Transgender Woman Says TSA Detained, Humiliated Her Over Body ‘Anomaly’

“A transgender woman said she was detained and harassed at an Orlando, Fla., airport security checkpoint Monday by Transportation Safety Administration agents after a body scanner detected an ‘anomaly’ on her.

“Shadi Petosky, who runs a Los Angeles interactive entertainment studio, said she was trying to fly out of Orlando International Airport but was stopped after entering the scanner.

“In her tweets about the situation, Petosky said that TSA agents calibrated the scanner for a woman, and the machine flagged an anomaly — ‘my penis.’

“She said she ‘disclosed [her] reality immediately,’ but the situation quickly escalated: Over the course of 40 minutes, Petosky said, officials patted her down twice, ‘fully disassembled’ her luggage and put her in an empty room with an officer holding the door.

“At one point, she said, an agent told her to ‘get back in the machine as a man or it was going to be a problem.’

“The ordeal caused her to miss her flight, she said….”

More at LA Times

First Library to Support Anonymous Internet Browsing Effort Stops After DHS Email

“Used in repressive regimes by dissidents and journalists, Tor is considered a crucial tool for freedom of expression and counts the State Department among its top donors. But Tor has been a thorn in the side of law enforcement; National Security Agency documents made public by Snowden have revealed the agency’s frustration that it could only identify a “very small fraction” of Tor users….”

“Faced with police and city concerns, library director Fleming agreed to turn off the Tor relay temporarily until the board could reconsider. “We need to find out what the community thinks,” he said. “The only groups that have been represented so far are the Police Department and City Hall.”

More at ProPublica

Labor Membership Boosts Incomes, Families And Economy

“A new report presented by the Center for American Progress co-authored with economists Richard Freeman and Eunice Han is only the latest look at how labor unions enable working people to do better. The report, “Bargaining for the American Dream: What Unions do for Mobility,” looks at “economic mobility” and “intergenerational mobility” and finds that mobility is better where unions are strong….

“The study found that areas with higher union membership demonstrate more mobility for low-income children:

● Low-income children rise higher in the income rankings when they grow up in areas with high union membership.
● An increase in union density is associated with an increase in the income of an area’s children – as much as or more than high school dropout rates.
● Children of non-college-educated fathers earn more if their father was in a labor union….”

Black Arts: The $800 Million Family Selling Art Degrees and False Hopes

Academy of Art University expose:

“…Stephens has plenty to celebrate. Since taking over as president of the family-owned Academy of Art University more than two decades ago, she’s transformed the 86-year-old for-profit institution from a regional operation into America’s largest private art university. Under her watch enrollment has skyrocketed from 2,200 to 16,000, generating an estimated $300 million in annual revenues, heavily subsidized by federal student loans. The Stephens family has turned that pile of art-school tuition into one of the largest real estate empires in San Francisco, with more than 40 properties in prime areas, including a historic former cannery on Fisherman’s Wharf and a 138,000-square-foot office building steps from City Hall. In all, the real estate is worth an estimated $420 million, net of debt, and the family pulls in tens of millions of dollars each year leasing these buildings back to the Academy of Art for classrooms and dorms….”

More at Forbes