Told security worker to “stop using the n-word” in the terminal.

A TSA screener working at JFK Airport in New York was arrested after launching a cup of hot coffee into the face of an airline pilot who asked her to stop swearing in the terminal.

Off duty pilot Steven Trivett was leaving terminal 8 at JFK early in the morning last week when he encountered a group of TSA workers engaged in what was described as a “profanity- laced conversation”.

Concerned that passengers, including young children could hear the screeners, Mr Trivett asked them to tone down the exchange.

Mr Trivett advised the screeners that they should “conduct themselves more professionally in uniform and not use profanity or the n-word,” Port Authority police sources said.

The sources then described how one of the screeners reacted to Trivett, telling him to “mind his own business” and cursing him out.

Mr Trivett then attempted to get a closer look at the screener’s ID tags, presumably in order to report the incident. The screener, 30 year old Lateisha El, then reportedly shoved the pilot and hurled a full cup of hot coffee at his face.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Steve Watson.

Passengers at airports can now avoid TSA pat downs, long lines and can carry liquids on board by paying $100.

However, the TSA’s new fast track ‘Precheck’ screening is likely to rile the family of a wheel-chair bound toddler who was recently subjected to invasive security checks.

Unlike the background check passengers in the scheme, who will be able to skip screening, the three-year-old was stopped at O’Hare Airport in Chicago.

CONTINUED at The Daily Mail. Video at link.

Orlando Sanford International could prompt stampede of other opt-outs.

One of America’s busiest airports, Orlando Sanford International, has announced it will opt out of using TSA workers to screen passengers, a move which threatens the highly unpopular federal agency’s role in other airports across the nation.

“The president of the airport said Tuesday that he would apply again to use private operators to screen passengers, using federal standards and oversight,” reports the Miami Herald.

With Sanford International having originally been prevented by the TSA from opting out back in November 2010 when the federal agency froze the ability for airports to use their own private screeners,a law passed by the Senate last month forces the TSA to reconsider applications.

Larry Dale hinted that the move was motivated by the innumerable horror stories passengers have told of their encounters with the TSA, noting that the change was designed to provide a more “customer friendly” operation.

The agency has been slow to reissue the guidelines on the the rule change, prompting Republican Representatives John Mica of Florida, Darrell Issa of California and Jason Chaffetz of Utah to press TSA head John Pistole to implement the mandate.

Appearing at Orlando Sanford International yesterday, Mica said he had written to 200 airports advising them of the opportunity to op out of using TSA screeners.

Orlando Sanford is in the top 30 busiest airports in the world, with large numbers of takeoffs and landings.

The TSA has been keen to downplay the opportunity for airports to dispense with their screeners, fearing a mass exodus that could undermine the justification for the agency’s continued existence, especially given the fact that its reputation has been repeatedly savaged by a number of scandals.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

As Natural News readers already well know, the real agenda of the TSA has absolutely nothing to do with airport security (TSA security is a joke) and everything to do with “prisoner training” the public. It’s all about humiliation and dehumanization. It’s about teaching the slave citizens that they are animals to be ordered around by a bunch of lawless government tyrants who onlyimpersonateactual law enforcement officers (TSA “officers” are not sworn officers in any way, and they have no law enforcement training).

The latest example of all this involves a Hawaiian mother who recently attempted to board an airplane in Lihue, Hawaii. She was carrying a breast pump and several empty bottles to hold her breast milk later on. For those who may not know, many new moms frequently use breast pumps to fill bottles with their own natural mother’s milk which they later give to their children.

Remarkably, upon seeing these empty bottles, the TSA agent in charge lapsed into a power trip frenzy and told her that she could not carry empty bottles on the airplane!

Now the TSA targets empty bottles, too

CONTINUED at Natural News.

Lawmaker to introduce legislation to require independent radiation tests of X-ray scanners.

The ranking Republican Senator on the Homeland Security Committee is poised to introduce legislation this week that would force the TSA to have independent tests carried out on the Backscatter radiation body scanners currently in use in hundreds of airports nationwide.

“Our bill would require the independent study on the possible health effects of the x-ray radiation emitted by some of the scanning machines and give airline passengers, especially those passengers in sensitive groups, such as pregnant women, clear notice of their ability to choose another screening option in lieu of exposure to ionizing radiation,” Senator Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) told The Register in an email.

Propublica reports that Collins’ bill would make it a requirement for the TSA to find an independent laboratory to thoroughly test the levels of radiation being emitted by the scanners and evaluate the potential health risks.

“The peer-reviewed study, to be submitted to Congress, would also evaluate the safety mechanisms on the machine and determine whether there are any biological signs of cellular damage caused by the scans.” the report states.

A draft of the bill requires the DHS’s Under Secretary for Science and Technology to identify and contract with an independent testing lab “in consultation with the National Science Foundation, from among laboratories with expertise in the conduct of similar studies.”

“I have urged TSA to move toward only radiation-free screening technology,” Collins said in a statement to ProPublica. “In the meantime, an independent study is needed to protect the public and to determine what technology is worthy of taxpayer dollars.”

Back In November, TSA head John Pistole reneged on a promise to the Senate to instigate further studies into the safety of radiation firing body scanners. Pistole had promised to commission further independent research into the safety risks associated with full body scanners, following a Europe wide ban on the machines. However, within two weeks the TSA head had backtracked, saying further study was unnecessary at this time.

Furthermore, despite numerous reports earlier this month suggesting that the TSA had agreed to buy equipment to test employees for radiation exposure, the agency itself later announced it has no intention of doing so.

The LA Times reported that the agency was planning to equip its security officers with individual radiation dosimeters, to test the levels of radiation they were being exposed to from backscatter x-ray body scanners.

However, a post from the TSA’s official blog said that the Times report “missed the mark” and that there was no need for further testing.

Despite these claims, documents obtained by The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) show how the TSA “publicly mischaracterized” the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in stating that NIST had positively confirmed the safety of full body scanners in tests.

Numerous other studies conducted by prestigious universities and health authorities, including Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, the University of California, and the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, have warned that the devices will lead to an increase in cancers.

Despite the fact that almost every independent study has concluded that the machines will cause cancer cases to increase, the TSA routinely denies the threat, and has even claimed that the Johns Hopkins study validated the safety of the scanners, when in fact it said the opposite.

Johns Hopkins’ biophysics expert Dr Michael Love warned that, “statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays,” after conducting a study of the naked body scanners.

Scrutiny over radiation exposure was heightened recently following apparent efforts by the TSA to cover-up a “cluster” of cancer cases amongst scanner operators at Boston-Logan airport. According to FOIA documents obtained by the EPIC, when Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure.

The documents indicated how, “A large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.”

As we reported earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security is also set to expand the use of X-ray scanning machines at US border crossings, despite the availability of millimeter-wave machines that do the same job without emitting harmful radiation.

Source: Prison Planet. Written by Steve Watson.

A New York airport screener who removed two pipes from a traveler’s bag and set them aside Monday morning prompted a security scare six hours later when the next shift saw the pipes and feared they might be pipe bombs, local and federal officials said.

The incident at New York’s LaGuardia Airport began at 11:30 a.m. when a screener discovered unidentifiable items inside a passenger’s carry-on bag. The officer screened the item for explosives, determined them not to be a threat and cleared the passenger through the checkpoint, a Transportation Security Administration official said.

But the officer prevented the metal item from going through because of its “material and appearance,” a TSA official said.

When the next shift arrived, one officer saw the items and mistakenly believed they were test objects, used to check screener proficiency. When that officer later learned they were not test items, the officer alerted others, and the TSA contacted the Port Authority Police Department, responsible for protecting the airport.

“No one could give a good account of what it was, so we did the safe thing and called (the) NYPD bomb squad,” Port Authority Police Department spokesman Al Della Fave told CNN.

The bomb squad removed the devices at 5:30 p.m. — six hours after they were taken from the passenger.

The devices were taken to a remote location for examination or disposal, one official said.

“We have still not been told what it was or what it was composed of,” Della Fave said.

Several law enforcement sources told CNN the objects were determined to be homeopathic medical devices.

TSA officials said the checkpoint was not closed, nor was the terminal evacuated, during the incident. The bomb squad was called “out of an abundance of caution,” the TSA said.

Port authority spokesman Della Fave said the police force will “speak with their (TSA) supervisors to determine how or why this breakdown in communications took place so it won’t happen again.”

Source: CNN.

Two British tourists were barred from entering America after joking on Twitter that they were going to ‘destroy America’ and ‘dig up Marilyn Monroe’.

Leigh Van Bryan, 26, was handcuffed and kept under armed guard in a cell with Mexican drug dealers for 12 hours after landing in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting.

The Department of Homeland Security flagged him as a potential threat when he posted an excited tweet to his pals about his forthcoming trip to Hollywood which read: ‘Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?’

After making their way through passport control at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) last Monday afternoon the pair were detained by armed guards.

Despite telling officials the term ‘destroy’ was British slang for ‘party’, they were held on suspicion of planning to ‘commit crimes’ and had their passports confiscated.

CONTINUED at The Daily Mail.

Critics say it proves Senator wasn’t being detained

Security video of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s run in with the TSA earlier this week has been leaked to a newspaper, and critics say it proves that Paul was not detained by the federal agency.

The footage, obtained by The Tennessean shows the Senator seated in a chair within a glass walled cubicle in the security area of Nashville airport after refusing to undergo a pat down.

As Paul talks on the phone, presumably to his office as he had stated in interviews, three TSA officials stand guard, along with police officers standing outside the cubicle.

The video then shows Paul later being escorted through the airport by an official. The footage represents about one minute of the incident which Paul said lasted over an hour.

The Senator is partially obscured by a column blocking part of the cubicle for some portions of the video. When asked why the camera would be set up only to be obscured by a column, airport spokeswoman Emily Richard told The Tennessean that cameras are “placed for the widest view possible, not a specific area.”

The airport authority and the TSA have declined to comment on the footage.

Watch the video below:

Although the report in The Tennessean points out that the footage contradicts a police report that claimed Paul was “irate”, critics jumped on the footage to suggest Paul over reacted and exaggerated the incident.

Max Read of blog site Gawker said he believes the video proves the Republican was “totally full of sh-t” when he called his spokesperson.

“I got a lot of mail, some of it syntactically and orthographically correct, disputing my account of Rand Paul’s full-of-sh-tness by referring to the dictionary definition of the word ‘detained.’” Read wrote.

“Here is my feeling: when your argument centers around ‘the dictionary definition’ of anything and involves the adverb ‘technically,’ you are full of sh-t. When you tell someone you are being ‘detained by the TSA,’ you don’t mean ‘sitting in a chair while they decide what to do.’”

Another blogger suggested that “the way Paul was treated (not a finger laid on him) doesn’t quite illustrate the harshness that word [detainment'] usually suggests.”

In response Paul supporters pointed out that just because Paul wasn’t shackled and pushed around doesn’t mean he wasn’t being detained by the TSA.

“‘Detained’ is a legal term that very much applies to this situation. It does not matter that he is not in handcuffs or behind bars; when a peace officer restricts your freedom to vacate an area through verbal instruction (the consequence of disobedience being immediate arrest for disorderly conduct), you are detained.” one commenter noted.

Following the incident Monday, Rand Paul told reporters “I tried to leave the cubicle to speak to one of the TSA people and I was barked at: ‘Do not leave the cubicle! So, that, to me sounds like I’m being asked not to leave the cubicle. It sounds a little bit like I’m being detained.”

——————————————————————

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Source: Prison Planet.

Sen. Rand Paul told his communications director this morning he was being detained by TSA at the Nashville airport.

The Twitter account associated with Paul staffer Moira Bagley, @moirabagley, tweeted around 10 a.m., ET, “Just got a call from @senrandpaul. He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.”

A TSA spokesman said the agency was looking into the matter but could not immediately comment.

Paul apparently set off  an airport security full-body scanner “on a glitch,” a spokesman in Paul’s office told ABC News.

The Paul staffer said TSA agents would not let Paul walk back through the body scanner and were demanding a full body pat-down.

The Paul spokesman said his office called TSA administrator John Pistole about the incident this morning.

The Senate is back in session today at 2 p.m., with votes scheduled at 4:30 p.m.

The issue of pat-downs has been an important one to Paul, the son of libertarian-leaning Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. Sen.  Paul brought this issue up at a hearing earlier this year.

Source: ABC News. Video at link.

Officials at Cairo’s international airport confiscated 420 pounds of frozen cow brains Friday from three Sudanese travelers who planned to sell them to Egyptian restaurants, authorities said.

An airport official said it was the fourth time this week that customs officers there had foiled an attempt to smuggle cow brains into the country, reflecting the growth of a moneymaking scheme made possible by some realities of international supply and demand: Cow brains are cheap in Sudan, and Egyptians like to eat them.

A pound of raw cow brains bought in Sudan for less than a dollar can be resold in Egypt for six times as much, airport officials said. That means Friday’s haul could have earned the men more than $1,500.

Restaurants specializing in liver and brains are popular in Egypt. Both items are deep fried and often eaten in pita bread with spicy red sauce.

Airport officials discovered the brains Friday while inspecting large freezer boxes brought in by three travelers on a flight from Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. After inspecting the boxes, the officials confiscated the brains since they couldn’t ensure they had been preserved in a sanitary manner.

The brains would be burned, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity under airport rules.

Source: MSNBC.