Alaska State Rep Takes Boat After Refusing TSA Search
AP
Rep. Sharon Cissna, D-Anchorage, underwent a body scan as she was preparing to leave Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Sunday. In a statement released late Monday, she said scan results displayed – as they had during a prior episode three months earlier – the scars from her breast cancer.
This caught the attention of the Transportation Safety Administration, Cissna said, but she refused to submit to the “invasive, probing hands of a stranger” this time.
“Facing the agent I began to remember what my husband and I’d decided after the previous intensive physical search. That I never had to submit to that horror again!” she said. “It would be difficult, we agreed, but I had the choice to say no, this twisted policy did not have to be the price of flying to Juneau.”
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Cissna’s chief of staff, Michelle Scannell, said Cissna had had a mastectomy. The TSA, on its website, says security officers “will need to see and touch your prosthetic device, cast or support brace as part of the screening process.”
Cissna had been in Seattle for unspecified medical treatment and was attempting to return to Juneau, where the Legislature is in the midst of a 90-day session. The city is only accessible by air or water.
Scannell said Cissna was scheduled to return to Alaska via ferry but did not immediately say how soon. Cissna did not address that in her statement.
theintelhub.com/2011/02/22/alaska-state-rep-takes-boat-after-refusing-tsa-search/
Feb. 22, 2011