TSA Manager Stabs TSA Worker to Death

Ruben Orlando Benitez

If you needed more proof the Transportation Security Administration is filled with a bunch of psychotic reprobates, here it is. Ruben Orlando Benitez the Assistant Federal Security Director for Screening for the TSA in Mississippi has been arrested on suspicion he stabbed to death, another TSA employee, Stacey Wright in her D’Iberville, Mississippi apartment.

This is the sort of guy who manages the miscreants who are supposed to be protecting you from homicidal maniacs. Maybe the TSA figures it takes one to know one. Nobody, therefore, can protect innocent travelers from violent crazy people better than other violent crazy people with badges.

TSA Allows Crazed Man with Knife on Plane

On September 18, 2011, on a Delta Air Lines flight from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas, David Alan Anderson got into a confrontation with a neighboring passenger over an arm rest. Anderson quickly became aggressive and threatened to slit the passenger's throat.

The crew noticed Anderson reaching into his bag several times, appearing to be holding something in his hand.

The Salt Lake police were called. They conducted a voluntary search of Anderson's bag and found a knife with a 3 1/2" blade. Anderson was arrested. Anderson went on to verbally threaten police and FBI agents.

The passenger who was in the confrontation with David Anderson could have been killed, and it would have been the TSA's fault. One of the TSA's primary responsibilities is to keep weapons off of planes. Why can't the TSA manage to do that?

If Your Hair Is Nappy, the TSA Is Not Happy

When commenting on various hairstyles popular in the Black community, comedian, Paul Mooney joked, "If your hair is relaxed, White people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they aren't happy."

That sentiment seems to be no joking matter at the Transportation Security Administration. In July of 2011, Laura Adiele had her "poofy" hair molested by the TSA.  Most recently, Isis Brantley of Dallas was at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta on September 19, 2011. She made it through a TSA checkpoint only to be stopped again to have her afro searched. Apparently, the TSA was concerned Isis Brantley's hair might contain explosives.  The intrusive search left Brantley feeling humiliated and outraged.

We can all rest easy, because the threat of Isis Brantley's exploding afro has been eliminated. It turns out Isis Brantley was not a terrorist and did not hide any explosives in her hair. She is a hairstylist, who proudly wears her hair natural.

The TSA simply has to find a better way to handle situations like this. There is an abundance of technology that can be used to detect explosives. It is completely unnecessary for the TSA to be poking around in people's hair.  The TSA does stuff like this because they can, and they want to show you they are in charge.  Think about it this way, when a unifromed federal officer is rummaging around in your hair, is there any question about who is in control?

Pat-Downs to Be Enhanced at NFL Games

One of the worst effects of the Transportation Security Administration's practice of pat-downs is that it has conditioned innocent people to easily and willingly surrender their dignity and privacy to authority figures--even in the private sector. The private-sector invasions of personal space have become most severe at sporting events.

If you have been attending sporting events during the last few years, you may have noticed a gradual increase in the aggression from the security guards and their increasingly intrusive pat-downs. Now, the NFL is recommending all game attendees be patted-down from the ankles to the knees and the waist up. Now, if you attend a lot of games, you have probably already had more intrusive pat-downs than that. You have probably had a security guard's hands way up near your crotch. Procedures must vary from stadium to stadium or perhaps some security guards are more frisky than others.

What is bad about the NFL pushing more aggressive pat-downs is that this measure will eventually lead to future requirements that could be even more intrusive. It would not be surprising to see aggressive acts of molestation happening at sporting events in a couple of years. We're talking a stranger's hand way up in your crotch and all over your genitals just half an hour before you are in the stadium singing the National Anthem. (How ironic is that?)

What is happening here is our rights are eroding. Or sense of dignity is vanishing. Sadly, the NFL has every right to conduct whatever searches they want. They are a business, and the fans are customers. If fans do not want to be molested, they do not have to go to games.

The football fans should rebel against these insulting pat-downs and boycott the games. If people stopped paying to see the games until the pat-downs stopped, the NFL would end the pat-downs immediately.

The problem is, the football fans are not going to stand up for their dignity. For a decade, they have been conditioned to surrender their pride and privacy by the TSA's intrusive searches. Since becoming felt-up by uniformed strangers is now commonplace in America, people have little trouble bowing to the NFL and allowing their bodies to be violated.

This NFL pat-down move should be a lesson to all. If you surrender your freedoms in one place, you will eventually lose them elsewhere until, someday, you find you have no more freedoms left to lose.

Shoshana Hebshi Strip-Searched After Sitting Next to Suspicious Men on Plane

Shoshana Hebshi

Shoshana Hebshi, a half-Jewish and half-Arabic woman, was strip-searched after sitting next to two Indian men who were accused of acting suspicious on a Frontier Airlines flight from Denver to Detroit on September 11, 2011. The flight crew reported the two men for spending too much time in the bathroom.

Upon landing at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, the plane was isolated and stormed by heavily armed police. The police handcuffed Hebshi and the two suspicious men and removed them from the plane. Hebshi was patted down and placed in the back of a police car. She was then taken to a holding cell and forced to remove her clothes for a strip-search.

Guess what they found on Hebshi. They found nothing. Shoshana Hebshi is not a terrorist. She is a mom who just happened to look a little too Middle-Eastern and just happened to sit next to some Indian men who went to the bathroom too often for some people to accept. By the way, the Indian men did not even know each other, and they were never in the bathroom together. One of the men was sick, and the other man probably had some other good reason to visit the bathroom. They were not terrorists either. There were no weapons. There were no bombs. There was no plot. There was nothing. All three people were innocent.

What happened here is three perfectly innocent people were bullied and harassed for looking a little too ethnic. It is ridiculous that Indian people are not allowed to visit the bathroom more than an average number of times without setting off some national security emergency. It is even more ridiculous a woman was singled out just because she was sitting in the wrong seat near such Indian men.

Shoshana Hebshi was robbed of her dignity for absolutely no good reason, and she--along with the Indian men--need to sue Frontier Airlines, the Detroit Metropolitan Airport Police, the FBI, and ever other bungling institution that was involved in this incredibly humiliating overreaction.

You can read the whole story on Shoshana Hebshi's blog.

TSA Officers Took Bribes from Drug Trafficker

The fine men and women of the Transportation Security Administration should be protecting air travelers, but they are too busy committing all sorts illegal acts. The latest exposure of criminal activity at the TSA centers around a drug smuggling.

A drug trafficker was routinely transporting large amounts of black-market oxycodone and cash back and forth between Florida and the northeastern United States. To make sure things went smoothly, the trafficker bribed TSA officers Christopher Allen of Palm Beach Gardens, FL; John Best of Port St. Lucie, FL; and Brigitte Jones of The Bronx, NY to let him through security with drugs and large amounts of cash. The trafficker also had, Florida State Trooper, Justin Kolves and NYPD officer, Michael Brady, on the payroll. So far, at least twenty people have been arrested for involvement with the drug ring as part of the Drug Enforcement Administration's “Operation Blue Coast.”

If TSA agents will take bribes to let drugs through security, what else will they let through if properly bribed? For those who argue TSA agents might accept bribes to let drugs through but they would never take bribes to allow explosives through, consider this. What if a terrorist posed as a drug trafficker, gave bribes to TSA workers to let a suitcase full of drugs on a plane, and it turned out he had hidden a bomb in that suitcase?

TSA Gets D- from Its Creator

In a HUMAN EVENTS interview, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee and creator of the Transportation Security Administration, Rep. John Mica (R - FL), blasts the is the TSA for corruption, poor performance, unforgivable security breaches, wasteful spending, and a host of other problems. Mica gives the TSA a grade of D- and recommends the TSA be dismantled and privatized.

Click below to read the Audrey Hudson's article.
"TSA Creator Says Dismantle, Privatize the Agency"

TSA Agent, Thedala Magee Threatens to Sue Passenger over Rape Accusation

Airline passenger, Amy Alkon is accusing, Transportation Security Administration Agent, Thedala Magee of what amounts to sexual assault. On March 31, 2011, Amy Alkon was passing through security at LAX in Los Angeles and wound up getting the dreaded pat-down. During the pat-down, Amy Alkon claims Thedala Magee pressed the side of her hand into Alkon's vagina, between her labia, four times. During and after the pat-down, Amy Alkon made quite a scene by crying and then accusing the TSA agent of rape.

Now, rape is a very serious word, but pressing ones hand into a vagina, even through clothing, is a very serious act. The act of pressing a hand between labia through clothing may not exactly qualify as rape under many legal definitions, but it certainly is a hostile violation of one's personal space and would absolutely be considered a crime in just about any situation. For some reason, TSA workers are allowed to commit these sexual offenses on innocent people without probable cause. They get to do it, and they do it with impunity.

Of course, people are now attacking Amy Alkon and questioning her truthfulness, but is that really fair? If Alkon's story is true, this poor woman was sexually assaulted by a government worker. It does not really matter if the sexual assault is legally sanctioned by the federal government or not. If unwanted sexual contact takes place, it is sexual assault. How can we, in good conscience, doubt Amy Alkon's story? When a person claims to have been sexually assaulted, do we not owe it to the victim to offer the benefit of the doubt?

Sure, Alkon could be exaggerating a story for publicity. It is a sensational story. Her story, however, has a lot of credibility. TSA workers are constantly jamming their hands into people's crotches and poking around in there. Is it really crazy to think Alkon's vagina may have been violated in some way during this interaction? Thedala Magee certainly had access to Alkon's vagina and had the opportunity to push her hand between Alkon's labia if she wanted to do so. Should we not assume Alkon to be the ultimate authority on whether or not her vagina was compromised?

Well, Amy Alkon decided to fight back against the TSA agent using her right to free of speech. She recounted her alleged assault on the Internet in a post titled "Don't Give the TSA an Easy Time of Violating Your Rights." She even identified the accused by name: Thedala Magee.

Thedala Magee did not like her name being published on the Internet by the alleged victim. Magee has hired attorney, Vicki Roberts, and she is now threatening to sue Alkon for defamation. She has even offered to settle out-of-court for $500,000. Is that not just adorable? A woman claims sexual assault, and even though there is likely to be a full-color video of the accused with her hand in the victim's crotch, the accused has the nerve to threaten a lawsuit and offer to make it go away for some quick cash.

Thedala Magee was probably informed by the TSA she has every right to sexually violate people, and Magee probably thought she would never have to answer for her actions. These TSA buffoons, put on their uniforms, and they feel they can go to work and do whatever they wish to people because they are acting under the authority of the government. Some people just believe that, if the government does it, it cannot be wrong. Even worse, some people think, "I was just following orders," is a completely adequate excuse for all sorts of terrible behavior.

Well, fortunately, we have the Internet for things like this. Thedala Magee may be able to force Amy Alkon to remove her accusations from the her Web site.  Magee may even be able to squeeze some money out of Alkon, but one thing Thedala Magee will never be able to do is escape the shame that is going to be associated with her name all over the Internet from now on. And, you know what? Magee deserves to be shamed.

These TSA workers may just be going around following orders, but they volunteered for the job, and they are getting paid to routinely terrorize innocent people who simply want to get on a plane and go somewhere. Yes, the federal government is instructing them to violate people, but these TSA workers do not have to take these jobs. If they choose to be willing participants in an ongoing assault on the civil liberties of innocent people, then these TSA workers deserve whatever shame comes their way, even if that means they get publicly exposed by name as the sex offenders they are.

If there were more gutsy people like Amy Alkon who would have the courage to stand up to these sanctioned sexual assaults, fewer people would want to become TSA agents and those who continue to do the job might be more likely to be a little more respectful of people's privacy, rights, and human dignity. We should sympathize with Amy Alkon in her pain and applaud her for her bravery.