Actually, they did. See this article for confirmation (emphasis mine)…
Thanks Shayna
WTF? If the pricks wanted her to drink it all why not just ditch the milk? Why get the woman to drink it all. Not letting the baby drink the milk is strange aswell.
What kinds of idiots were these guys/lassies? Sounds like they were just being pricks for the sake of it. Jumped up security guards are nothing new but these fuckers take the biscuit IMO.
So is this what the expressed lanes going into the airport are for? Oi, I’ll be paying more attention from now on.
Something smells mighty fishy about this story. Is this the first time these guards had to search a mother with infant? I doubt it, but I’ve never heard of the “eat all of your child’s food” thing before. Perhaps everything is exactly as it appears, but I suspect that something went on in that airport that we don’t know about.
I heard the woman on Sean Hannity’s program, and at some point, she said they made her drink * from* all three bottles, not consume the entire contents of each. (It would make no sense for them to ask or her to comply with drinking the contents of all three bottles. The purpose of drinking from them was so she would be allowed to take them onto the plane)
Regarding the contamination, you’re not supposed to let a baby drink from a partuially consumed bottle, even if it was the baby that consumed it after an hour or so.
Security is taken less seriously than it should be often enough. It’s not only Arab men that might be terrorists, or who might commit a mass murder on a plane for other reasons. I used to carry a firearm for my job. It was concealed, but not so well that it shouldn’t have been noticed when I went into a police station on personal business. Guess I just didn’t fit the profile for carrying, but I was. Now I work at a jail a few times a week. Cell phones are not allowed into the jail. My bag is supposed to be X-rayed. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. But even when it is x-rayed, no one ever notices when I forgot and still have my phone.
Guess I don’t fit the profile. I never fit the profile. That means I am the perfect person to use to carry things where they shouldn’t go. And somewhere out there, there are people who don’t fit the profile, but who are sympathetic to terrorists.
- She should make a fuss about stpid rules that can cause harm, that way they can get changed.
2)She should make a fuss about security guards being dicks, because security guards should not be dicks. Making a fuss might lead someone to teach the guards to treat people better, or someone replacing the guards with others who will treat people better. - If we don’t keep guards in line, they will get worse.
Polite guards help decrease delay and increase security. It is easier to tell if someone is agitated or nervous if you keep your objectivity and are not focused on humiliating peple and exercising your power. Power trips, like this one, mean that the screener is way too personally involved and not objective. Also, people are more cooperative and helpful if they are not fearful of being humiliated by some dick on a power trip.
I saw the interviews, and what is distressing is that the guards have a variety of tests they are allowed to perform on questionable bottles, including sniffing it themselves, and examining it in a machine that checks for volatile chemicals. Yet the guards in this situation chose to intimidate the women in question into a test that was deemed unnecessary after June 24 2002. To me it smacks of some guards getting off on a power trip, and I agree with prima about the sexual undertone.
Of course, it is possible that the guards were just following orders, in which case the administrators of that security firm need to get their heads out of their asses.
The mother who did drink her own milk ended up breastfeeding her child on the plane - something she did NOT want to do because of the social stigma associated with it. Both women went into the situation with an open mind, willing to submit to the inspection in the interest of general safety, and instead were humiliated and intimidated by the guards.
Shaynat, with all due respect, I’m gonna hold out for a better source than “NewsMax.com”, whoever the heck they are.
It clearly wasn’t intended as a serious story, though: “After hearing the tale, Kuby, who doubles as one of New York’s most celebrated civil rights attorneys, suggested that McGanny call his office.” Kuby is one of WABC’s morning deejays, although he is apparently a lawyer too.
Oops. “Shayna” doesn’t have a ‘t’ on the end. My left hand didn’t know what my brain was doing, or something like that.
Where in the heck did the “nasty dark people” crack come from?
Since the resources dedicated to security at any given airport at any given time are limited, wouldn’t it be prudent to use those limited resources to try and stop those who would do harm, whoever they may be?
Methodically searching Granny’s handbag, telling a Congressman to drop trou, and harassing the WW2 Purple Heart Veteran are almost completely useless in terms of making planes safer. AND, the resources used to do so are resources that can’t be directed to trying to stop the bad guys.
Or the security guards may not be aware of policy changes. Happens all the time at my job where the managers know, some of the staff knows, but we forget all about telling those guys on third shift - or we give them a written memo they don’t read.
And I agree, there shouldn’t be any gross out factor in drinking your own breast milk (if you are gross out by it, what are you doing feeding it to your kid). And, unless she made a deal out of it being breast milk, it isn’t like the guards can tell “this is breast milk, this is soy formula”
And I had a darn difficult time expressing my milk, but you know, baby doesn’t starve to death between Kennedy Airport and Miami. Won’t even get dehydrated in that time. Breast feed right before boarding and again when you get off. duh.
And how do you tell these people aren’t going to do harm by looking at them ? These were random searches. Granny getting searched doesn’t mean that the suspicious guy behind her walks right through. You don’t think there should be any random searches, fine. But what do you do when terrorists change their ways so as not to fit the profile. Suppose they start flying with their families,using credit cards, buying round trip tickets to vacation destinations months ahead of time? Or someone who doesn’t fit the profile and isn’t a terrorist decides to blow up a plane becasue the Post Office fired him ?Then what ? I can tell you one thing- people will start screaming that there should have been random searches, and just because it never happened before doesn’t mean that the government and airlines shouldn’t have been prepared for it. (Something I heard a lot of after September 11)
From the “standard” profile I usually hear provided for those evil terrorists: Swarthy, Middle-Eastern-looking men.
What “profile” would you suggest? As I have already pointed out, prior to 9/11 there were at least two occasions when terrorists who were from the Mid-East persuaded or coerced or tricked their European girlfriends to carry bombs for them. Profiling did not catch them.
Profiling is simply a way to take shortcuts in security while deluding oneself into believing that one is still being effective.
I can think of a bunch of profiles that would be good for a start.
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People who want to learn how to fly planes, but not land them.
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People who buy one-way tickets at the last minute with cash.
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People who buy the aforementioned one-way tickets with cash to fly from NYC to London, with a continuing flight to Riyadh., since 15 of the 19 terrorists were Saudi.
What’s wrong with any of that?
If I were a terrorist and I knew that some people would not be profiled or searched, I would plant my tools of the trade in the innocent one, board the plane, and when the time comes whip it out from his person. Drug dealers were imensely successful using this method until Kelly, now Commissioner of the NYPD, put a stop to it.
For that reason they have to search everyone.
Airman recently flew several times one-way and paid cash. Despite using his active-duty military ID, he was targeted for searches.
As for the breastmilk thing, what grossed me out was not that she was forced to drink it (it tastes like milk, after all), but that apparently, the guards were pricks about it.
I’ve been searched numerous times while I was pregnant, and it always felt violated. If searches are required, at least make sure the guards show some sensitivity about it.
Robin
#1 is not going to be information available to the security cop in an airport passageway, so it is rather irrelevant to airport security. That is the sort of thing that Homeland Security should be addressing before the guy gets much/any actual training.
#2 is reasonable. It depends on an action by the person to trigger a more thorough search–much as bringing aboard an open container of opaque fluid is an action that can trigger more questions.
#3 is redundant to #2. If you are searching all one-way tickets paid by cash, the destination is irrelevant.
Yep. He was one of the defense attorneys for the WTC bombers in 1993, Colin Ferguson, the black racist murderer of the LIRR commuters, etc. I didn’t realize murder and terrorism were civil rights.
This may be one of the few men in NYC who could outrun Al Sharpton to a camera.
I don’t understand the contamination factor in this.
By simply pumping her milk into a container it has become contaminated. Unless you have hospital sterilization equipment for cleaning the pump and the bottles, etc…You have “contaminated” bottles of breast milk. It seems clear to me that if you want to ensure that your breast milk is free from outside influences then you put baby’s mouth on nipple and let him/her suck away, even in public areas. After all, this is mother and child and not a sexual thing.
Oh and I do believe that if the rules apply to even pilots (they are required to drink out of those opened containers) then every passenger should be held up to the same scrutiny.
Mother’s of infants or not, dems da rules, even if they are dumb rules.
Still think it’s all some publicity thing with this woman.
Shayna, that’s the article that Snopes has deconstructed.