Former Miss USA 'violated' by airport search

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 12 years ago

Former Miss USA 'violated' by airport search

Passengers at US airports who refuse to go through body scanners must subject themselves to a security pat-down.

Passengers at US airports who refuse to go through body scanners must subject themselves to a security pat-down.Credit: Reuters

A former Miss USA who says she was violated during an airport security search has taken to the internet with her story.

Susie Castillo, 31, said on her blog she felt "completely helpless" and "violated" during the search by a female security guard in Dallas, Texas, earlier this month.

Castillo, 31, who won the Miss USA Pageant in 2003, said she was hand searched after she refused to go through a full body scanner at the Dallas Fort Worth International airport.

Loading

"To say that I felt invaded is an understatement," she wrote. "What bothered me most was when she ran the back of her hands down my behind, felt around my breasts, and even came in contact with my vagina!"

"I just kept thinking, what have I done to deserve this treatment as an upstanding, law-abiding American citizen? Am I a threat to US security? I was Miss USA, for Pete's sake!," she wrote.

A video of Castillo recounting the incident earlier this month has been posted on YouTube, and she has kept up her campaign against invasive "enhanced pat down" searches on her twitter account.

Susie Castillo was named Miss USA in 2003.

Susie Castillo was named Miss USA in 2003.Credit: AP

In the United States pat-downs are done if passengers refuse to walk through a full-body scanner, if something unusual is found on a scan, or if someone sets off a metal detector, according to the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Advertisement

An internet "Don't Touch my Junk" campaign against pat-downs encouraged passengers flying during the US Thanksgiving holiday weekend last November to refuse security pat-downs.

That month, the TSA body searched a screaming three-year-old, a search which was partially captured by a mobile phone camera. Earlier this month a video emerged of a six-year-old girl being given a pat-down at an airport in New Orleans, sparking outrage.

The TSA estimates that only two per cent of the 2 million passengers screened daily in the US are given pat-downs.

Nearly 85 per cent of air passengers questioned in a global Ipsos/Reuters poll earlier this year said the measures, which were considered by some to be a violation of human rights, were warranted but a hassle, although 40 per cent of travellers said they would not catch anyone determined to cause harm.

Nearly a third said security procedures were too invasive.

Sign up for the Traveller newsletter

The latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now.

Most viewed on Traveller

Loading