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Over the weekend, columnist Amy Alkon (a.k.a. "The Advice Goddess," pictured) was on her way back to LA from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies conference in New Orleans, when this happened:


My boyfriend was told he had to stop videotaping the TSA officer giving me a "pat-down" (ie, groping my breasts, hair, and near my vagina) at the New Orleans airport on Sunday, July 24, at approximately 6 am...

I unfortunately was not able to get the officer's name because my boyfriend was disturbed because I was sobbing due to the vile touching of my sexual parts...The screener was a short black woman. I wept as she violated me.
Sadly, this is not the first time Alkon has run into problems with a TSA screener. Her blog item is basically a verbatim copy of the complaint she filed through a TSA website.

In addition to the concerns Alkon has voiced over the physical contact she endured, there is also the matter of her boyfriend being told to stop filming the incident with his iPhone. Under the First Amendment, and even according to the TSA's own rules, he should not have been ordered to do this. Ironically, Alkon's boyfriend brought with him on the trip a book about the First Amendment written by UCLA law prof Eugene Volokh.