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Subscribe to RSSTravelers with disabilities or medical conditions who are nervous or uncertain about getting through airport security now have a helpline they can call for assistance.
The Transportation Security Administration launched TSA Cares on Thursday. "It is primarily to provide passengers — or families of passengers — with disabilities and medical conditions information about our screening procedures and what they should expect at the security checkpoint," TSA spokesperson Greg Soule told msnbc.com.
Travelers can call the helpline (1-855-787-2227, 9 a.m.-9 p.m. ET) for information about security procedures.
News of the hotline comes after some recent high-profile passenger-TSA run-ins:
- An 85-year-old New York grandmother claimed she was humiliated while strip searched at JFK Airport earlier this month after she asked not to go through a body scanner;
- An 88-year-old woman said she was pulled aside at JFK and asked to pull her pants down to show her colostomy bag;
- A mastectomy patient said a checkpoint screener at JFK patted down her chest after declining to review her medical information card.
Kate Hanni, the founder of FlyersRights.org, a nonprofit passenger-rights group, called TSA Cares a Band-Aid solution that won’t solve anything.
"There’s no way around this unless TSA actually changes its behavior," Hanni said.
She recalled the TSA unveiling medical notification cards last December whereby passengers could discreetly disclose health concerns, disabilities or medical conditions to agents.
"It made no difference — we still get the same number of complaints," Hanni said. "People are still going through the exact same indignities. I don’t see how this 800 number will change the experience of these passengers."
"TSA's priority is to provide the best possible security while treating all passengers with dignity and respect," Soule said, adding that the new helpline is an additional step to educate travelers.
You can learn more about TSA Cares by visiting the TSA blog.
More stories you might like:
- Too old to travel alone? Companies offer escorts
- Traveler gets 'personal' note on TSA card
- TSA agents fired for failing to properly screen bags
Joe Myxter has been running msnbc.com's Travel section since 2006.Follow him on Twitter.
Leave a Comment:
Not good enough, TSA. Get your filthy hands out of our pants! There is no way that you will ever convince innocent Americans that back-room strip searches and ramming your hands into people's crotches makes any one any safer.
The solution is simple. Stop sexually abusing innocent travelers. Get your hands off my genitals. Stop taking naked pictures of children. Stop pulling people's underwear off their bodies. Stop pressing on people's surgical wounds. Stop forcing disabled children to crawl through your metal detectors. Stop demanding private medical information. Stop shouting people's private medical information at top volume across a crowded checkpoint. Just stop hurting people. It's that simple. Stop.
I find it to be a tad painful to agree with any person from Annapolis but in this case I do.
A help line from TSA for "disabilities or medical conditions..." There would probably be no disabilities or medical conditions if TSA would dissolve. The main question is who will be the people who will manage their help line? I can see it now, a bunch of people dressed as clowns. It may be just a gang of Freudian therapists. What ever form it takes it is another step from fat ass Janet and her growing number of der homelanda......That thought should be more than enough to create more "disabilities or medical conditions," than their team of 100,000 can manage.
It's about time to pull these old farts aside and give them five minutes of Adirondack Therapy - maybe they'll move a little faster in the next line.
Like the German people who gradually and tragically lost control over their militaristic government, the American people have been unable to stop the growth of the police state. Consequently, the American people are paying the price of losing their liberty and the rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.
The TSA, federal and local police have become of the apparatus of the police state. Granted unprecedented power to arrest, search and seizure, and armed with military firepower, these police authorities have reduced the status of the American people to servants. In effect, instead of We, the American people, as the master of this government, the police state has become the master while the American people have become slaves whose raison d'etre is to serve the police state.
As most Americans are the product of government operated public schools, their ability to think outside of the government propaganda is limited. Ignorant of how the Federal government have sabataged much of the guaranteed liberties in the Bill of Rights, coupled with the lazy-passivity of most potato couch Americans, America is doomed. The liberty and rule of law that the Framers of the US Constitution had so painfully enshrined in the Bill of Rights and Constitution have all but disappeared. It is not surprising that America has devolved into a police state.
Good post "Fat Cats",,
The TSA have done no good what so ever.
They should be ordered to stop their useless "theatrics"/sexual assaults and simply be happy to return to their original jobs of bagging groceries.
Mrcool, hey dumbass Annapolis is a city, not necessarily The US Naval Academy
Why do I have this image in my head of Beavis and Butthead sitting in a call center somewhere giggling and snickering at each other as they listen to people talking about their embarrassing personal problems and privacy concerns?
So there is a hot line for people to call to hear in advance that they are going to be molested by a TSA agent. Big deal. It doesn't solve the problem that the TSA have created just tries to blow smoke over the issue. The elderly, people with medical issues, small children, and anyone they want to harass still will be molested only now they'll be able to hear about it first.
Lady Cat--EXACTLY. TSA is making its list in advance. What's next, the cupcake list? (See recent report on the confiscated "dangerous" cupcake with icing.) Or infants' diapers--you can find those reports, too. Or big hair--"Yeah, dude, I got an afro and its honkin' big, too." Let's get a call line for men, as well, so they won't get their junk touched. I won't even mention my 5 oz. jar of sealed jelly that was 2 oz. too big--yeah it was tablespoon too big.
Where does this crap end? I'm all for safety, but the TSA has truly gone over the edge. If terrorists are going to cause problems, they already know about all this stuff. They are going to do something different. Of course, there will always be some dimwit who tries to bring a loaded gun along, but he's not a terrorist--he's a dimwit! (And yes, please confiscate the gun. You can find them by using the metal detectors. God knows, you found the screws in my leg!)
It wouldn't surprise me in the least, if some nutso in charge will make it a crime not report a handicap before coming to the airport. TSA has it's points, the problem is that they have no common sense in using them.
If the TSA can have access to your medical records then what the hell good is the HIPPA law and the cost of enforcing it? - kill it let everyone expose their "packages" and save the taxpayer spending money on the HIPPA enforcement staff.
Someone should see just how much money is being wasted by the government trying to enforce contradictory laws and outright idiocy. (including paying congressmen)
I couldn't agree more with Annapolis. TSA "officers" (and they don't deserve that designation) are consistently rude, humiliating and overbearing. They do things to children that would get them arrested outside an airport, and should prevent them ever getting future jobs anywhere near kids.
Their behavior does nothing to make us safer; it continues to be an assault on our personal privacy and Constitutional rights. Whatever happened to "unreasonable search and seizure"?
This isn't North Korea (yet), and most of us don't want it to be. Stop acting like little robots. Wake up and ask your Congressional representatives to reign in the TSA. Congressmembers from both parties have failed to protect us from this overgrown, puffed-with-power police-state-within-a-state and its disgusting actions.
I have found that not wearing underwear will give the idiots pause behind the curtain. They get really nervous about uncovered privates.
That is a good idea! I will spread that around.
the next time i have to fly i will make sure i forget to wipe, oh how i hope they pick me.
If i have to i will $hit all over my self if they pull me aside for a strip search.
TSA needs to take a long walk off a short pier.
How original!!!
I asked a TSA agent once what was easier for them my state issued license or my passport. The agent responded "Your state issued ID."
Wrong answer pal, now I always carry my passport when dealing with the TSA ass-hats.
Josh - let me understand this - a FEDERAL EMPLOYEE told you your state driver's license/id was better ID than your US Passport? OMFG! The U.S. pass port is -DUH!- used ALL OVER THE WORLD for ID. In many cases it is the ONLY legal ID. This JERK didn't know that? This is almost as bad as the Walmart Jerk that told me she could not accept cash - I had to use a credit card! I called the manager over, told him his hired help would not take 5 $100 bills to pay for my goods, Asked him to have a good day and left the two baskets of stuff there and walked out the door with the manager trailing me all the way, until an off duty cop acting as security appeared, told him this stranger was stalking me. Problem solved.
Hey all you "I hate big government" teabaggers might want to know it was republican Georgie Boy Bush who created the TSA - which is the largest federal agency in U.S. history. I guess the right is against big government except when it's not!
That's true, but Bush was not the one who unionized them so they have permanent jobs with no way to fire the bad ones.
I wish TSA and airport/airline disability assistants would provide better continuity of services. I tell them that yes, I can stand and limp slowly through the x-ray machine, but then I get on the other side and my wheelchair is way back there with no one paying attention that it gets delivered back to me quickly. Being screened (and wanded) while staying in my chair is not much better and can take even longer.
But I don't consider the TSA screenings as sexual or invasive. They're just doing their job to protect the flying public from hidden weapons and explosives.
Do you people who complain about so-called TSA assault say the same things about your physicians when they must conduct a medical exam on you or your child?
@ttmadison - there's no "must" about it. Comparing a medical exam to a TSA assault is a real stretch. There are too many differences to mention here, but the top two in my mind are (1) I have a question about me that I want my doctor to answer (2) a doctor, with years of medical training, responds to my question with lab tests or x-rays specific to my question. The TSA simply and mindlessly assaults me for no reason and with no suspicion. You assume the TSA "must" - that is your critical logical flaw.
ttmadison's post was so moronic that it didn't deserve a logical answer.
ttmadison:
A physician is a highly educated and trained person qualified with a medical license to do a medical physical examination at the request of the patient or the parents. When a physician conducts a physical exam, it done with respect and dignity in the privacy of a secluded medical room. The narrow focused examination is limited to addressing the medical issues. No patient is required to complete 'strip' or submit to a whole-body physical examination unless it is absolutely necessary for medical reasons.
On the other hand the TSA inspectors, the one who fondles, grope, and squeeze your body, are barely high school grads. You submit to TSA's demand because the government has conditioned your air travel. TSA conducts the physical examination in public view. Each exam is perfunctory, non-standard, highly subjective, grossly invasive, and the intensity or aggressiveness of the examination is arbitary, whimpsical, and capricious. High definition scanners are used to expose the entire body of women, children and men in the check-in airport area with no concern for human dignity, decency, and the respect for privacy. A perfect job for perverts.
When TSA is permitted to scan, view and store naked images of children on their computers, it not surprising that child-porn perverts are gravitated to TSA jobs. Already, early news have reported some of TSA had criminal records.
As the federal government seeks greater control over the people, TSA has become the ultimate government tool to humilate, subjugate, and dehumanize the American people into submission. And like sheeps the American people are only too willing to cooperate.
Soon the TSA will be at every building entrance at any public facility- get used to it
Not only public facilities, but also shopping malls, stadiums, major commercial buildings, highrise icons buildings, and industrial plants.
TSA is the camel nose under the tent. Government gropers and molesters will soon be everywhere. Your children and wife will become public sex toys for the perverts masquerading as government inspectors.
Yeah- probably have toilet cams installed to boot!
ttmadison,
At your doctor's office, your child's medical condition isn't announced to everyone in the waiting room. Your child is not patted down in front of other patients.
The only way a 1-800 number will work is if the traveler can call while they're in line so the hotline can educate the TSA agent on appropriate behavior. I would suggest a separate line(s) for travelers with medical cards or prosthetics, including implants where there would be TSA agents specially trained to deal with the special requirements of ostomy bags, implants, bone pins, plates, etc.
They had better god-damned do something.
A friend of mine was delayed for 2 hours and made to strip to her underwear because the morons had never seen an insulin pump. And this was at the Denver Airport, not some small airport.
They wouldn't even read her doctor's letter. They damn near made her miss her plane and were rude to boot.
TSA inspector: what is an insulin pump? That aint no insulim pump. Looks like a homemade weapon of mass destruction.
Traveller: Look, just read my doctor's letter. It will explain everything.
TSA inspector: Sorry, miss. We'll have to do a cavity search to make sure you don't carry any detonators. I'm calling for our weapon, explosive, and security experts.
Traveller: What sex are they?
TSA inspector: While they're all male, there will be no sex, miss. Rest assured.
You nailed it!
Anything the TSA tells you cannot be relied upon. Once you are at the gate, you are at the whims of the inspectors. They won't care a whit for anything you were told on the phone. If you try to correct them, they will arrest you for being "belligerant."
Renee speaks the truth!!
How about the TSA people all go and staff the helpline and stay out of airports. I have never seen a more rude bunch of a people.
They don't appear to give a hoot, they are doing their 8 hour day and whether you get on your airplane or not, they don't care.
Again, it appears they get their jollies off messing with ya, thanks Ray LaHood and your great leader BHO. Do either of you stand in line like normal folks and have your genitals fingered and butt stuck?
When you do - tell me again how much you are doing for us.
well onto our way of becoming a police state. Somewhere we have lost common sense and over all intelligence. I know I could be a good TSA agent because I have traveled millions of air miles; have a psychology background, and am firmly grounded. I also know enough to recognize technology (ipods,pads, notep=books, etc) and personal health items (incontinence items) and am trained in medicine to know a midline catheter and other medical devices that are implanted. I can read XRays to see if a knee or hip is really a knee or a hip and now lbs. of plastic explosives. But that is me--Where do these TSA agents come from? Usually they are laid off public sector employees, or someone who knows someone...So forget the 1-800 # since their "options will likely change while you are listening" and fire every damn TSa agent working. Start over with airline employees working the lines until the classews have been finished for an "enlightened" security force. And then still have interviewers mingling with travelers striking up conversations etc--just like in Israel. Here's the catch--I am just an ordinary person. where the hell are the suits who are supposed to be fine tuning this TSA fiasco? Are there NO brains left in government--ok, stupid question, consider it retracted.
I wonder how many people don't fly because of these idiots. I know I don't. It probably is a significant number. If I had a disability I would go no where near an airport.
Yes, please call us in advance that we might make your scening more convenient in consideration of your handicap. The less you feel the more we can feel, which makes it quicker for all of us. Thank you in advance for your consideration TSA.
So forever they have been saying there is no problem and all is well but now they throw out this bone? TSA sucks!
I am confined to a wheelchair and have always been treated with respect and courtesy by TSA personnel.
You are lucky, so far...
Hmm?
I guess to the TSA, my wet/poopy adult diaper(s) & metal/plastic leg braces are seen as weapons of mass destruction.
My sister endured two strokes and so when we traveled she was in a wheelchair. She was yelled at by the TSA agent because I wasn't removing her boots quickly enough. My sister is fragile and was practically in tears. We don't fly anymore unless we are going over the pond. In the states we use Amtrak.
I have a neurological disease and cannot move as fast as I once could, and was whistled at like you would whistle for a dog to come here.
I told the sonofabitch that I was not a dog and not to whistle at me like that. The other TSA agent standing beside him acted as if he had not heard a thing.
If everyone who had to endure the humiliation that the TSA dishes out would go to the news media, something might be done.
Now this is the BIGGIST BS solution...Common Terrorists....now pretend you're sick! I am NEVER Flying again - because I don't like being looked at like there's something wrong with me! There's something WRONG with YOU and the kind of WORLD this whole BUSHtsaHoMeland crap has done to TAKE DOWN the consciousness, the trustworthiness of its people. Treating US LIKE CRIMINALS is NOT The ANSWER and TSA needs to GO HOME. Better yet - GO to another country - Like Saudi Arabia - where there really are terrorists.
21 say send the TSA outta here, 2 say they are ok with it. Based on this stupid survey, not commissioned nor paid for by taxpayer dollars, we have 99% against keeping TSA and 1% that says keep them.
Life is easy. Do not want to be abused by TSA, do not want to pay for extra benefits, do not want to pay for sending your baggage to some destination that is not the same place you are going to, do not want to be shoe horned into your seat, next to a fat sweaty person, who is sitting next to a middle eastern guy with a turban, who is sitting next to a Hollywood celebrity playing some stupid game, telling the steward or stewardess that he (I mean they) are not done playing and will not shut it off, and watching some pilot take a snooze because he jumped through too many time zones, we then if you fly, you asked for it.
Ok, well then if you fly, you asked for it.
P. S. don't bother replying, I never come back anyways.
The TSA is a government sponsored terrorist organization.
If the TSA really wants to help all they have to do is SHUT DOWN..... Just think of all the TIME & MONEY that will be saved..... Of coarse it will increase unemployeement since all of those workers will lose their jobs ( hey it is well worth it ).....
Guess where the newly laid off incompetent employees of the USPS will find new government jobs.
Yep, in the ranks of the TSA.
the tsa is nothing but a bunch of make work idiots who can not get any other job so they are on the federal dole. they do not make anyone safer just provide work and give votes to the federal congressman. most have english as a second language. also when did the americans give up their rights for a bunch of idiotic bs started by the federal goverment.