by: Jonathan Benson
(NaturalNews) Not even 24 hours after 85-year-old Lenore Zimmerman came forward to announce that US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York had strip-searched her in a back room and left her bleeding, another woman, 88-year-old Ruth Sherman, came forward and said that TSA agents essentially did the same thing to her the day before at the same airport.
Instead of just giving her an enhanced pat down and sending her on her way, which is already a significant violation of personal privacy, TSA agents allegedly took Ruth into a back room and performed a strip search on her, first telling her to pull down her pants and underwear.
"This is private for me. It's bad enough that I have it," said Ruth to CBS 2 News in New York, which first broke the story on Lenore Zimmerman, concerning her colostomy. "So she said, 'Please pull down your pants.' I had to pull my sweatpants and I had to pull my underwear, my underwear down. You don't do that (sic) anybody. I felt like I was invaded."
In response to the incident, the TSA issued an official statement denying that any strip search took place, either with Zimmerman or Sherman, and basically suggested that the two women are lying. However, since there are no security cameras in the TSA's private screening rooms, there is no way TSA officials can know for sure that strip searches did not occur.
And why would either of the two women lie in the first place? There have been dozens of other reported incidents of TSA misconduct throughout the past year, many of which involved sexual misconduct, child pornography, drug smuggling, and even attempted rape (http://www.naturalnews.com/TSA.html). The TSA has also been caught lying about other things, including the safety (or lack thereof) of its naked body scanners (http://www.naturalnews.com/032425_a…), which makes its defense hardly credible.
Reports indicate that Zimmerman is planning to sue the TSA for sexually assaulting and humiliating her, but there is no word yet on whether or not Sherman will do the same.