A woman claims she was sexually assaulted on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Bloomington, Illinois. Mesa Airlines operates the route with 76 seat Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft.
She said that a flight attendant “reached over and touched the breast that’s closest to the aisle” presumably as he passed by. I initially thought this could have been a misunderstanding, the aisles are narrow and flight attendants often bump passengers. However she reports,
the attendant also grabbed her and kissed her as passengers were exiting the plane.
“He grabbed my shoulder to physically stop me as I went forward. And he leaned over and he said ‘I saw what you did right there, letting her out. You are a nice girl.’ And he leaned in to kiss my lips,” she said. “I ducked my head, like this, so he kissed the side of my face.
American says they’re investigating the incident. The woman says she feels “she’s been given the runaround.”
Meanwhile I tweeted yesterday’s news about the arrest of an American Airlines flight attendant late last month as he got off a flight in Phoenix. He reportedly admitted taking video through a peephole into a men’s restroom, including video of a 14 year old boy. The videos were discovered when border officers searched his cell phone at the El Paso border crossing on December 30. It took nearly 5 months for him to be arrested.
Hey @TSAGov this flight attendant may be looking for a job soon. Perfect for you? https://t.co/p8m7zzKdJT
— gary leff (@garyleff) June 6, 2017
The videos were taken at a store over a two month period, where the man spent “hours in the bathroom each time he went in.” They were not taken of an aircraft lavatory or airport restroom.
American says they have “been cooperating with law enforcement throughout their investigation.”
Unless I’m misunderstanding something, that’s a pretty juvenile (not to mention inappropriate/not funny) tweet.
and apparently i did, as i see TSAGov is some random schmo. feel free to delete.
I’m a bit confused. Assuming the AA FA is an american citizen why the hell are border officers going through his phone?Is there more to this story or are they just now going through people’s phones for the hell of it?
haha must be slow in the aviation news dept if you had to post this up
I’m with @Bill, wondering why CPB searched his phone.
Bill: CBP agents can go through anyone’s phone, laptop, tablet. It does not matter if you are a U.S. citizen or even if you have Global Entry. If your device is locked they can legally ask you to unlock it. There is some US law that was written many decades ago that allows them to do this. This ( type of search) was rarely done on U.S. citizens, though, until Trump became president.
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@John True they can ASK you to unlock it. If you are a US citizen they can not force you to unlock it and they have to let you into the country. They may take your phone though. This has not been fully litigated in the courts and I suspect once it goes up on appeal the government will be slapped down because its incredibly invasive to start going through people’s private phones without any indication whatsoever of wrong doing. One appellate court has already started putting limits on them, My concern is if we have bored CBP agents who are just going through people’s phones for the hell of it with no reason whatsoever. I have a real problem with it and I would be a bit surprised if other americans were ok with just handing over their phones to these people when they have done nothing wrong. Its once thing if they have a suspicious of something criminal going on. Its quite another when they just want to snoop on random innocent people, hence why I wondered if they had some sort of tip about this guy.
Bill: If you don’t unlock your device, they can tie you up for hours in secondary. Also, they have the legal rt to copy your device if you don’t unlock it. My understanding is they have the legal rt to ask you to unlock your device at any US border crossing or entry pt. This is all based on some US law written decades ago. As far as your comments this has not been litigated in ct yet. Actually it has. Again, this law was written many decades ago. Some members of congress are trying to write a new law to exempt US citizens from this unnecessary intrusion of privacy, though.
If you don’t want CBP potentially going through your iPhone or iPad do a factory reset before you go through customs and immigration. General>Reset>Erase All Content And Settings. It takes very little time to do this. If you have iCloud you can rebuild the contents of your device later very easily.
@John, my understanding is that the authority under which CBP can search your electronic devices is not a specific law, but rather the basic principle that a country may search everyone crossing its borders (e.g., to enforce duties or customs prohibitions). However, as @Bil says, the specific question of searching electronic devices hasn’t been decided by the Supreme Court. I hope the practice gets a clear ruling that CBP needs a warrant to search electronic devices, because, as earlier court rulings have noted, searching an electronic device is not like searching luggage. Luggage contains what people need for a specific trip. Electronic devices contain people’s entire lives.
Randy: While the law is not specific to electronic devices, it was written broadly enough many yrs ago to allow search of just about anything at US border crossings and entry pts. Again, this has been litigated through the yrs in various US cts. Could the US Sup. Ct. overturn this law? Well yes, but it has not done so yet. Again, this type of search was rarely done on US citizens until Trump became president.
In the AA flt attendant’s case they found porno etc,… In many cases CSP, though, is searching for terrorist related links/info not porno. (I don’t think they care if you have porno unless it is of underage boys and or girls, in which case you deserve some jail time!)
@John, what I said is that my understanding is that the CBP is searching electronic devices under their broad authority to conduct searches at the border without warrant or cause. I’m not aware that there is any specific law passed by Congress on the topic, since it’s a long-standing principle that was upheld by the courts, although to my knowledge, there has not been a specific ruling that it applies to electronic devices. Other rulings, not related to the border searches, have held that some forms of electronic searching are far more intrusive that other searches. For example, if police arrest you, they can search your person, but courts have held that they cannot search your phone without a warrant. They can go through your pockets and bags, but not your phone.
John: So Trump was president on December 30?