I’m not even sure what to say about this one, so I leave it to you. Enjoy yourselves, and sleep safe in your beds knowing that brave TSA officials are willing to take pliers to a woman to protect the air-travelling public from the horror of nipple-ring-based hijack.
Yes, thank goodness Hamlin maintained her dignity and respect. Christ, what moronitude! Pervy creepiness and government authority are just a wonderful combination. That the TSA statement bears no resemblance to reality is just the icing on the cake.
The security agents did the right thing. Somewhere, some female secret agent may be attempting to hijack a plane at this very moment with the poisoned needles sticking out of her bosom.
Oh sure, you laugh! But those were fake breasts! My money says she had some good-sized blobs of C4 implanted in her chest and the “nipple studs” were electrodes leading to the detonator! Did anyone check to see if she was carrying a 9v battery with her?
TSA & Homeland Security save unknowable numbers of lives every day by identifying and neutralizing threats before the rest of us ever become aware of them.
You people are insufferable! If they had missed the threat and she blew up the plane you’d be harshing on TSA for not doing a good job.
You know, I walked through airport security last week wearing three necklaces. One of them was a replica of a dagger.* The “blade” was about the length of my index finger. Not one word, no beep, no thing.
These “precautions” are stupid. Their enforcement is spotty. Metal detectors seem to have varying degrees of working-ness. And. . .jeez, nipple rings, for fuck’s sake! I mean, really. . .that’s just insane. . .
. . .of course, this is the same airport security that took fifteen minutes to pat down my wheelchair-bound, 79 year-old grandmother, so…
*[sub]I’d forgotten I was wearing it until about three seconds before stepping through the metal detector; if I’d remembered, it’d’ve been in my checked baggage. I was not trying to be a jerk.[/sub]
This happened to someone I know, only the rings were quite new so she really wasn’t supposed to remove them. She had to leave the airport and find a piercing place nearby to have them taken out (the piercing dude was appalled).
The TSA is going to get pretty fucked on this one unless they pass something making the removing of all piercings including earrings manditory and even then that’s going to piss a bunch of people off, because how on earth is a nipple ring different than an earring besides placement?!?! I have captive rings in my ears that can’t be taken out with anything other than needlenose pliers and I’d be really ticked off if someone decided that I couldn’t wear earrings on an airplane anymore.
All kidding aside, this shit is really beginning to piss me off. I took a number of flights in the last few months, and on the very last one I had something very much like this taken away from me - no tools allowed! I didn’t even know I had it because it had been in my bag for months and passed through no fewer than 12 security screenings. But no, the fact that there are absolutely no sharp edges whatsoever on that particular tool (it would honestly be easier to gouge out someone’s eye with a headphone jack than that tool) matters not, I must not take it on the plane!
So I went looking for the rules about what’s allowed and what’s not. There are none. There are no rules. It is entirely up to the discretion of the agent, and I am sure that this one feared that I was a “secret agent” sent by his employer to check up on him … nipple lady may have been in the same situation … why do we put up with this shit? It’s appalling. We’ve gotten so accustomed to it that it’s become a joke, but why do we put up with this shit?
Toothpaste! Coffee! Shoes! Nipple rings! Where have we come to, that we can honestly allow the border agencies to pretend these things are actual threats to our lives? Gahhh!
I get hijacked by nipples all the time, if you must know. It is one of the reasons why I am so happy in general. Though sometimes I wish she would leave me alone long enough at least to pay the bills.