This past weekend two elderly women were searched inappropriately at the airport. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), only recently admitted that the screeners were not following procedure. The two women, Lenore Zimmerman and Ruth Sherman were outraged that they were humiliated by the TSA agents. The article Transfer America discovered on MSNBC, goes into depth about what exactly happened to these two elderly women.
Zimmerman, an 85-year-old, stated that “she was taken to a private room and made to take off her pants and other clothes after she asked to forgo the screening because she worried it would interfere with her defibrillator”. The TSA agent had forced Zimmerman to remove her clothes so that they could see her colostomy bag.
A Homeland Security Secretary Assistant stated that “It is not standard operating procedure for colostomy devices to be visually inspected, and [the Transportation Security Administration] apologizes for this employee’s action.”
Markey, the TSA Agent, still claims that Zimmerman wanted to pull her pants down and did it voluntarily. In addition, she also stated that Zimmerman was not strip-searched.
