The Transportation Security Administration is investigating an incident where a 90-year-old woman allegedly was asked to strip from the waist up after setting off airport body scanners.
Harriette Charney was heading back to the East Coast after spending two weeks with her son when she went through the full body scanner at Portland International Airport, her son Alan told ABC Affiliate KATU-TV.
When the alarm on the scanner went off, TSA agents promptly pulled Ms. Charney aside.
“It was obvious they were going in to a search,” Mr. Charney said. “But I presumed they were just going to sort of pat her down.”
What Mr. Charney didn’t know, and the airport scanner picked up on, was that his mother had sewn a small pocket inside her bra to hold a couple of extra dollars in the event her wallet was lost or stolen.
The TSA’s body scanner detected the pocket as a possible security risk. Seconds later, Mr. Charney said his mother was taken in to another room where she was told to strip.
“They wanted her to take, I guess, take all of her clothes off from her waist up,” he said, KATU-TV reported. “and so she took of that and took off her bra … and I’m like ’what??!!’ “
But, in a statement to The Washington Times, a TSA spokesman said Ms. Charney was never told to strip.
“Preliminary findings indicate that at no time during the screening process did the passenger remove her clothing nor was she requested to. In fact, when the passenger, of her own volition, began to disrobe, she was immediately stopped by the TSA officer conducting the screening,” the spokesman said.
TSA’s advanced imaging technology safely screens passengers without physical contact for both metallic and non-metallic threats, including weapons and explosives, which may be concealed under a passenger’s clothing.
According to TSA policy, when the scanner sends a signal to the officer, the officer must resolve the notification using, if necessary, additional pat-down screening, which may be conducted in a private room and with supervision.
TSA officials said this procedure does not involve the removal of clothing.
Mr. Charney told KATU that he doesn’t disagree with the need for his mother to be searched, but he believes the agents went too far.
“There was no sanity or sensitivity at all to the work that they were doing,” Mr. Charney told KATU-TV.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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