Andrea Abbott's Arrest: Sanity's Illegal In An Insane Country
Andrea Abbott was arrested in Nashville for being "belligerent and verbally abusive" because she didn't want a TSA agent to feel her daughter's genitalia through her clothing. Here's what the story has to say:
A 41-year-old Clarksville woman was arrested after Nashville airport authorities say she was belligerent and verbally abusive to security officers, refusing for her daughter to be patted down at a security checkpoint.Airport security officer Sabrina Birge is clearly an ignoramus; sonograms use sound waves, not radio. And what has happened to my formerly free country, when not wanting your crotch grabbed is now worthy of a police report? When not wanting strangers to see you naked means you have an "attitude?" When having an "attitude" is grounds for arrest?Andrea Fornella Abbott yelled and swore at Transportation Security Administration agents Saturday afternoon at Nashville International Airport, saying she did not want her daughter to be “touched inappropriately or have her “crotch grabbed,” a police report states.
After the woman refused to calm down, airport police said, she was charged with disorderly conduct and taken to jail. She has been released on bond.
Attempts to reach Abbott on Tuesday were unsuccessful. The report does not list her daughter’s age. The mother and daughter were traveling from Nashville to Baltimore on Southwest Airlines.
“(She) told me in a very stern voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray,” Sabrina Birge, an airport security officer, told police.
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
This is why I refuse to fly in America, so long as flying requires I submit to being fondled by thugs in blue latex gloves (or any other color, for that matter). Being impolite to crotch-grabbing kiddie diddlers in an airport is now grounds for arrest; indeed, I'd guess merely calling them "crotch-grabbing kiddie diddlers" is grounds for that.
That's one sign of a non-free country: when lese majeste becomes a felony. Remember, America: it's not enough to let TSA agents grab your crotch; you have to pretend you don't mind.
Childhood flashback -- Airport security officer Sabrina Birge, aged nine or so, playing pranks on her friends: "Hey, your epidermis is showing!" {Laughs at embarrassed classmate, as latter frantically checks pants and other areas in search of embarrassing rips} "Ha ha! The stupid dork doesn't realize epidermis means your eyeballs."
Americans and TSA: A Call For Sacrifice
posted by Jennifer Abel at 2:03 PM
24 Comments:
You don't even know what you are talking about... you weren't there...
And you were? If so, pray enlighten me. Explain what context made statements like "I don't want people to see me naked" become not merely unreasonable, but worthy of arrest.
FTA:
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” [Sabrina Birge, an airport security officer] told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
Ms. Birge lied. Sonograms do not use radio waves, they use sound waves ('sono' should give it away). There are milimeter-wave radar scanners, but there's no way she could honestly say that they're '10,000 times safer than your cell phone' either.
She's a professional, and works with these machines every day. If she'd taken the time to learn anything about these machines, she'd never have made those stupid mistakes. And pretending she knows anything about those scanners is lying to a scared passenger just to make your own job easier. When the woman (correctly) didn't believe her, and refused to let her perform an unnecessary and invasive search, she arrested said scared passenger for defying her ill-deserved authority.
Birge and her supervisor, and everyone they report to, recursively, should be fired just for the lie.
I wasn't there, but the police report is available... she was not arrested for merely stating that she didn't want someone to see her naked body... Whats the law for disorderly conduct in TN?
Anon, link for the police report? I couldn't find it via Google.
As for the law on disorderly conduct, I'm aware of countless cases where people are charged with 'disorderly conduct' based solely on being impolite to police. In the case of the TSA, typically they will use disorderly conduct charges for refusing to follow commands.
Based on the statements quoted here, and other news reports quoting the police report, the 'disorderly conduct' came when TSA agents attempted to prevent her filming their behavior with her daughter.
http://ccc.nashville.gov/portal/page/portal/ccc/caseSearch/caseSearchPublic/caseSearchPublicForms/
Do a search for the passengers name, Andrea Abbott. Affidavit listed there.
I wonder what Ms. Abbott was expecting when she went to the airport. Was it news to her that the TSA might want to fondle her daughter?
Airports have security? Who would of thought of that?! Sept 11th couldn't have ANYTHING to do with that. I guess police are guilty of the same sexual assault claim as they pat down people for their safety as well. Besides that point, I suggest anyone not wanting to get on a safe plane, to avoid going to the airport and just walk. Going to an airport and discovering security?!?! I thought they are just there to wave.
Hey, remember...coffee isn't hot unless it says so on the cup. McDonalds learned the hard way about people.
Sadly Anon, using your logic you should not even be commenting here since you know full-well that your comments are not in line with the theme of the post. It's quite obvious that your intent is to stir up trouble, and had Ms Abel a pay stub from the TSA she could complain and have you thrown in a cage for disorderly conduct.
Anon, if you're aware enough of the situation to tell Ms. Abel she doesn't 'even know what [she is] talking about', you should be similarly aware that police patdown procedure is significantly different from TSA 'enhanced screening' procedure. Police patdowns are to guns and knives, and do not make more than incidental contact with the genitals with the back of the hand.
TSA enhanced screening, instituted after people began refusing the Rapiscan devices as unsafe or inappropriate, is much more invasive, with TSA officers making prolonged contact with the genitals, feeling between penis and scrotum, and behind the scrotum on men, and feeling the vulva on women, in both cases with the fingers.
If TSA still used police patdowns, as they used to do for people who were selected for secondary screening, this wouldn't be an issue, because they wouldn't be grabbing little girls' crotches. The TSA started this mess when they started using unprecedented machinery that even the Bush administration thought were going too far, and then started using these 'enhanced patdowns' in a way that they initially billed as a means to encourage people to submit to the scanners. These invasive, demeaning searches are unnecessary and clearly punitive towards people who object to their multimillion dollar scanners. Scanners which the TSA later admitted were introduced without independent safety testing, instead based solely on the manufacturers' specs. Those manufacturers' specs turned out to understate the actual radiation output by at least an order of magnitude.
So one assumes that you either distorted the facts when you implied that you knew what you were talking about, or that you're distorting the facts when you equate TSA enhanced screening with police patdowns. In either case, it seems like you're trollin' it up either making up facts or not even bothering to learn the facts.
BRAVO, Dav-O-Rama! You've said everything I would have and more.
Anonymous is obviously too cowardly to come forward and admit it's a TSA shill.
And yes, "disorderly conduct" often means "I couldn't trump up an actual charge against this person and besides, she was mean to me."
These episodes will become more common as more and more people finally wake up. It's still going to take a while -- so many sheeple, so much time.
And then when The Grim Groper, Pistole, rolls out his ethically indefensible "Trusted Traveler" program this fall, fewer of the rich and well connected will get harassed, and more of the hoi polloi will. Then our fight will become even harder. Divide-and-Conquer -- it's a game our overlords play well. And the clueless play right into their hands.
Also meant to leave link to defense lawyer Mark Bennett's excellent blog (Carolyn Piphus is the judge who signed off on the affidavit):
http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2011/07/carolyn-piphus-is-a-fool.html
For the record, you have 2 diff ANONs on here... I did the first 3, not the 4th. I remain ANON as much as I can because some of you people are on other forums trying to track down the TSO... who by the way did not openly speak to any police officer or news media, and had less than a moment with Mrs Abbott as the TSO that stands in-front of the scanner to help advise people to divest items from their pockets. She did not do the pat down, nor did she call for the police officers... but you people are trying to track her down as if she were a child molester... I did not come here to stir up trouble, someone else did. I just think the witch hunt needs stop. You all are so big on peoples rights, but you make judgements without the full story... You people need to be stopped. Maybe not Ms Abel herself, but Rantings of a Feral Genius is adding fuel to the fire. So when some of you go back to your other forums, please ask them to stop the witch hunt, wait till it goes to court (the full report gives the time and place) and go watch to see the facts unfold before you go knocking on someone's door with a posse equipped burning torches... it gives the appearance that you are no better than TSA.
I remain ANON as much as I can because some of you people are on other forums trying to track down the TSO
All public employees should wear badges clearly identifying themselves while on duty. Of course I completely understand why TSA workers would wish to cower behind anonymity. No wonder TSA agents hate being photographed on the job.
You people need to be stopped. Maybe not Ms Abel herself, but Rantings of a Feral Genius is adding fuel to the fire.
"Need to be stopped" from what, exactly? Ah, I see; where you and your horrible friends are concerned, it's not enough to take away American's fourth amendment right against unreasonable search seizure of the genitalia; now free speech is more than you can handle, too?
watch to see the facts unfold before you go knocking on someone's door with a posse equipped burning torches...
WHere have I done that? What I want for the TSA agents in this story is identical to what I want for all TSA agents: I want them all fired and the agency they work for disbanded.
t gives the appearance that you are no better than TSA.
I don't blackmail travelers by telling them "Let me feel your genitalia or else you can't fly, and might get arrested." I don't work for or defend anyone who does either. No, that's only TSA and TSA apologists doing that.
I suspect Anon is just a troll, but for the record, people make the same complaints about police patdowns in some neighborhoods. Having cops butt into your life and then lay hands on you "for their safety" is just as much of a crock as the TSA feel-ups. Either one would be a crime without a badge.
We have had the right to liberty, free and unhindered movement as a birth right. It was first codified into the law in the Magna Carta in 1215 and is still on the books today. Our Bill of Rights 5th. 9th and 10th amendments continue in that right. The very word LIBERTY means free and unhindered travel, the going about one;s business as one sees fit.
This was reaffirmed in the court case in Justice Douglas remarks in Kent vs Dulles: Douglas saw in the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that “No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” a right to travel:
The right to travel is a part of the “liberty” of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment . . . Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, may be necessary for a livelihood. It may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values.
We have a right to fly. We have a right to travel as we see fit and how we see fit unmolested and unquestioned. We are a free people at liberty. All contracts have the Constitution and State Constitutions as unstated parts of their authority. An illegal act cannot be a requirement in a legal contract. The TSA cannot force or even demand that a grope is a requirement of any law or code and cannot be valid in a contract to fly. It violates the Constitution.
A regulatory agency cannot make regulations that go beyond the Constitution. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
So, please….everyone…and I mean everyone…please get out of my way. I am at liberty and wish to enjoy my right to fly freely as I wish and unquestioned and unmolested.
Abel, You and your pathetic lack of research and facts are exactly why people get hurt and lives get ruined. Anybody that actually has the clearance to know what TSO's do for a living and the SOP, can easily rip holes in your pathetic attempt at a story. It is mainly based on opinions and your own selfish attitude with as little fact as possible thrown in to make it sound good. Dave -o-rama you are just as bad. Your little supposed qoute on the Enhanced pat down shows exactly how much you don't know. Then you go on to say thats exactly why you don't fly, which is incredibly obvious by your lack of knowledge on what actually happens at an airport. You people are the scum of society, latching onto any story you can blow out of porportion. The facts are TSA officers have no arresting authority, They can't even detain. The LAW enforcement Officer is the one who posseses the authority to arrest, and the only reason she got arrested is because she kept arguing and cussing at the LAW enforcement Officer. You have to be pretty stupid to continue screaming at a police officer when they are telling you to shut up and leave or i'm going to arrest you and you continue. Oh and another thing...This YOUNG CHILD was in her teens. Well over the age to have to be accompanied by an adult to fly and fully capable of making her own decisions.
Here's a FLASBACK for you....Abel about 12 watching her friends play tag...Boy gently tags a girl..the girl looses her balance and falls down...the Boy rushes over to help her back up. Abel runs to the teacher and says...The boy pushed the girl down and has climbed on top of her and is beating her....
Abel....Nothing like a good made up story with lots of exageration..to get a lot of hits and publicity.
Pathetic...
Mystery: why don't TSA apologists ever have the courage to put their names to their words? When I criticize them, my full name and photo are there for everyone in the world to see. But those who support TSA do so in whispers, skulking in the dark.
Because deep down, in your heart of hearts, you KNOW what you're doing and defending is wrong.
You need to read the full story. Ms. Abbot finally allowed her daughter to go through the pat-down and the teenager got on the plane without her mother. http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=tennessean&sParam=36966923.story
The fact that a teenager cannot get on a plane without first being felt up by a stranger shows how hideously, horribly wrong this country has gone.
Find a bridge Abel, you belong jumping off.
Dave-O, learn from Abel...do the same thing.
Have you any more substantive arguments to make, O Anonymous Molester of Innocent Travelers?
Based on IP records and search terms, I'm guessing a lot of the anonymous commenters here are friends or relatives of disgraced airport security officer Sabrina Birge, or maybe even Birge herself.
So, guys: has your buddy Birge at least been able to discern the difference between sound and radio waves, or does she remain as abysmally ignorant now as she was when interviewed by the reporter? I'd hate to think the dumb bunny learned nothing from her brush with internet infamy.
Brava, Jennifer! And yes, of course Mr. or Ms. Anonymous doesn't have the courage of his/her convictions and is hiding behind a cowardly moniker.
When he/she refers to "other forums," he/she is probably talking about Travel Underground, where some commenters have indeed posted Sabrina Birge's info. As I said on that site, where I also post, I'm not in favor of this. I'm not in favor of harassing individual TSA agents, which is more than I can say for them.
For anyone who's interested, here are two Master Lists that a colleague and I have compiled of TSA Abuses and Crimes. Take a look:
http://www.travelunderground.org/index.php?threads/master-lists-of-tsa-abuses-crimes.317/
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