An alert Transportation Security Administration screener at New Jersey’s Newark Airport apparently spotted a "sex toy” stuffed inside a passenger’s luggage Saturday and offered the traveler some encouragement.

“Get your freak on girl” was found written in black ink on the back of a TSA notice, passenger Jill Filipovic revealed on her Twitter page.

“Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA,” she tweeted. “Guess they discovered a 'personal item' in my bag. Wow.”


She identified the item in an email to New York Magazine:

“It was a $15 bullet vibe from Babeland, about the most basic sex toy you can imagine. It has now been officially retired, since I have no idea if the TSA agents manhandled it.”

She discovered the note on Sunday after she landed in Dublin, she said. She wrote on her blog, Feministe, that the message was “wildly inappropriate” but she “died laughing” about it in her hotel room.

But she told FoxNews.com in an email Monday evening that she's transitioning to being "pretty disturbed" by the note. She said these agents are given a lot of authority with little oversight.

She wrote that she suspects "whoever left the note felt comfortable doing so (I also suspect that they believed most women would be embarrassed to be "caught" with personal items and wouldn't file a complaint)," she wrote in the email. "That is certainly cause for concern."

TSA said in a statement to FoxNews.com that there is no evidence to suggest one of its agents were behind the note.

Greg Soule, a TSA spokesman, said Filipovic has not filed a complaint about the incident, but the TSA “takes all allegations of inappropriate conduct seriously and is investigating this claim."

Filipovic said she is not looking to get anyone fired over the incident, but she received a lot of feedback from others with other stories of public humiliation at the hands of TSA. She said she hopes the TSA addresses the larger issue, not just this one case.

Filipovic reportedly will file a complaint with the TSA when she returns to the U.S.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/24/sexy-toy-discovery-leads-to-note-from-tsa-screener-woman-claims/#ixzz1bm2Q3FKg

Wow, I'd sue!

lol,, the country is far too litigious.

doesnt their have to be a defendant to sue,,? Without knowing who wrote the note, I dont see a case.

How far is this going to go....
Human rights and rights to privacy have no place today....
Travel and the TSA goes thru you G strings....
Tooth brushes....
If leaving a note was real.....
I'd be hunting the parasite down....
Overstepping boundaries are the issue here....
What if it was your girl friend and you bought the toy...
There are relationships out there that are comfortable with gifts like the one mentioned.....
We have pretty well the charter of rights in both Canada and US.....
You in the US have one better.....
The right to bare arms!!!

I agree someone infringed, I just dont agree there is a clear indication of who it was. TSA agents are trained to recognize things through a type of luggage 'xray' ( I Have taken the test and failed miserably..lol). To know there was a bullet in the bag was not exceptional, to make a comment about it was.

The defendant is the TSA....
If your car fell through the road in your community due to poor workmanship or construction, you would sue your local government or roads contractor....
The witch hunt for employees responsible would happen during or after the outcome of the case....

I see intentionally writing something on a note as a much more PERSONAL decision than a collectively shoddy construction job,,,

I still dont think it is litigation worthy,,,at most, if an employee has committed such an act, they should be terminated from their job

It is common practice to sue government or regulatory bodies be it poor service or issues on rights and privaledges....

I know hon, but I dont think it should be

our courts are too tied up for these types of 'for the money' inquisitions

one person acted poorly, a company has no way to control every decision of an employee,, the primary responsible party, the one with CONTROL over the action, should suffer consequences, not the poor saps with the misfortune of having hired them,,,

First off, I saw she was going to file a complaint, far from sueing anyone. Second, I am wondering if you have ever had your privacy violated. A professional would make no comment and would carry on with business if they came across something like that. An immature idiot would comment. The fact that these kinds of situations keep happening is the whole reason that if I can't drive there, I don't need to go there. I have felt this way from the begining of the TSA take over. The TSA lacks professionalism and respect for the fellow human being. I realize that not all TSA workers are like this but it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch. I worked several years as a corrections officer and if I came across things that were not appropriate for the inmates to have, there was no sarcastic comment about it, I just did my job, what I was trained to do. I see no need to humiliate my felow human (not even convited criminals) and the need for others to defend the rights of those who do is puzzling to me.

This country is so...and yet, its one of the best ways for individuals and groups to hold others accountable. There are many areas where law enforcement had no authority or no incentive to investigate or prosecute - there are civil matters where people have to sue to prevent others from continuing to do wrong.




Isn't that person's employer potentially responsible for their conduct?

I don't care what their motivation is. Many of us have been mistreated by TSA. I hope she sues and wins, and that this incentives TSA to reign in their agents.

It would not be too difficult to narrow the pool of employees and they could probably even find the actual employee with cameras all over these days. Her ticket will show what terminal, time and date. That alone will narrow it to less than 50 employees and from there, they can narrow it even further. If they ask the right people, someone will say something, they always do. Guaranteed, another employee was offended by those actions and they are waiting to be asked about it. I think they could have the culrpit in a few weeks. I also feel the woman would be satisfied with the employee being terminated. I didn't get the feeling she wanted to sue but then again I didn't research it, just read the post.

I don't see how a sex toy was inappropriate for the passenger to have.

Though, I also don't see suing over a note like that left. File a complaint? Sure? Suing over a $15 sex toy and a note? To me, that's a bit much.

"... but she “died laughing” about it in her hotel room." I agree that the "TSA nazis" went a bit far, but if I had to guess based on this story, there's not going to be a lawsuit. Termination maybe, but I see no lawsuit.

I dont wish to see airport security done away with anymore than I do the military

I do wish for employees to have the option to act upon inappropriate behaviors of INDIVIDUCALS they hire, as opposed to being used as the pansy for someone to make money off of

there is no way for an employer to prevent an employee from being an ***, to hold them responsible when an employee decides to do so,, is beyond farfetched (in my opinion)

I believe a complaint to TSA is the first and most reasonable recourse. IF it is proven TSA doesnt investigate,, THEN a lawsuit may be in order.

But too often, people just see dollar signs,, not of the petty income of the actual offender, but of their employer


Employers who institute policies that are offensive, I can see being sued

Employers who have some employee decide to be a jerk, I cant see being sued,

Yeah. I could see the half-wit that left the note lose their job and being banned from any type of security work.

I hope they do lose their job, unprofessional and opens them up to liability and the victim CAN sue, hell if someone can win millions of dollars on a lawsuit against McDonalds because their coffee was to hot they can sure as hell sue and win for this a legitimate complaint.

The question of employer responsibility for employee behavior is a grey one. We cannot hold an employer completely responsible for everything and employee does, but we must hold employers responsible for some of what their employees do.

You are making a strawman out of the employer responsibility argument, and seeming to make fairly strong, sweeping generalizations that employers shouldn't be held at all responsible.

It all comes down to the particular circumstances.

Surely you'd hold a restaurant responsible if you got food poisoning as a result of "an employees actions", if that restaurant was in any way negligent in their training or communicating expectations to their employees.

The more fear of retribution for employee misconduct that the TSA has, the better for everyone else. I've personally dealt with a handful of TSA agents who were of the same mentality, maturity, and training as your average thug working as a bouncer at a club. Its a sad state of affairs - they should have higher standards, higher codes of conduct. Fear of negative consequences for employee misconduct would encourage that.

Lpdon wrote:


Lpdon, I'm with you on this one.

wow, we agree