Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

speakup

LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Transportation Security Administration says it will change they way its officers search passengers with body piercings after a woman complained she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane.

Mandi Hamlin, 37, had demanded an apology and her Los Angeles-based attorney sent a letter to the TSA this week requesting a civil rights investigation.

Hamlin said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a TSA agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings, and the agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. She said several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out.

The TSA said Friday in a statement on its website that the officers properly followed procedures, but that the procedures must change so passengers can either allow a visual inspection of their piercings, or remove them. The statement stopped short of apologizing to Hamlin.

"TSA acknowledges that our procedures caused difficulty for the passenger involved and regrets the situation in which she found herself," the agency said in a statement. "We appreciate her raising awareness on this issue and we are changing the procedures to ensure that this does not happen again."

An after-hours call to Hamlin's attorney, Gloria Allred, was not immediately returned.