WASHINGTON (AFP) – A former Miss USA who says she felt "helpless and violated" during a pat down by a female airport security guard in Dallas, Texas has started a Twitter campaign on her blog to stop "invasive" body searches.Susie Castillo, 31, who won the Miss USA Pageant in 2003, says she was hand searched after she refused to go through a full body scanner at the Dallas Fort Worth International airport.
"To say that I felt invaded is an understatement," Castillo wrote on her blog. "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!"
Castillo also tearfully recounts the April 21 incident in a five-minute video on her website.
"I felt completely helpless and violated during the entire process (in fact, I still do), so I became extremely upset," she wrote on her website. "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!"
Castillo said on her blog that she has started a Twitter campaign to stop invasive "enhanced pat downs."
The US Transportation Security Administration allows passengers who are requested to go through full body scanners to refuse, but they are then subject to a pat-down.
The TSA announced in October that it was implementing new pat-down procedures, but they have been criticized by passengers. In November, the TSA body searched a screaming three-year old, a search which was partially captured by a cell phone camera.
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