Lisa Simeone's blog

This story has been all over the news recently. (Ashley Jessica’s heart is in the right place, even if her use of anatomical nomenclature isn’t. I’m putting that out there right at the top to head off the inevitable criticism. -Editor)

Read the rest at TSA News.

If you’re afraid a TSA agent might bungle your screening when you fly somewhere this summer, maybe you should do what John Klapproth did when he was traveling from Seattle to Anchorage recently.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Novelist Nathaniel Rich has written an op-ed for the New York Times on his refusal to go through the strip-search scanners (although it strikes me as inappropriate that the op-ed appears as part of the “Anxiety” series, as if it’s about some quaint neurosis instead of an important civil liberties concern).

Read the rest at TSA News.

If you’re of a literary bent, you may already know the following statement. It was famously said by writer Mary McCarthy of fellow writer Lillian Hellman:

“Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”

Read the rest at TSA News.

I suppose we can say it till we’re blue in the face and it still won’t make a dent.

The so-called explosives trace detection machines, like the strip-search scanners, alarm on false positives all the time. All the time.

As some of us have been saying for years, and taking no end of sh*t for it from know-nothing observers, it was only a matter of time before the tactics of the TSA moved from the airport to other venues. And now that day is here.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Is your 15-year-old son a terrorist? Of course, according to the TSA. Heck, we're all terrorists.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Proving once again that a bumbling bureaucracy is responsive as long as The Right People are squawking, the TSA has decided to delay implementation of the new rule about knives.

Have no fear, though. You, the Little People, still don’t mean anything.

An admirably persistent reporter from WeAreChange.org (not mainstream media, of course) questioned TSA Administrator John Pistole the other day about the strip-search scanners and his euphemistically termed “enhanced patdowns.” Pistole is his usual weaselly self, dancing around questions, faux-caring, and lying. Here's the video.

Columnist Marla Murasko has finally discovered what the rest of us have been saying for years: the TSA is an exercise in abuse. Its agents are on a power trip. They bully, harass, rob, and assault people, every day, all across the country. It just took her a while to figure that out:

Read the rest at TSA News.

The case of the disappearing TSA Blog post continues.

Read about it at TSA News and stand up for civil liberties.

Jason Michael Cruz learned the hard way about the brainiacs populating the TSA.

Read about it at TSA News.

Sommer Gentry is a (highly distinguished) Professor of Mathematics at the U.S. Naval Academy. She was sexually assaulted by the TSA. Since then, she has refused to allow the TSA to further victimize her. For a long time she didn't fly at all, going the boycott route (as I have done), since the airlines are complicit in the TSA's abuse. Now, however, she has other ways of fighting back. Read about them at TSA News.

Why is the TSA trying to withhold information from the public?

Read about it at TSA News.

Luckily (or unluckily) for us, the TSA is just a security puppet show, not real security. We took care of actual security by reinforcing cockpit doors and by coming to understand that passengers will no longer silently submit to would-be attackers.

Read about the brilliance of TSA workers as they eviscerate our rights at TSA News.

Got a belt buckle? A lighter? A watch? A purse? Breath mints? Congratulations! You, too, could be a terrorist!

Read the rest at TSA News.

Following is an account from a reader who has experience with TSA Pre-Check— as you’ll see, she confirms what we’ve been telling you for over a year now — that it’s a boondoggle and an extortion racket — and who also has experience with being abused by the TSA. She was temporarily disabled when she flew. The TSA first bullied her, then went against their own procedures and forced her to remove her leg cast. Still that wasn’t enough. They then bullied her some more and almost caused her to miss her flight. Read on:

Read the rest at TSA News.

The best thing is, after he was turned away for a lack of ID and boarding pass, they watched him slip through the airport’s secure area with his badge (he’s a Delta employee) yet waited 45 minutes to call Port Authority Cops.

This isn’t to say I think we’re necessarily in danger from behavior like this or that the TSA’s job is anything more than a security puppet show.

Blogger Bob has become a magician!

The TSA recently announced that its Pre-Check program has expanded to five additional airports, bringing the total participation locations to 40 airports.While the TSA is celebrati

He didn’t want to be identified by name. He says he’s just a guy who travels who reads my site.

I saw that you care about privacy and probably want to know that this happens. I travel a lot and it is boring to just wait at the gate.

In February, we wrote about a young man named Sai who was bullied, harassed, and unlawfully detained by the TSA at Boston Logan Airport. Well, Sai is back.

And the TSA is still harassing him.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Very important case challenging the TSA's strip-search scanners and gropes coming up in Boston tomorrow. Read about it at TSA News.

You may have already read about the $50 million set-aside for new TSA uniforms. Some people, including on Capitol Hill, are objecting to this expense a time when the nation is facing budget cuts through the sequester.

To placate lawmakers, the agency has just announced that it will not use that money on TSA uniforms, but rather on passenger uniforms.

Lisa Simeone, in a comment at NJ.com writes:

Ah, yes, our old friend Newark Liberty Airport, site of so many colorful TSA hijinks.

As we’ve reported many times, while you’re being separated from your belongings and getting your private parts groped, because you’re obviously too dangerous to be let onto a plane otherwise, much of the luggage and cargo are still going into the hold unscreened.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Ah, yes, the Brain Trust in Blue, as our writer Deborah Newell Tornello calls them — every time you think they’ve topped themselves, they prove you wrong.

In the latest episode of The Adventures of Darwin Award Candidates, a TSA agent at JFK (source of so many shenanigans) was “playing around” with a canister of pepper spray he found on the floor. Oops!

Wanna insult a reporter? There’s no easier way than accusing him or her of being a shill for the other side, of churning out propaganda instead of covering a subject.

And that’s especially true when it comes to the TSA.

Read the rest at TSA News.

As you’ve probably read by now, a man apparently trying to impersonate a pilot on a US Airways flight in Philadelphia now faces federal and state charges.