Two Transportation Security Administration workers at Denver’s international airport who were fired for implementing a scheme to identify and grope “attractive” male airline passengers won’t be charged.
“We have declined to file any criminal charges in connection with the investigation,” said Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for the Denver district attorney’s office, according to the Denver CBS affiliate.
“Basically we were either unable to corroborate the victim’s claims with any additional facts or evidence, or prove specific incidents could have been committed by the one identified suspect due to the dates of his employment,” she said
Two TSA screeners, Ty Spicha, 27, and Yasmeen Shafi, 22, were fired after Shafi admitted they were manipulating screening systems so that Spicha could conduct genital pat-downs on passengers he found “attractive,” KCNC-TV reported.
Shafi admitted taking part in the plot approximately 10 times.
Shafi explained to investigators that Spicha would spot an attractive male passengers and give a signal, and she then would enter erroneous information into the security screening system “triggering an alarm so that Spicha could conduct a physical, hands-on pat-down on male travelers.”
WND reported earlier when the allegations arose, and the TSA took its own actions.
One video report:
The TSA came under fire in 2010 for subjecting passengers to “enhanced pat-downs” and scanners that exposed passengers’ private parts. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., came out in opposition, then Texas lawmakers considered legislation and lawsuits were filed.
Eventually, the machines either were removed or modified to produce a less-revealing image of passengers, but concern remains.
The KCNC report said the TSA was alerted to the recent Denver allegations through an anonymous tip from one of its own employees on Nov. 18, 2014, but it did nothing for some three months.
Last year, WND reported Colorado mother Jamelyn Steenhoek filed a complaint of sexual assault against a female TSA agent, also at Denver’s airport, for being groped in ways “as extensive as an exam.”
Denver prosecutors decided not to file charges in her case, also. They said they didn’t believe they could prove the TSA agent was assaulting people for sexual “gratification, arousal or abuse.”
WND reported extensively on the controversy over the TSA’s “enhanced” screening, including when judges threw out cases against the agency based on a “secret order” issued by the TSA.
The dispute over the order arose in cases handled by John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, who argued Americans do not lose their constitutional rights when they travel.
Rutherford reported its complaints centered on “virtual strip searches” from the scanning process or physical searches “during which TSA agents may go so far as to reach inside a traveler’s pants.”
Whitehead said at the time: “No American should be forced to undergo a virtual strip search or be subjected to such excessive groping of the body as a matter of course in reporting to work or boarding an airplane when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. To do so violates human dignity and the U.S. Constitution, and goes against every good and decent principle this country was founded upon.”
But District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. cited a “secret order” issued by the TSA as the basis for dismissing the cases.
At one point, the Libertarian Party of Florida formally asked sheriffs across the state to start arresting TSA agents in the 67 counties for sexual battery.
“As sheriff, you have the absolute duty to enforce the law uniformly and without prejudice. You are, at best, engaged in selective enforcement by choosing to further ignore these flagrant violations of federal and state law. At worst, you are complicit,” said a message to the 67 sheriffs from the party, signed by chairman Adrian Wyllie.
Paul’s criticism of the process was blunt.
“The press reports are horrifying: 95 year-old women humiliated; children molested; disabled people abused; men and women subjected to unwarranted groping and touching of their most private areas; involuntary radiation exposure,” he wrote. “If the perpetrators were a gang of criminals, their headquarters would be raided by SWAT teams and armed federal agents. Unfortunately, in this case the perpetrators are armed federal agents. This is the sorry situation 10 years after the creation of the Transportation Security Administration.”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/08/prosecutor-hands-off-those-tsa-fondlers/
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