As X-ray machines and magnetometer gates have become ubiquitous parts of our national security theater, one early target for further checking was underwire brassieres. In all the cases I’ve heard of to date, either a further wanding by security personnel, or, in the extreme, a pat-down (by same-sex guards — we’ve had enough scandals already), have resolved the issue to at least the TSA’s satisfaction.
But not so for the federal marshals at a federal courthouse on Coeur d’Alene.
Lori Plato said she was going into the courthouse for a court hearing Sept. 20 when the metal detector went off as she passed through security.
“When I walked through, the gentleman said, “‘Do you have an underwire bra on?’.” Plato said. “I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘You have to remove it.’ “
But there was nowhere private to remove her bra, she said. The guards suggested she go out to her car to do it.
Instead, Plato — who describes herself as “not petite” — said she removed her bra while her husband tried to shield her from view of others in the crowded lobby by holding up his coat. She said she had to put the bra on a conveyor belt and send it through an x-ray machine.
[…] The U.S. Marshal’s Service, which supervises security at the courthouse, said Plato was given options and chose not to exercise them. She was told she could have gone to her car or to a neighboring business to remove the bra, U.S. Marshal Patrick McDonald said. “She’s inflating it,” McDonald said.
Is it impolite for me to ask for the head of Marshal McDonald? Because whatever asshat planet he comes from, they are obviously out to invade us and defeat us through humiliating insensitivity. And I’d best a tidy sum of money that Marshal McDonald would have a very different attitude if it were his wife or girlfriend being told this, or if he was a she.
He said Plato turned her back on the security officers, who thought she was simply going to talk to her husband.
“All of a sudden she just took it off,” McDonald said. “It wasn’t anything we wanted to happen and it wasn’t anything we asked for her to do. She did it so fast.”
Though he said Plato wasn’t ordered to remove her bra, McDonald said she was told she couldn’t pass through security wearing it.
Wow. Good thing she wasn’t going for a gun, if she can whip off her bra that fast.
If wearing an underwire bra is now a barrier to entry into a federal courthouse — entry to which may be required by court order — then (a) private changing areas must be provided, and (b) it needs to be well-publicized. Suggesting someone go change in the car, or bother a business next door, is asinine.
McDonald declined to discuss other ways the federal courthouse guards could have screened Plato. “I don’t want to get into security matters,” he said.
How convenient.
(via Terry)
This is ridiculous. That Marshall is a flat-out idiot if he thinks this is a defensible position to be in. Boo to the Marshall service. Nice way of protecting us from criminals, asshats.