http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,342329,00.html

Lawyer: Woman Forced to Remove Nipple Rings at Airport

A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.

"I wouldn't wish this experience upon anyone," Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference. "My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way."

Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin's chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The women then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.

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

"Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her," said Hamlin's attorney, Gloria Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA's Office of Civil Rights and Liberties.

Hamlin said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.

"After nipple rings are inserted, the skin can often heal around the piercing, and the rings can be extremely difficult and painful to remove," Allred said in the letter.

Hamlin filed a complaint, but the TSA's customer service manager at the Lubbock airport concluded the screening was handled properly, Allred said.

Allred said she might consider legal action if the TSA does not apologize.

On its Web site, the TSA warns that passengers "may be additionally screened because of hidden items such as body piercings, which alarmed the metal detector."

"If you are selected for additional screening, you may ask to remove your body piercing in private as an alternative to a pat-down search," the site says.

Hamlin would have accepted a "pat-down" had it been offered, Allred said.

Hamlin was publicly humiliated and has "undergone an enormous amount of physical pain to have the nipple rings reinserted" because of scar tissue, Allred said.

"The conduct of TSA was cruel and unnecessary," Allred wrote. "The last time that I checked a nipple was not a dangerous weapon."

TSA spokesman Dwayne Baird said he was unaware of the incident. There is no specific TSA policy on dealing with body piercings, he said, "as long as it doesn't sound the alarms."

If an alarm does sound, "until that is resolved, we're not going to let them go through the checkpoint, no matter what they're wearing or where they're wearing it."

People routinely pass through security wearing wedding rings without problems, and it might take a larger bit of metal to trigger an alarm, Baird said.

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anyone else think this woman is being ridiculous?

she was literally smuggling bullets


(it's an expression here when someones niples are big/hard/cold/whatever

good story

No.

Are you fucking kidding me? That is a disgusting thing to do to someone. I and most of my friends have body piercings and to have to take them out in order to get on a plane is complete bullshit. Do you have any idea how much that hurts? You could do about as much damage with a zipper off a piece of luggage as you could do with a nipple ring. Seriously, that is completely uncalled for and I would agree with her that it is a civil rights breech.

it seems like officials were just following policy. the women perhaps should have know of this risk?

when you consider that you have to remove your brain to become a TSA agent due to all the government regulatory bullshit. It dosen't seem all that crazy.

Of course it's retarded but that's generally par for the course when it comes to government regulation.

Zero Tolerance.... zero thought.

I completely agree. The only thing I can't believe is that the article only said she wants an apology. I'm usually the first one in line complaining about frivilous lawsuits, but not this time. People are allowed to board planes with earrings and other jewelry. So what if the alarm keeps sounding? Maybe she had iron rich blood or something. I've personally witnessed several times when people keep walking through and it keeps beeping. They get pulled to the side and get patted down or searched a little closer and then go through. Give me a break. This sounds to me like sexual harrassment on top of everything else. And I do buy that this was humiliating in addition to painful. What a joke.

Ah, fighting the good fight against terrorism, one tit at a time.

I don't think the woman is being ridiculous, but I also don't think she has a lawsuit as far as suffering or whatever. I'm certainly not blaming the people doing the search since they were just following the rules. Obviously she should have read that and been aware. If measures are in place, I certainly won't support people breaking them.

However, I think that is a totally fucked up policy. And I think a civil lawsuit, or whatever else it takes, to get that policy changed is definitely warranted.

well, actually then, we agree.

bill maher had a bit in one of his stand up specials where he talks about how a guy tried to blow up a shoe and now we all need to take our shoes off. he said, whats next, someone going to try and hide a bomb in a bra!

hahhaha

how hot do you think this woman is? 1-10? after you guess...take a look...she is on the right...

Spoiler: show

If I had body piercings, I would most certainly check ahead of time about policy regarding such things. Seems logical. And I'm not prepared to count this experience as "a nightmare." That phrase is reserved for truly horrendous events.

me and my friend at fox news use to talk about this. the conclusion we came to was that after 9/11, we newsfolk should be very hesitant to call anything a "nightmare" or anything like that.

ceeb, it says that "passengers may be additionally screened because of hidden items such as body piercings", not that they would be forced to remove them. The woman offered to flash her tits to the female agent. That should be sufficient "additional sceeening", don't you think?

ah, i see. yes, i suppose so.

Did you not see the picture?!?!?? *shudders*

In all honesty, you're right...personally, I'm just inclined against this woman in all things because of the "nightmare" quote.

the key word here is alternative:



it would appear that her flashing it would be enough. then again the spokesperson does say:



perhaps they should employ an official policy on body piercings, as it seems a bit vague after these comments.

And that second quote is why I can't stand people who do thinks "by the book". People do things by the book because they're too stupid to understand WHY the book is the way it is. They follow rules without thinking about the PURPOSE of teh rules, and thereby do things that are almost inconceivably stupid.

Hint: The purpose of the rule is to ensure that dangerous weapons and materials do not get on an aircraft, not to ensure that nothing that "sounds an alarm" gets through to the aircraft. Jesus! The alarm is not the ultimate authority, you fucking dolts. YOU are the ultimate authority, take soem fucking responsibility for your actions. The alarm is just to make your sorry ass wake up to something that may not be obvious.

TSA left me a calling card the last time I flew on a plane.

I had a pack of these in the outside pocket of my 'checked' luggage.



The zip strap I lock my luggage up with (I can't afford to replaced those little locks after they snip them off anymore), was compromised. So I knew something was fishy. And sure enough, there was the "we searched your bag" love note, nicely tucked into my Zig Zags.

Good thing for me, I was just bringing the papers. The actual contraband was waiting for me when I arrived at my final destination.

But I'm sure I've been added to some FBI "watch list."

Haha!

TSA stole $60 worth of makeup out of my wife's bag last summer. We got them to pay us back. Fuckers.

This story would have been so much better had the woman turned out to be hot.