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the Threat: Booby Rings
Posted by Raven on March 27th, 2008
OUCH!! Just dammit. I KNOW this must have HURT.
LOS ANGELES — A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.
“I wouldn’t wish this experience upon anyone,” Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference. “My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way.”
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 agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.
Yeah….
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 then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.
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.
Okay, permanent nipple rings don’t pose ANY threat to anyone. Trust me on this. Fercryinoutloud. Talk about following stupid rules even when faced with a situation that’s obviously not a threat!
She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.
“Still crying, 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 still was wearing a belly button ring.
Snickering? I’d have kicked them in their damn balls after removing those things, with PLIERS. Bastards!
I’m sorry- but I think this is just plain STUPID. We let real threats board our planes every day (young angry Muslim men…) but a woman with pierced boobs is treated like this? BULLSHIT. I say SUE THE TSA.
March 28th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Mindless. I would normally be on the TSA’s side on most things. But this is ridiculous. She gave them a much better solution, which was to display the “offending” metal to a female screener in private. I am curious to see the TSA’s guidelines towards body piercings. I doubt they make woman take out earrings, or navel rings, “other” rings if you catch my drift. So why make them take out the nipple rings. The only I can see is if the nipple rings were large and and pointed to be used as a weapon (snicker). But this is the same TSA that would make you throw away tweasers and disposable razors, but allow you to take pencils and ball-point pens, which could be used to stab, onto a plane. I hope this lady gets her apology and those TSA screeners have their cranial-rectal inversion fixed… they’re retards, unless there is somebody who can explain to me WHY what they did was appropriate…
March 28th, 2008 at 8:18 am
No- the TSA has “rules” about piercings. Body jewels. Whatever..they present no real and imminent danger. Nipple rings are not a clear and present threat.
Stupid. And, to be willing to show’em…and be told to remove them inspite…is just stupid and proves how stupid our government is against it’s own citizens. Meanwhile we allow young angry Muslim men to pray, chant and board planes with no regard.