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Baywatch actress furious at airport ‘porno scan’
Donna D’Errico claims she was given body scan only because security agents found her attractive
A former Baywatch actress is the latest figure to criticise new security measures at US airports, saying she was singled out for what critics have dubbed a “porno-scan” because she was seen as “attractive” by officials.
Donna D’Errico, 42, was in the TV show, famous for its red-suited female lifeguards, from 1996 to 1998. She has also posed nude in Playboy.
She was angry at the way agents from US air security body TSA chose her for the screening procedure at Los Angeles International Airport . "I noticed that the male TSA agent who had pulled me out of line was smiling and whispering with two other TSA agents and glancing at me,” she said. “I was outraged.”
D’Errico went on: "I'm not sure whether they had recognised me or not. If they did, they didn't say anything. However, it is my personal belief that they pulled me aside because they thought I was attractive."
When D’Errico asked the security guard why she had been selected, he apparently responded: “Because you caught my eye, and they” - pointing to the other passengers - “didn't" .
She added that the agent never gave her the option of a pat-down search, which is the usual procedure.
A spokesman for the TSA denied any inappropriate behaviour by their staff towards D’Errico, who was travelling with her boyfriend and her 17-year-old son.
She is by no means the first American air traveller to object to the intrusive nature of the increased security measures introduced this year at US airports. A cancer survivor who was made to show her prosthetic breast during a check in Washington DC in November called the experience “invasive and embarrassing”. Reality star Khloe Kardashian said of the “pat-down” searches: “They are basically just raping you in public.”
Republican congressman Ron Paul has also inveighed against the new measures, saying: "Groping people at the airport doesn't solve our problem". Paul last week introduced a bill aimed at forbidding airport security agents from actions that would be illegal if undertaken by a private citizen. ·
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If the US wants a war on terror, then they must pay the price.....
Yes, government mandated officials of the TSA, who do not rely on your good will for your custom, can afford to abuse their position of power - why are we not surprised? Of course, if the scans, assuming they are necessary and add anything at all to security, could be done by commercial employees who do rely on your good will for their jobs, but no, the heavy hand of the law ensures that some poorly-paid goons get to ogle Baywatch actresses legit-like. There have to be some perks to job - well, that is the way they look at it.