Well, well. There was a lot of talk earlier this week about the woman, Yukari Miyamae, who was arrested for allegedly groping a TSA agent at a security checkpoint. The police reports claimed she had grabbed the agent's breast. In some press reports, Miyamae had claimed she did not actually grope anyone. And now... the district attorney's office in Phoenix has decided not to press charges, claiming that what she did "did not rise to the level of a felony offense under state law." She may still be charged with a misdemeanor, however, though that would be a city issue. At this point, it's not entirely clear what happened. Either the original claims by the police were simply not accurate and she didn't do what they claimed (as she asserts). Or the DA may have realized that going forward with such a prosecution would be problematic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the equivalence issue that plenty of people have raised, about whether or not the TSA gropings themselves are a form of sexual molestation.

Well, while it may be legal for the TSA to grope you, that doesn't mean it's okay for you to grope back. It appears that one woman is finding that out the hard way, after grabbing and squeezing the breast of a TSA agent. She admitted to "the crime," and now faces felony charges. It's not clear if she did this as any sort of protest against the pat downs, though it does strike me as an interesting way to make that point (if that is the case). After all, if it's okay for the TSA to do that to passengers, but it's a felony in the other direction, doesn't that at least raise some questions about the "reasonableness" of the pat downs?

A woman, who did not feel comfortable going through the TSA naked scanners, was arrested for disorderly conduct when she also refused to let the TSA molest and grope her daughter. I'm trying to figure out how this makes us any safer on airplanes.

"I still don't want someone to see our bodies naked," the mom is reported to have replied.

As for the pat-down option, the police report states that the mom didn't want her daughter to be "touched inappropriately or have her "crotch grabbed."

TSA agents say she became belligerent and verbally abusive. The woman was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

So, either your privacy gets violated, you get molested, or you get arrested. Where do we live again?

Given a second chance to pass an anti-TSA groping bill in Texas, it appears that Texas state elected officials chickened out again. While the State Senate had watered down the bill so that it allowed the TSA to continue to do the "enhanced patdowns" if they had a "reasonable suspicion" (rather than the "probable cause" standard in the original bill), the House failed to vote on the newly revised bill by the end of the session yesterday, which apparently means that the bill can't be introduced again this year.

Back in April, we wrote about the TSA defending its groping of a 6-year-old girl, by saying that it was fine because it was their standard operating procedure. That, of course, made absolutely no sense to anyone outside of the TSA. Just because it's the way you normally do things doesn't make it right. At all. In fact, even the TSA's boss seemed to acknowledge last week that groping 6-year-olds is no longer standard operating procedure in most cases.

Perhaps he can now turn his attention to groping 95-year-olds.

Yes, over the weekend a lot of people heard about the story of Jean Weber's 95-year-old mother, who is in the final stages of leukemia, and wanted to travel to Michigan from Florida, to spend her few remaining days with family. Except, once she got to the airport, she was apparently selected for extra scrutiny, including a patdown, and being told she needed to remove her adult diaper. She ended up being detained for 45 minutes.

The local TSA spokesperson defended the procedure by suggesting that if they didn't grope 95-year-old dying cancer patients and force them to remove their diapers, that the terrorists would plant bombs on such old ladies:

"TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability."

But that's just the TSA spokesperson in Miami. Surely once this made its way back up to the top, the TSA folks in DC wouldn't go through the same mistake from April and claim this is perfectly fine because it's standard operating procedures... or would they? Oh, of course they would:

The TSA released a statement Sunday defending its agents' actions at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport.

"While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner," the federal agency said. "We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure."

You know what? If that is "proper procedure," the procedure is wrong. It's time for someone at the TSA to admit that.

After Texas politicians (new motto: "don't mess with Texas, unless you threaten to take away our airplanes") backed down on a proposal to make TSA-style gropings illegal unless the TSA could show the Constitutional basis for them, many pointed out that the bill could not be reintroduced this session. However, according to Kashmir Hill, a loophole and a whole bunch of protesters complaining about politicians backing down may mean that the bill has one more chance this year.

Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, who was one of the main reasons why the bill died in the first place, has now asked the Governor, Rick Perry, to call the bill during a 30-day special session that resulted from the state's budget fight. Hill notes that Perry might not be willing to take on this issue, due to his own presidential aspirations, but Perry has a history of going his own way on certain things, so it could happen. I'm still not sure the bill really has enough support to make it, but it certainly would create an entertaining legal fight...

Apparently, the new slogan for Texas is "don't mess with Texas... unless you threaten to stop all flights out of Texas... because then we'll fold." Following the US Justice Department warning the state that if it passed the bill to make overly aggressive TSA gropings illegal, the TSA might have to stop all flights originating in Texas. And, rather than call the feds' bluff, Texas politicians have shelved the bill. Apparently, this means the same bill cannot be reintroduced this session. Some have pointed out that the bill probably didn't have enough support to make it through anyway, but it makes you wonder how much of that was due to threats from the feds.

We've already covered the proposal in Texas to make TSA airport gropings illegal, and we've already noted that the TSA insists that it can safely ignore such a law (an argument that some dispute). However, now the Justice Department is apparently telling the Texas legislature that if it passes the law, flights out of Texas could be banned:

If HR 1937 were enacted, the federal government would likely seek an emergency stay of the statute. Unless or until such a stay were granted, TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.

That's a mighty big stick the feds are pulling out there. The sponsor of the bill says the whole thing is ridiculous. He notes (quite craftily) that the bill clearly exempts TSA officials from being liable for criminal prosecution under the bill, if they can show the Constitutional reasons that allow them to grope anyone's private parts:

"The bill clearly states that an agent is exempt from prosecution as long as a constitutionally sanctioned federal law directs them to perform the invasive, indecent groping searches-including touching breasts, sexual organs and buttocks," noted State Representative David Simpson (R-Longview), the bill's author.

"Instead of threatening to shut down flights in Texas, why doesn't the TSA just show us their statutory authority to grope or ogle our private parts?" asked Simpson.

"All that HB 1937 does is require that the TSA abide by the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution," Simpson continued. "We aren't even prohibiting the pat-downs, per se. We're just saying you can't go straight to third base. You have to have a reason-you have to have probable cause-before groping someone's sexual organs."

Things certainly could get interesting. In the meantime, perhaps don't plan too many trips that involve flying out of Texas in the near future.

We've discussed an attempt in New Hampshire to make TSA agents liable to be accused of sexual assault for patdowns, and now we learn that a bill is making its way through the Texas legislature that would criminalize the aggressive groping procedures, if there is no "probable cause." That choice of words is obviously quite intentional, as the idea is to refer back to the 4th Amendment. Unfortunately, courts have not found that such airport searches violate the 4th Amendment, though they've become ever more intrusive over the years.

The big question, of course, is what happens if this bill passes and becomes a law (apparently it has a large number of co-sponsors). It would create a difficult position for TSA agents in Texas, and I imagine a lawsuit would eventually be needed to resolve things. But all of that depends on whether or not the bill will ever actually pass. I could definitely see the White House putting pressure on Texas' governor to veto the bill... Still, with various states now looking to pass laws against these procedures, isn't it time the administration and the TSA reconsider these procedures?

Apparently the TSA went to Capitol Hill this week to "demonstrate" the new groping pat downs to prove to folks in Congress that they're really not so bad. The only problem? Those watching the gropings seemed to get exactly the opposite sense:

He said that several House staffers were uncomfortable and averted their eyes when the TSA demonstrated an enhanced pat-down in the room of 200 people.

"The dumbest part: they did two pat-down demonstrations -- male on male, and female on female," the House staffer said. And they used a young female TSA volunteer "and in front of a room of 200 people, they touched her breasts and her buttocks. People were averting their eyes. The TSA was trying to demonstrate 'this is not so bad,' but it made people so uncomfortable to watch, that people were averting their eyes."

"They shot themselves in the foot," the staffer continued.

Now, will those in Congress actually do anything about all this? It's really amazing how frequently the TSA and its supporters insist that the gropings "aren't so bad." It really suggests a huge disconnect between what they're doing and what people consider "bad" to be.