[rearguard]

Last Updated: Friday, March 28, 2008 | 10:33 AM ET Comments17Recommend24
CBC News

A woman from Texas wants an apology from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration after she was forced to use pliers to remove a metal piercing from her nipple at an airport security checkpoint.

Mandi Hamlin, 37, was boarding a flight from Lubbock, Texas, to Dallas last month.

At a news conference on Thursday in Los Angeles, Hamlin told reporters she had already walked through a large metal detector when a handheld scanner wielded by female TSA officer beeped as it passed over her chest.

Hamlin said she told the woman she had nipple piercings and offered to show them to the female agent in private. But male TSA officers insisted she remove the jewelry before boarding her flight.

Hamlin said she was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with a second, a ring.

"Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her," said Hamlin's attorney, Gloria Allred. Hamlin was then allowed to board the flight, Allred said.

Full story here
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/03/2 ... ipple.html

Rearguard writes:

The USA has gone completely mad, insane, nutty, and authoritarian. We should have as little to do with this absurdity as possible.