Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The rabid anti-TSA crowd has a new hero. A Colorado woman flipped out late last week in the Phoenix international airport. Yukari Mihamae is accused of reaching out to grope a TSA agent's left breast, squeezing and twisting with both hands. Police descended (duh!), and Mihamae has been charged with felony sexual assault.
To everyone who just put up a little cheer, shame on you. A woman was sexually molested, and you're excited? What does that say about you?
Oh, right, that the TSA finally "got what was coming to them"? That's the word on the web this morning, with Facebook groups already popping up demanding that a court "Acquit Yukari Mihamae," and sites claiming "turnabout" will get you arrested at an American airport.
But let's look at the evidence. A woman woke up on Thursday morning, and like so many Americans, she went to work. The fact is, she just so happens to be employed by the Transportation Security Administration. So her work put her on a screener line at a busy airport, where thousands of people walk past her every day, where she has to keep things moving. Where she has to do the job assigned to her by the federal government, or she doesn't get paid that day. And if she doesn't get paid, she can't feed herself or her family.
And on Thursday afternoon, she came face to face with Yukari Mihamae, a woman who refused to be screened. The woman, the agent, didn't make contact with the passenger. But standing there, just doing her job, she was violated. Someone reached out and grabbed her private body part, squeezed, and twisted.
According to headlines that calls this a "role-reversal," that woman who just got up that morning and went to work "deserved it." Deserved it because she went to work that day? Because she happens to work for the TSA? By that rubric, America, all passengers deserve to be sexually harassed because we decide to fly the not-so-friendly skies. Remember, the agent did nothing to Mihamae. She didn't grope her.
Don't you remember what your mom or maybe your kindergarten teacher taught you? Two wrongs don't make a right, folks. The agents of the TSA have no right to grope American citizens -- and by and large, they DON'T. But as long as passengers mistreat the agents and other Americans cheer that mistreatment, there is no room to complain that the federal government pushes its agents to go too far. As long as society can praise overstepping the bounds of humanity to "make a point," it's impossible to stand against the TSA overstepping the bounds of the Constitution to "protect us."
Make your choice America -- do you want to prove the TSA wrong, or do you want to get revenge?
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
