To say CNN political commentator Angela Rye is a seasoned traveler would be an understatement.
Rye flies at least once a week and has status both as a TSA Precheck and as a CLEAR traveler. So, when she was randomly selected for additional screening at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, it went from surprising to nightmarish.
Rye wrote a first-person column about-and had a sympathetic police officer film-what she said was a humiliating pat-down that included a TSA agent apparently touching her genital area. In fact, she headlined the open letter, "Dear TSA: The country is not safer because you grab vaginas."
After going through the metal detector, the backscatter machine was next.
"What happened next was unbelievable. The backscatter machine alerted to my right Uggs boot, three areas near my vagina and I think somewhere on my back," Rye wrote. "I didn't care about anything but one place on my body. I said in complete disbelief: 'You know you aren't patting down my vagina, right? Like that's NOT happening.'"
After speaking with the TSA agent, and then a supervisor, Rye became painfully aware that she wasn't going to be allowed on her flight to New York without the pat-down. After arguing with the TSA agents, police were called in.
"Thank God for a patient police officer who understood my fear about what was happening. I told him I fly every week and asked him if he would at least record the pat-down on my phone. He agreed, while telling me he had had to get the back hand pat-down on his buttocks last week. It didn't make me feel better," she wrote.
"The pat-down began and was uneventful until she went down my leg, up my dress, and her hand sideways hits me right in the crack of my labia. Startled, I jump and feel a lump in my throat trying to hold back tears. What happened to the back handed pat-down? She comes around to the front; I grow nervous and pull back a bit, afraid of the same thing happening -- and her sideways hand hits in the middle of my genitals again. I can no longer hold back the tears. The officer drops the phone to his waist. He tells me he is going to write up an incident report."
Rye said on Twitter that she has since spoken with the TSA but continues to publicize the incident so that the TSA will change its secondary screening policies.
For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.
Topics From This Article to Explore
