Pliers

There is no problem that can’t be made worse by having the government fix it.

Like most government-run agencies, the Transportation Security Administration has it bass-ackwards: long on providing “administration”; short on providing “security”.

A Texas woman who was forced to remove a nipple ring with a pair of pliers in order to board an airplane last week in Los Angeles, demonstrating the TSA’s commitment to keeping America’s skies safe from breast piercing jewelry.

Mandi Hamlin called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil-rights investigation.

“I wouldn’t wish this experience upon anyone,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin’s chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The women called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.

American travelers are familiar with the bumblings of a government agency which has ensured that 80-year-old grandmothers won’t cause another 911 on their watch.

The TSA has confiscated 1000s of bottles of shampoo, strip-searched octogenarians and generally made life miserable for anyone unfortunate enough to travel the decidedly unfriendly skies that the TSA guards.

The agency scored another big coup in the “Case of the Suspicious Nipple Rings”.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and removed one bar-shape piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

“She informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her,” said Hamlin’s attorney, Gloria Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA’s Office of Civil Rights and Liberties.

Hamlin said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she was wearing a bellybutton ring.

“After nipple rings are inserted, the skin can often heal around the piercing, and the rings can be extremely difficult and painful to remove,” Allred said in the letter.

Hamlin has filed a complaint, but the TSA reacted in time-honored government manner: it concluded that the screening was handled properly according to procedure.

Damn the public; it’s all about the procedure.

After 911, politicians rushed to assure Americans that they would “do something”. American travelers conceded that the government “had to do something”. What was done is a snapshot of what government does well: very few things.

The TSA is amazingly effective at harassing travelers who pose little threat of terrorism. The LA Dangerous Nipple Ring Incident is a perfect example of the “something” that ends up being done when that “something” is handled by the government.

Meanwhile, the TSA steadfastly refuses to “profile” the demographic groups that DO pose the biggest threat to the U.S.

After the next terror incident on U.S. soil, the TSA will then demonstrate one of the few things that government agencies do do well: pointing fingers and playing CYA.

by Mondoreb
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Source: Nipple Ring incident Angers Traveler

Tags: Airport, Mandi Hamlin, nipple ring, security guard, Transportation Security Administration, TSA