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I stood there, an American citizen, sexually assaulted by a government official

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Re: I stood there, an American citizen, sexually assaulted by a government official

#111

Post by gte910h »

corin_ wrote: post #86
cabalamat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd suggest that failing to discover a fatal disease would be slightly worse than failing to travel somewhere. That's not the point. The point is choice. If I don't like one doctor, I can go to another. If I live in the USA and don't like the TSA, I'm fucked.

You can chose a different TSA agent. Going to another doctor won't change the fact that, to diagnose certain problems, he/she may need to touch your testicals.

However many people, especially men, do not allow embarrassing and painful tests done to them unless they're scared. They literally choose increased chance of death over those invasive exams.

I feel people should have the same right at the airline gate (aka flights w/o gropesearch/poronoscans vs flights with being offered)

Re: I stood there, an American citizen, sexually assaulted by a government official

#113

Post by notahacker »

poet wrote: post #99
notahacker wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Quibbling about terminology" isn't "silly" when someone is making a public accusation of a sex crime. Neither of us are lawers, but right there in the statutes you've posted is the line "Sexual contact means any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast, for the purpose of sexually arousing or gratifying…

The funny thing about your line of argument is that she didn't make a "public accusation of a sex crime" because "sexual assault" is not a sex crime that is defined in Ohio. If we're going to try to be pedantic here, let's actually be correct. What definition of sexual assault are you using exactly? Your original contention is that the author is trivializing "real" sexual assault by using the phrase "sexual assault"…

Slightly against my better judgment (good link btw) I'm going to post again...

I don't think there's anything novel or "contrived" about assuming the phrase "sexual assault" implies some form of illegal gratuitous behaviour with a sexual motivation, regardless of what jurisdiction you live in (sexual assault is a crime where I live, and the Ohio state government appears to use the term frequently with respect to supporting abuse victims). I also interpreted the author's repetition of the phrase in conjunction with other carefully selected terms like "incident" as a conscious attempt to draw parallels between her experience and that of the victims of sex crimes.

I don't doubt that she's drawing those parallels because she's sincerely upset, but I do think there's a dangerous line being crossed when we start equivocating intentional assaults and incidental contact, and leave it up to the accuser to define whether conduct was abusive or sexual. I also think it would be doing a disservice to people who've been wilfully abused for others' gratification to suggest that their treatment is akin to what some people experience going through airport security. I hope that clarifies the original intent of my comments.

Re: I stood there, an American citizen, sexually assaulted by a government official

#115

Post by cookiecaper »

loewenskind wrote: post #73
cookiecaper wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it is an extreme example. I used it to counter the opposite extreme posited by the article, that even unpleasant or unwanted or unexpected touching qualifies as "assault", but perhaps I was not adequately clear that less murderous assaults are also extremely serious and damaging. I don't mean to downplay those at all. In my mind, I suppose the bar for physical "sexual assault" is set around the forced handling…

>I used it to counter the opposite extreme posited by the article, that even unpleasant or unwanted or unexpected touching qualifies as "assault" Unwanted touching absolutely qualifies as assault. Imagine a movie theater, sick of people videoing their movies, started doing "pat downs" like this. It would be very clearly sexual assault then. And if the person they were touching were a child it would be even more clear…

No, it would not be "sexual assault". It would again be unpleasant or unwanted touching. I'm not endorsing that, but I don't think technicalities about the term are appropriate. Sexual assault is a serious thing, pat downs are definitely unpleasant and bad, but they are not like serious assaults.

Re: I stood there, an American citizen, sexually assaulted by a government official

#117

Post by martinkallstrom »

X-Istence wrote: post #96
martinkallstrom wrote: post #63

I associate this with the previous discussion about response to bullying in school. The argument then was, should we teach our children to withstand physical abuse and report it to authorities after the fact? Or should we teach them to respond immediately as it happens and loudly, physically if need be, protest? In this case, the TSA agent obviously broke protocol. I can't see it as mandatory for the victom of the br…

The issue is that even if she did shout NO during this whole frisking business she might have caused much more trouble.

That might be. And it might have been worth her while (IANAL)

Re: I stood there, an American citizen, sexually assaulted by a government official

#118

Post by Tamerlin »

credo wrote: post #22
noonespecial wrote: post #15

I've been watching these stories trickle by on HN for a few days now wondering if I should say what I'm about to say. I'm going to put up an opinion that I'm quite certain is going to be unpopular. At length, I think the potential karma burn is worth speaking out. If you choose to downvote me, please drop in a reasonable reply as well: We ought not to call these incidents sexual assault. It sounds too much like hyper…

>>but there are many circumstances in life where we must suffer the same indignities which are not considered assault. A visit to the doctor for example. This analogy makes very little sense. The doctor cannot stop me from visiting a different doctor (who may not insist on the same tests) and the doctor cannot compel me to cancel a trip across the Atlantic if I refuse to submit to the tests. The government can. The d…

The doctor has to convince the patient that the test is necessary. The TSA agent can ignore any evidence of the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of patdowns and doesn't need to obtain your consent.

And that's the critical difference here.

What the doctor does is WITH your consent, and you have a choice in the matter -- plus it's actually truly for your own good.

What the TSA does is NOT with your consent, you don't have a choice in the matter (subject of the TSA's next porn video, or sexual molestation), and it's NOT for your own good, since there's no conceivable way that it will actually improve airline safety, given that it won't have any affect on any serious terrorist attacks anyway.

Re: I stood there, an American citizen, sexually assaulted by a government official

#119

Post by sliverstorm »

melvinram wrote: post #52
sliverstorm wrote: post #24

I am starting to wonder if perhaps there is something wrong with me, for I am not outraged as everyone else seems to be. So long as there's no groping etc going on, I'm inclined to just shrug and say to the agent, "well, you gotta do what you gotta do". I am sorry HN, but I find myself lacking the desire to board this bandwagon.

"So long as there's no groping etc going on" That is precisely the issue at hand. A woman's libia & vagina were touched in this particular case. In other accounts, various forms of fondling and groping occurred to men, women and children of various ages from 9 years (youngest stories I can recall) to senor citizens. I have a sister who needs to fly from time to time. I'm outraged at the possibility that she may have…

wait, did you just say contact = groping?

Re: I stood there, an American citizen, sexually assaulted by a government official

#120

Post by Tamerlin »

corin_ wrote: post #40
credo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>but there are many circumstances in life where we must suffer the same indignities which are not considered assault. A visit to the doctor for example. This analogy makes very little sense. The doctor cannot stop me from visiting a different doctor (who may not insist on the same tests) and the doctor cannot compel me to cancel a trip across the Atlantic if I refuse to submit to the tests. The government can. The d…

"The doctor cannot compel me to cancel a trip across the Atlantic if I refuse to submit to the tests" I'd suggest that failing to discover a fatal disease would be slightly worse than failing to travel somewhere. What you mean to say is that it's OK for a doctor to do it because in that case the recipient believes he is doing it for a good reason. If everyone going through an airport fully believed that these checks…

* If everyone going through an airport fully believed that these checks are an efficient way to ensure our safety in the air, far less people would have a problem.*

Given that the facts say otherwise, I suspect that this is going to end up being a pretty hard sell.

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