In November 2004, I wrote three times about intrusive pat-downs done on women at the airport, focusing on accusations made by a lawyer named Rhonda Gaynier. You'll notice how often I used the phrase "lawyer groping" in a sick effort to Google bomb that phrase to my site.
So now I've discovered that the groping wasn't limited to lawyers.
A group of 87 women agreed Friday to accept $1.9 million in compensation for what they said were illegal pat-downs and strip searches at O'Hare International Airport.Although this case involves Customs and not TSA, the interesting thing is that the suit accuses customs agents of singling out black women for special intrusive searches. Until now, I assumed that everyone was being singled out except the "Middle Eastern" young men who needed to be subjected to intrusive searches. But if Customs was singling out black women, they're even dumber than I thought. At least random searches have the benefit of political correctness to go with their uselessness. But specific searches of black women don't even have that. And their lawyer assumed the Customs personnel were looking for drugs, not terrorists. Why black women would be particularly inclined to carry drugs I can't say.
The women filed a federal lawsuit in 1997. Judson Miner, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said his clients were African-American women whom customs agents pulled out of line without cause and forced to submit to sometimes humiliating searches.
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