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A 90-year-old woman says she was forced to unbutton her blouse and take off her bra in front of a TSA agent after setting off alarms as she traveled through security at Portland International Airport.

Hariette Charney was singled out after going through the full body scanner, then quickly taken aside by TSA staff when an irregularity was detected.

Alan Charney, her son, told Portland television news station KATU-TV, “There was no sanity or sensitivity at all to the work that they were doing.”

TSA spokesman Mike England denied the allegations that Charney was asked to take off her clothes, but followed up by saying they are investigating the incident.

The woman was flying home to the East Coast after a two-week visit with her son in Oregon, when TSA agents noticed a small pocket on the inside of her bra that Charney had sewn to keep extra money, in case she lost her wallet or purse while traveling.

Alan Charney said he thought they would just pat her down. Instead, he claims they asked her to take off her shirt.

This is not the first time the TSA has run into controversy over questionable tactics employed on air travelers.

In April 2015, two TSA employees were fired and two others were reassigned after allegedly rigging a system in the security check process to allow a male screener to pat down other males. The incident occurred at the Denver International Airport, but authorities said there will be no criminal charges because victims have not come forward.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a correspondent for the The Atlantic conducted an investigation into the efficacy of TSA scanning tactics in November 2008.

In the piece, he attempted to bring items like Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah t-shirts, as well as small bottles with the words “saline solution” written on the outside. He found that none of these things were deterrents for the TSA, who routinely scanned him and rarely stopped him.

Teaming up with Bruce Schneier, professional cryptographer and computer privacy specialist, the two went so far as to forge boarding passes, without the slightest bit of trouble.

They found that once the security system operating techniques are known, it is not hard to skirt them. For example, the TSA employs what is called an “ID triangle” when checking passengers in. The goal is to have the airline or government check a person three times before boarding any flight, in order to get the best representation of each flyer. The first check is in purchasing the ticket, the second through airport security and the final one at the boarding gate.



Both Goldberg and Schneier forged their way through this system, and using the presumption of innocence afforded more often to white people than any other racial, ethnic, or religious group, the two boarded different planes with faulty backstories and potentially dangerous items.



According to Schneier, “Counter­terrorism in the airport is a show designed to make people feel better.” He concluded that “we defend against what the terrorists did last week.”

Allegations of racial profiling are frequently leveled at the TSA, with employees at Boston’s Logan International Airport telling a newspaper in August 2012 that a behavior detection program intended to flag suspicious people, was instead being used in a racially discriminatory manner.



According to the Associated Press, “the officers said their co-workers were increasingly targeting minorities, believing the stops would lead to the discovery of drugs, outstanding arrest warrants and immigration problems, in response to pressure from managers who wanted high numbers of stops, searches and criminal referrals.”

In a post-911 world where a 90-year-old woman is asked to undress and enterprising journalists are able to outsmart a major government bureaucracy in place to keep its citizens safe, one has to wonder how much benefit there is to the current airport routine.



The seeming inefficacy of the TSA system suggests that despite all its claims to modernity and cutting edge technology, more than likely, airport security is a checkpoint of racial profiling, or at least very much up to the discretion of under-trained, underpaid employees.



Safety is important, but to what degree is systemized safety just a falsehood--a means by which the rights of some may be taken away?