Lisa Simeone's blog

Friends, Americans, countrymen, never fear! Your crack security agency is on the case.

The TSA has issued a special alert to its employees to be on the lookout for ex-cop Christopher Jordan Dorner, who’s the subject of a multi-state manhunt.

Good for him.

Though most of us can’t afford to bring suit against this worthless agency, some people can.

 The Salt Lake Tribune has done a comprehensive, detailed analysis of TSA data, such as it is, and has concluded that . . . there isn’t much.

Over two years ago, the Salt Lake Tribune made a FOIA request that the TSA release data on the number and type of prohibited items confiscated at checkpoints — you know, those items the TSA is always bragging about in its weekly show-and-tells?

We’ve written umpteen times about the prevalence of theft by TSA agents. TSA agents themselves have come forward to say that TSA theft is rampant.

Our buddy at Taking Sense Away has a new post up, which he’s given us permission to cross-post here:

Read the rest at TSA News.

A young man who goes by the name Sai — yes, that’s his full name — was abused by TSA agents at Boston Logan International Airport on January 21st. And he’s not about to take it lying down.

Personally, I love dogs. I think they’re everything fans claim and more. I think they do amazing things for their human companions, up to and including saving lives. But when it comes to “security,” they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.

For years people have been claiming that bomb-sniffing dogs will solve all our problems at the airport. And for years I've been gainsaying that claim.

"The real answer is better training and more sensible rules."

No, the real answer is to disband this gang of criminals and thugs, starting with the one at the top, John Pistole.

In what is surely the howler of the week, TSA Administrator John Pistole has declared the TSA “the gold standard of aviation security.”

It gets better:

Aaron Tobey, the 1st and 4th Amendment hero who got arrested for speech — silent speech, as you can see in the photograph — has won a battle in his lawsuit against the TSA.

Those of you who remember Aaron Tobey know that he was unlawfully detained by the TSA at Richmond International Airport in 2010 because when he declined to go through the strip-search scanner and opted for a pat-down, he stripped down to his skivvies, thus showing that he had nothing to hide.

We’ve written about the TSA’s so-called VIPR teams many times, but most Americans still don’t know about them. These teams conduct warrantless searches on all modes of transportation all over the country — buses, trains, subways, ferries. Even highways. Yes, that means the TSA isn’t only at the airport.

As I listen to or read about the hue and cry over our Second Amendment rights if any new laws or restrictions on “bearing arms” are instituted, I wonder about the relative lack of concern over our Fourth Amendment rights.

On one hand, citizens rail against losing one Constitutional right — to bear arms —and on the other, they meekly submit to actions that abrogate another, unreasonable search and seizure.

American citizen Shoshana Hebshi, who was hauled off a plane in handcuffs, taken to a jail cell, and strip-searched, is finally suing the TSA.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Kick-ass new post by Bill Fisher. Full of pertinent information and links to supporting evidence.

The TSA sh*ts on the 4th Amendment daily. Its agents also bully, harass, rob, and assault people. That includes sexual assault. And if you think I'm exaggerating, you've obviously been asleep for the past several years.

Read the rest at TSA News.

It’s become a cliché among those who support the TSA’s unprecedented intrusions into and under the clothing of innocent travelers: “Flying is a privilege, not a right.”

Media outlets keep pushing misleading headlines and people keep repeating false reports that "the scanners are being removed from airports." No, they're not. As I wrote last Friday, only the scanners manufactured by Rapiscan are being removed from U.S. airports (they were never used in the EU, where they are banned).

I was a guest on Alyona Minkovski’s program on Huffington Post Live last night, along with Declan McCullagh of CNET and a frequent flyer named Marc Marrero.

Read the rest at TSA News.

As we reported here on September 3, 2012, the TSA last year started quietly removing the radiation-emitting backscatter (x-ray) scanners from airports and replacing them with millimeter wave scanners.

On her last four trips through U.S. airport security, Anita Nagelis says she’s been pulled aside and subjected to a more thorough search by TSA agents, including an aggressive pat-down.

Nagelis, who works for a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., doesn’t know why. She never set off a metal detector, isn’t on a no-fly list, and no suspicious items are ever discovered in her luggage.

Read the rest at TSA News.

The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) has a new blog post up about various aspects of the TSA, including Pre-Check, about which we’ve written so many times, racial/ethnic/whim-based profiling (

Friend of the blog NJR, about whom I wrote on December 18th, is on a roll. This guy is hilarious (in a good way, not in the way that the TSA is hilarious). And because he’s a former screener, he has more authority when it comes to telling you what we critics have been telling you for years, which is fine by me. Whatever it takes to get through to the masses.

Mike Adams of Natural News has posted a video of an ingenious method to prevent the TSA from stealing your valuables.

Read the rest at TSA News.

The New York Times has a travel blog called “In Transit.” On Thursday, January 3, 2013 the blog published a post called ”Keep Your Shoes On, T.S.A. Tells Some Fliers.” It was written by Emily Brennan.

Nadine Kay Hays is back in court. Hays is the woman who was arrested, handcuffed, strip-searched, and jailed after the TSA decided she was too uppity. Hays had been escorting her ill, 93-year-old mother through security at the Burbank airport in 2009 when the TSA decided to confiscate the applesauce and yogurt the elderly woman needed to eat during the journey. In trying to retrieve her stolen items, Hays was accused by the TSA of hitting an agent. Prosecutors later charged her with battery.

Ladies and gentlemen, now we have it. On December 20, 2012, Judge William Alsup ruled against the TSA.

Read the rest at TSA News.

A South Korean woman visiting this country and, of course, having no idea that she was required to undergo physical assault as a condition of getting on a plane, was arrested at Orlando International Airport.

Read the rest at TSA News.

A former New Jersey cop who, colleagues said, routinely disparaged blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Indians, and women found a hearty embrace by the TSA at his local airport.

Former Edison, NJ police sergeant Alex Glinsky retired last year on the taxpayers’ dime ($84,000 a year) after having spent a career abusing John and Jane Citizen. Then he looked for a second career — with the TSA.

A Merry Christmas to our readers, writers, and lovers of civil liberties everywhere! Thanks to you, TSA News is growing and gaining new readers daily. Thanks to you, more people are learning about the behavior of this criminal agency and how they can fight it. Thanks to you, we’re in a long line of crusaders in this country for social justice. So here’s hoping you have a happy day during this festive season, a season of light.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Matthew Mosk, Angela Hill, and Timothy Fleming write for ABC about gaping holes in airline “security,” thanks to the hamburger clerks working “security” at the airports, with test bombs and guns being missed by screeners 20 out of 22 times at Newark.

In a recent interview, TSA Administrator John Pistole acknowledged that his agency has been less than embraced by the public, and he again promised, as he has for two years now, to focus on improving passengers’ experience with TSA screening. In that interview Pistole said that it has become an adversarial relationship, “so what we’re trying to do through all these initiatives is change that paradigm and make this a partnership.”

Read the rest at TSA News.