CNN political commentator Angela Rye said she was subjected to an invasive “vaginal pat down” at Detroit Metro Airport.
Rye, who wrote about the experience in an op-ed on CNN’s website, said she was told she was randomly chosen for additional screening, despite having a TSA Precheck status and is a CLEAR traveler.
After being told that a female TSA agent would do “a backhanded pat around the upper thigh,” the search went beyond that, she wrote:
The pat-down began and was uneventful until she went down my leg, up my dress, and her hand sideways hits me right in the crack of my labia. Startled, I jump and feel a lump in my throat trying to hold back tears. What happened to the back handed pat-down?
She comes around to the front; I grow nervous and pull back a bit, afraid of the same thing happening ― and her sideways hand hits in the middle of my genitals again. I can no longer hold back the tears.
Rye said she was told she would be escorted from the airport if she didn’t agree to the pat-down.
“Of course, we want America to be safe and protected,” Rye wrote. “But we should not violate the emotional and physical safety of our nation’s citizens at the same time.”
