Intellectual Property Law

In the latest round of homeland stupidity, a woman flying out of Lubbock, Texas was forced to remove her nipple rings with pliers after the metal set off the magnetometer and she was told she would have to remove them, rather than just showing them to a screener.

Certainly, Intensity was at play when TSA screeners made a woman use pliers to remove her nipple rings before she could board a plane.
Illustration: TSA

The Transportation Security Administration doesn't dispute Mandi Hamlin's account of the February 24 incident, but says the screeners were right:

It appears that the Transportation Security Officers involved properly followed procedures in that incident. They rightly insisted that the alarm that was raised be resolved. TSA supports the thoroughness of the Officers involved as they were acting to protect the passengers and crews of the flights departing Lubbock that day.

TSA acknowledges that our procedures caused difficulty for the passenger involved and regrets her discomfort with the situation. In the future, TSA's procedures will meet the security need while giving additional flexibility for this kind of screening situation.

It's nearly seven years after 9/11, and the TSA is holding to the line that it is appropriate policy to make someone remove their body piercings to get on an airplane?

Officials in Homeland Security often seemed stunned and personally offended by criticism of their efforts, and they just don't get why much of the American populace thinks of the whole enterprise as invasive, misguided, alarmist and a waste of taxpayer money.

TSA may support the "thoroughness of the Officers involved" but the rest of the country thinks they are a bunch of power hungry goons with no sense of decency or common sense. That's even as airport security has gotten faster and a little less arbitrary over the last few years.

I am continually amazed that officials at Homeland Security think they have any capital left to spend on defending this kind of stupidity.

Two suggestions:

1) apologize publicly to Hamlin today, saying the officers were not following common sense procedures and

2) stop referring to the United States as the Homeland.

Every time you say that word in reference to the United States, you sound like a buffoonish bureaucrat from the Soviet Union. Your underlings won't tell you so, but that's what THREAT LEVEL is here for.

No, really you do. Stop it. And apologize to Hamlin already.

I spoke with a TSA spokesman about the story, but he said the TSA is "not willing to comment any further" beyond the online statement.

Update - The TSA Evolution of Security blog weighs in saying the screeners followed policy, but that the policy has now changed. Still no apology.

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