Caught on camera: The moment woman passenger 'is groped and violated' by TSA agent during airport security patdown

Ashley Jessica is a a PhD student and researcher from Toronto, Canada

Filmed the clip at San Diego International Airport and posted it online

The video, which lasts just over three minutes, captures incident on 23 May



Complaint: Ashley Jessica posted a video claiming she was touched inappropriately by a TSA agent

A video has been posted on the internet by a woman who claims she was 'violated' by a TSA agent during a full body check.



Ashley Jessica, 25, from Toronto, Canada, claims the clip s hows the female agent touching her unnecessarily at San Diego International Airport.



Jessica is an activist who fronted an anti-TSA opt-out campaign last year which urged people ' to film the TSA and to post the footage to youtube in an effort to raise awareness and to stop the tyrannical practices of the TSA.'

Jessica and her mother both requested a full body scan and took turns filming what they perceived as improper conduct.



The footage, which lasts just over three minutes, captures the incident on 23 May.

In the video Jessica repeatedly tells the unidentified TSA female agent not to touch her vagina, breasts, or her mother's private parts.



Jessica told InfoWars.com that she and her mother were told by the TSA agent that they would undergo 'an extensive pat down which would involve going all the way up the leg.'

The TSA screener first placed her hand on Jessica’s breasts, prompting her response: 'Sorry, you just touched my boob.'

After Jessica tells the TSA agent that she does not want her breasts touched, the TSA agent threatens to stop the screening process, effectively prohibiting Jessica from flying.

Scroll down for video

Claims: Ashley Jessica, a PhD student and researcher from Toronto, Canada, claims the clip shows the female agent touched her unnecessarily at San Diego International Airport

Complaint: The TSA screener first placed her hand on Jessica’s breasts, prompting her response: 'Sorry, you just touched my boob'

The TSA screener first placed her hand on Jessica's breasts, prompting her response: 'Sorry, you just touched my boob.'

Angry: 'She just touched my vagina, seriously, that was not my upper thigh,' said Jessica in the video clip



TSA: HITTING THE HEADLINES IN 2013

March: An airport security worker who discovered a container of pepper spray at JFK sprayed five of his colleagues with the chemical as he was 'playing around' with the canister. All six TSA screeners were taken to hospital, and security checks at JFK were said to have been held up for at least 15 minutes following the incident in Terminal 2.

March : A former Newark TSA screener blasted his former co-workers as lazy, inept, and absolute failures at stopping security threats in a shocking interview sure to put a scare into frequent flyers.

March: An undercover inspector managed to get through a security checkpoint at Newark Airport with an improvised explosive device stuffed down his pants.

March: Rep Duncan Hunter (R-California) wrote a terse letter to the Transportation Security Administrator asking why a double-amputee Marine was forced to remove his prosthetic legs and later had to stand on them without the use of his wheelchair. TSA has fired back with their own account, saying that initial CCTV footage shows Cpl Gaal passing through the security checkpoint at Arizona’s Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport without removing his prostheses.

March: U.S. travelers may be facing extended wait times in airports across the country as a result of sequestration, but that did not stop the Transportation Security Administration from paying tens of millions of dollars for officers' uniforms.

March: The Transportation Security Administration has offered an apology to a Missouri family after one of their agents detained their wheelchair-bound three-year-old daughter.



The Ph D student and researcher agrees to allow the pat down to continue, but steps back in a obvious fashion when the TSA agent feels high up on the inner part of her leg.

'She just touched my vagina, seriously, that was not my upper thigh,' declares Jessica as she moves away from the agent.



The day after the footage was Jessica posted on her Twitter page: 'Was violated pretty badly by TSA at San Diego International Airport yesterday. Video will be on my YouTube channel.'



When she posted it on YouTube several users wrote that the TSA agent was acting within guidelines.



But Jessica hit back:'To all those people saying that I'm "overreacting" - if you went up to someone on the street and touched them like that you'd probably be arrested. It's really sad that so many people have habituated to this type of treatment.'



The campaign Jessica fronted held a weekend urging passengers to refuse 'to submit themselves to naked body scanners or being groped.'

In a bid to attract publicity Jessica has previously posted footage of her mother being given a pat down at Norfolk VA airport.

She posted the footage on YouTube and wrote: 'This TSA agent gives my mom the full grope-down at Norfolk VA airport and then complains that my brother is violating her rights by filming it. Oh the irony.



'He began filming after I refused to proceed with my pat-down because I was told by the TSA agent that she would be touching my behind over and over again until I didn't flinch. She also told me that I had to let her touch my other private areas with the backs of her hands or I would not be permitted to fly.'

In an interview last year she told her idea for the campaign stemmed from a 'bad experience.'



'I was ordered around like a prisoner by the TSA agent,' she said.



Publicity: Jessica is an activist who fronted a national TSA opt-out campaign last year. She has previously posted footage of patdown's at airports in a bid to highlight her campaign, seen here



Campaign: Jessica has previously posted footage of her mother being given a pat down at Norfolk VA airport. She posted the footage on YouTube and wrote: 'This TSA agent gives my mom the full grope-down at Norfolk VA airport and then complains that my brother is violating her rights by filming it. Oh the irony'



'When it came to my behind, she pressed on it very hard, hard enough for me to jump forward

'And I turned around and said to her what are you doing and she said you're not allowed to move while I pat you down.

'So she continued to pat me and did it again and I jumped forward again and at that point I said what what are you doing and she said I am going to do it over and over again and until you don't flinch. Outright abuse.'

The TSA guidelines say: 'If a passenger cannot or chooses not to be screened by imaging technology or a walk-through metal detector, the passenger will be screened using a thorough patdown procedure instead. A patdown procedure also is used to resolve any alarms of a metal detector or anomalies identified by imaging technology.'

They state that they must be performed by an officer of the same gender and 'the officer will explain the pat-down process before and during the pat-down.'



Earlier this month a man was acquitted of indecent exposure after he stripped nude at airport security to protest against 'invasive measures' by the TSA.

'Invasive': John Brennan, from Portland, Oregon, stripped nude at airport security to protest against 'invasive measures' by the TSA at Portland International Airport

John Brennan, from Portland, Oregon, had a showdown with a TSA agent who said he found nitrates on Brennan's clothes at Portland International Airport.



Brennan took offense to this and saw it as an accusation that he could be a terrorist. The judge subsequently ruled it was an act of protest and therefore protected speech.

The Transportation Security Administration was formed in early 2002 following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

The TSA told MailOnline: 'It is the passenger’s choice to either walk through the screening equipment or receive a secondary screening using a pat-down.

