Gulliver

Isn't it lovely everyone now has a video camera? When it comes to air travel, it's a given that anyone (passenger, agent, crew, etc.) is mistreated, and anyone having to deal with the HORROR of air transport has to chime in, preferably with video. It a hassle, bother, annoyance. Nothing more, nothing less. This goes for passengers and crew. GET OVER IT! This does not happen every day.

These stories are mostly true inspite of the spin DHS and TSA plop out. It is a clear violation of the Bill of Rights 4th ammendment against improper search, the fifth ammendment of liberty and unimpeded travel and the ninth ammndment which is obvious in mistreatment of this woman's right to retain her own milk and property. Homeland Security and TSA are clearly attacking the rights of the American people. This issue is not going away. The American public is livid. TSA's logic is faulty: "Which do you want, security or planes blowing up." Some use of Recovery Act money this is! There are other less costly and effective alternatives. Disband TSA and save 6.75 Billion in the 2011 budget. They cannot even catch a frog let alone murderers.

@KevinDCA737: The footage is from the TSA's own CCTV footage, which they sent to the woman after a number of requests. Even then they sent it with 30 minutes of footage missing.

This woman's experience was certainly more than a hassle, bother or annoyance although you'd like to think it is also exceptional.

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave?

Have to remember in the 70's and 80's it was the disaffected worker at the phone company who "might" help you if they felt like it.

I would agree that this not just somebody getting the normal hassle. That's what we all go through every time we go to the airport. So yes in general, I just get on with it.

This woman seems to be going through is more than hassle, it is outright harassement.

Her rights are clearly being abusively violated. And you know what it makes me realize ? That even in our every day hassle, our right are being violated. For eight years, every time I went back to my home country (the US), taken aside, and made to wait so that someone could look at me, look at my passport, and then let me go with no explanation. Ok, I got used to it. I surely did not complain, because that would only have made things worse. But then where do we set the limit of what is acceptable and what is not?

I'm just waiting for this rule to be announced by the TSA: 'No mobile phones or video cameras are to be used in the screening area for security reasons."

STOP THE MADNESS! Security theater doesn't make us safer. The TSA is costly, misguided, brutal, ineffective, and un-American. Someone please tell me what I can do to join the fight. I'm no anti-government right-winger, just a practical person who sees a frustrating and pointless erosion of liberty. Big Brother is watching you, at least at the airport. He tells you it's for your own good, but I would choose simple screening for weapons and a solidly locked cockpit door over any of this foolishness.

I am center left leaning but even I can see this as a growth of the Government with business being handed out to Obama's cronies.

the TSA aren't exactly my favorite bunch of people but that cop was acting on his won accord not at the best interest of the pesky new mother (and they are pesky pains in the ass) or the TSA... His own... Plenty of blame to spread around here. We've opted for the TSA and it's all we have. It needs an overhaul or even redesign. With vids like this getting out and about, perhaps it will hasten to that end.

To Kevin DCA737. No it doesn't happen every day, but it does every time I fly. My hip replacement make me out to be watched carefully and poorly managed at every plane transit or entry. I have no cameras (video or otherwise), I just have a horror of security at airports (and soon coming to trains, busses, department stores and theaters--- just watch)

Couldn't she have just checked in her luggage with breast milk in it? That would have been the easiest solution. Don't get me wrong, I'm on her side. I think the TSA is ridiculous. And as people should have figured out after almost 10 years of their existence, it's impossible to reason with them! It's better to avoid having to reason with them at all costs for your own good!!!

Once again TSA crosses the line and abuses another traveler. There is utterly no excuse for any government employee or contractor to ever harass travelers because they are unhappy with the fact that the person has asked that her/his rights be respected.

All of the TSA people involved in this unhappy incident should be immediately fired, especially the manager.

I am wondering why she bottled or withdrew her breast milk if the child was not with her? One of the perks of breast feeding(there are other benefits)is that you don't have to carry milk bottles around. Usually you prepare the milk, bottled or otherwise, only when the child is with you and will need a feeding. So why was she carrying the breast milk in the first place? She can withdraw it when she is at home with the child? Two and two don't add up here, there is something missing to the story.

@always asking...you either don't have kids or never had any problems with breastfeeding. There are various reasons why she had the milk with her. Here are two:

1. Breast engorgment...the child was not with her and therefore could not nurse to empty her breast of milk. If the breast is not emptyed, the milk builds up and it can create a very painful sitution for hte mother.

2. She may have been pumping to keep her milk in to supplement her childs diet. Pumping helps to keep the breast making milk.

And she was carring the breast milk with her because that is the only way to maintain quality control. My wife and I have a 2 week old. Whenever she pumps, the American Pediatric Association and medical profession have very strict guidelines regarding the stroage of milk for a baby. If the milk is out of your control, you cannot maintain these standards.

Her story adds up just fine. I've had to deal with TSA in a similair fashion. I am a fly fisherman. TSA says I can take my flies onto the plane. however, do to the idiots TSA agents wanting to make up their own rules, I also had to print off the YSA policies from their website to prevent expensive flies and equipment from getting tossed.

Would it ever be possible, I wonder, for us to get to see, at least once in our lives, that great bloody big bull who shat all these TSA agents into existence?

If I were a chronologically challenged redneck lesbian whose only highlight in life was a regular visit to the local dairy queen and saw an intelligent, young svelte looking mother swan in demanding that her milk be screened I'd probably react the same way

Egats! They made her upset and she did not even spill the milk.

I think a suitable punishment for that TSA staff is to post a video of them on the world wide interweb dressed up in a Baby Finster hat and bib, sitting on top of a metal detector made to look like a high chair while drinking her breast milk from a bottle.

The young woman was certainly brave, although no one travelling through American airports is free anymore.
I understood that the day that coming back from NY to Europe I found my suitcase open and destroyed with a TSA note stating that they had the right to destroy my property. Not even an apology.
That says a lot about the hubris that took possession of American security services. From then on I just go there on a strict must do basis. The terrifying thing is that this woman is American. Now figure yourself a foreigner…
Wake up! Even the abject London Heathrow is making a lame effort to become a bit more amenable. If they are in good mood you might even avoid taking off your shoes on that filthy floor. Oh the progress!

I agree that the TSA should fire the officers involved, to distance themselves, from what was clearly an abuse of power, probably driven by ignorance and stupidity. If the law states that there is an alternative screening procedure for milk, and they didn't allow her to have it, then they should be fired, as it happens in most jobs when you have a case of gross misconduct.