Federal prosecutors in Connecticut say a state trooper, a police officer and three Transportation Security Administration officers based at airports have been arrested on charges of participating in a conspiracy to distribute tens of thousands of highly addictive painkiller pills.

Authorities say the TSA officers, based at airports in Florida and New York, a Westchester County, N.Y., police officer and a Florida state trooper received cash payments to help transport oxycodone pills from Florida to New York and Connecticut and/or transport cash proceeds from the sale of the drugs back to Florida.

Authorities plan to announce details of the arrests at a news conference in Stamford on Tuesday afternoon.

Authorities involved in the arrest of a protester who removed his shirt and pants at a security checkpoint at Richmond International Airport were doing their jobs and acted appropriately, a government attorney argued Wednesday in Richmond federal court.

Carlotta P. Wells, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, argued in favor of a motion to dismiss Aaron B. Tobey's lawsuit, which claims his constitutional rights were violated. Wells said Tobey had made his point by removing his shirt to display words from the Fourth Amendment written on his torso but went too far when he disobeyed a command to pass through a security scanner.

But Anand Agneshwar, an attorney representing Tobey in his lawsuit against airport and federal officials, said the 21-year-old Charlottesville man obeyed the commands of authorities. Agneshwar said it was the authorities who went too far by detaining Tobey for 90 minutes or longer with his hands cuffed behind his back.

No felony charges will be filed against the Colorado woman who allegedly sexually assaulted a Transportation Security Administration agent in Phoenix.

On Tuesday the Maricopa County district attorney decided to turn the case of Yukari Miyamae of Longmont over to city prosecutors. She could still be charged with a misdemeanor.

Police said Miyamae grabbed the female agent’s left breast, squeezed and twisted it with both hands.

Miyamae’s attorney says her client was violated, endangered and threatened by the actions of TSA agents. She denies doing anything wrong.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was on the other side of the homeland security policies his administration helped to create today when he was held up and patted down at the airport after setting off the metal detectors on his way to board a flight.

"It takes those of us with two titanium hips and a titanium shoulder a bit longer to get through TSA," Rumsfeld posted on his Twitter feed earlier this afternoon.

He even linked to TMZ, which broke the story and posted the pictures of Rummy getting the full treatment by TSA officials at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Rumsfeld took it all in good stride and was recognized by several uniformed soldiers passing through the terminal, TMZ reported.

U.S. airports have suffered more than 25,000 security breaches under the watch of the Transportation Security Administration in the past ten years, a House subcommittee on national security reported today.

At a hearing today of the House subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, lawmakers reported thousands of breaches and slammed the TSA for what members saw as a litany of security lapses at airports across the country. (TSA employee caught stuffing passengers’ junk in his trunks)

According to numbers provided to the committee by the TSA, more than 14,000 people accessed sensitive areas of airports and around 6,000 passengers and pieces of luggage were able to make it past security checkpoints without proper screening.

A Kirkland family has filed a complaint claiming their 6-year-old son was singled out by TSA for a hand-search. KING 5's Tonya Mosley has the story.

A Transportation Security Administration worker is accused of stealing from the luggage of travelers at Fort Lauderdale - Hollywood International Airport Monday.

Broward Sheriff's Deputies said a Continental Airlines worker saw Nelson Santiago, 30, slip an iPad out of a suitcase and into his pants.

That worker reported the theft to his supervisor and Santiago was arrested.

Deputies said Santiago is responsible for a string of thefts over the past six months. They said he told detectives that he stole computers, GPS devices and video cameras from luggage he was screening.

He then allegedly took pictures of the stolen goods with his cell phone, and posted them for sale online.

BSO said the items would often sell by the time Santiago's shift ended.

Detectives estimate Santiago stole about $50,000 worth of electronics. So far, he was charged with two counts of grand theft and has been released on bond.

Fearful of provoking further public resistance to naked airport body scanners, the TSA has been caught covering up a surge in cases of TSA workers developing cancer as a result of their close proximity to radiation-firing devices, perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the latest FOIA documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure.

The documents indicate how, “A large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.”

“The Department, rather than acting on it, or explaining its position seems to have just dismissed. I don’t think that’s the way most other agencies would have acted in a similar situation if they were confronted with that question,”

A woman has filed a complaint with federal authorities over how her elderly mother was treated at Northwest Florida Regional Airport last weekend.

Jean Weber of Destin filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security after her 95-year-old mother was detained and extensively searched last Saturday while trying to board a plane to fly to Michigan to be with family members during the final stages of her battle with leukemia.

Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.

“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber said Friday. “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”

Think you could avoid the TSA's body scanners and pat-downs by taking Amtrak? Think again. Even your daily commute isn't safe from TSA screenings. And because the TSA is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, you may have your immigration status examined along with your "junk".

As part of the TSA's request for FY 2012 funding, TSA Administrator John Pistole told Congress last week that the TSA conducts 8,000 unannounced security screenings every year. These screenings, conducted with local law enforcement agencies as well as immigration, can be as simple as checking out cargo at a busy seaport. But more and more, they seem to involve giving airport-style pat-downs and screenings of unsuspecting passengers at bus terminals, ferries, and even subways.

Gov. Rick Perry announced he had added legislation that would make it illegal for TSA agents to engage in “intrusive touching” at airports security checkpoints without probable cause to the list of items for the legislature to consider during the special session.

The measure had previously failed to pass in the Texas Senate after the Justice Department wrote a scathing memo against the bill that threatened legal action against the state and the bill became enmeshed in Senate politics.

There are questions about what affect the legislation might have since airport security is a federal matter.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who was accused of lobbying against the bill in May said he was “pleased” by Perry’s decision.

Earlier this year, the Transportation Security Administration halted a program that allowed airports to privatize their screeners, citing safety concerns, but airport administrators say TSA stopped the program with little warning and without adequate justification.

The Daily Caller spoke with three Montana airports — Glacier Park International Airport, Missoula International Airport and Bert Mooney Airport — which all said they were encouraged by TSA to apply to for the privatization program — known as the Screening Partnership Program (SPP). All three airports’ applications were denied in January.

One airport director even said TSA agents actively protested the airport’s attempt to privatize, going so far as to stand at gates in uniform and tell passengers they would be less safe if the airport joined the SPP.

Two injured US military veterans traveling to a ceremony to honor the lives of fallen friends who gave their lives to protect the rights enshrined in the Constitution were harassed by TSA thugs, with one of them having his crotch grabbed, according to David Bellow, an Army National Guardsman and a State Republican Executive Committeeman.

“One of the wounded warriors, a friend of mine who personally told me what happened, has bullet fragments in his leg. The other wounded warrior has shrapnel in his face,” wrote on the Texas GOP Vote website.

Last week it was announced that TSA goons would conduct a grope-down of students during prom night at a Santa Fe high school. The TSA promised to move from airports into the New Mexico high school after two girls said security personnel groped them and a federal judge ruled the TSA should conduct pat-downs at dances or graduations.

On Saturday night, the TSA did not conduct the searches at the Santa Fe high school as promised. In public schools searching students is now a well-established practice.
Santa Fe superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez told KOAT News in Albuquerque that instead of TSA goons with blue latex gloves, the court allowed Santa Fe High School to use state police to search students.

DISNEY'S new Star Wars attraction to use 'thermal body scan' for riders. 

Last Friday night, cast members were among the first to preview the revised Star Tours—The Adventures Continue.

The major infrastructure of the attraction is unchanged, though the second room of the queue is now a security check area, similar to a TSA checkpoint. The two G-series droids are still there, G2-9T scanning luggage and G2-4T scanning passengers.  While we won't tell you why, you'll enjoy paying a lot of attention to what the scans of the luggage show is inside. When it's your turn to go through the passenger scan (a thermal body scan), you may be verbally accosted by a security droid. Also, keep an eye out in the queue for an earlier version of RX-24 ("Captain Rex") from the original Star Tours; he's labeled "defective" and has some familiar dialogue.

The Transportation Security Administration says its full-body X-ray scanners are safe and that radiation from a scan is equivalent to what's received in about two minutes of flying. The company that makes them says it's safer than eating a banana.

But some scientists with expertise in imaging and cancer say the evidence made public to support those claims is unreliable. And in a new letter sent to White House science adviser John Holdren, they question why the TSA won't make the scanners available for independent testing by outside scientists.

The machines, which are designed to reveal objects hidden under clothing, have the potential to close a significant security gap for the TSA because metal detectors can't find explosives or ceramic knives, which can be just as sharp as the box cutters that hijackers used on 9/11.