Congress to Hear TSA Horror Stories (Photo Credit: USMC.mil)
By Daniel Rubin
Philly.com
A year ago, two of my columns about troubling searches at the Philadelphia airport spurred a Congressman to demand answers of the Transportation Security Administration. Today I got word that that this inquiry has led Congress to call a hearing on Whole Body Imaging for next week in Washington.
A House panel will conduct a hearing on TSA screenings Wednesday, and a star witness is expected to be an Alaska state representative whose prosthetic breast set off alarms and repeatedly led to “humiliating” pat-downs.
Documents from the Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations show that Sharon Cissna, a Democratic state representative from Anchorage, has been invited to testify about her ordeals at security checkpoints. Cissna’s post-mastectomy false breast triggered an alert on a full-body scanner last fall and again last month in Seattle.
“The horror began again,” she told the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 24. But the second time, she declined a rubber-glove search, and instead traveled by small plane and ferry for a two-day return trip home.
The Alaska legislature passed a resolution declaring “no one should have to sacrifice their dignity in order to travel.”
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