Woman told to ditch bra to enter court COEUR DALENE, Idaho

Gypsy Heart

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Nov 29, 2005
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Woman told to ditch bra to enter court COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho

Woman told to ditch bra to enter court
Underwire supports of garment had set off alarm at federal facility
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21144171/
updated 2:41 a.m. CT, Fri., Oct. 5, 2007
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho - Security guards refused to allow a woman into a federal courthouse until she removed a bra that triggered a metal detector.

Lori Plato said she and her husband, Owen Plato, were stunned when U.S. Marshals Service employees asked her to remove her bra after the underwire supports set off the alarm.

"I asked if I could go into the bathroom because they didn't have a privacy screen and no women security officers were available," Plato said Wednesday. "They said, 'No.'

"I wasn't carrying a shank in my bra. If it's so dangerous, why did they give it back and let me put it on?"

Patrick McDonald, the U.S. Marshal in Boise, said appropriate security protocols were followed in the Sept. 20 matter, and guards suggested she simply remove the bra in her car outside, or find a restaurant bathroom.

"She's inflating it," McDonald said. "All of a sudden she just took it off. It wasn't anything we wanted to happen and it wasn't anything we asked for her to do. She did it so fast."

Plato, of Bonners Ferry, said she was parked on a busy street and wasn't familiar with downtown Coeur d'Alene businesses. So her husband held up his coat to shield her from the rest of the people in the courthouse lobby while she removed her bra underneath her shirt.

Not generally a security threat
Generally, McDonald said, undergarments aren't considered a danger to security.

"I don't think they're considered a weapon, really, the last time I looked," he said.

He declined to discuss other ways the federal courthouse guards could have screened Plato for weapons.

Plato wants the Marshals Service to apologize and stop forcing women to disrobe.

"It was very humiliating," her husband, Owen Plato, said. "They could have handled it with a much more professional attitude."
 

Bizarre to most....Standard practice over here in Iraq

In the States I can definitely see how this would be a very bizarre request. This is security taken to new levels of paranoia. But over here in Iraq, women routinely take advantage of local customs regarding male/female relations to smuggle all SORTS of things in that area. A lot of Iraqi women are rather, shall we say, pendulous in that area and there is a LOT that can be hidden there. We have female soldiers present at all Entry Control Point to handle searches of Iraqi female workers who enter the base. But at checkpoints where there are no female soldiers to do searches, there's a problem. Even though male soldiers are trained that if there is absolutely NO OTHER alternatives, they may search females. If they are with their husbands, they will be directed to conduct the search by pulling loose garments tight while a soldier closely observes. Most Iraqis who we search are just average folks trying to get through their day, they know that we are just trying to keep ourselves and civilians in the area safe and are usually very gracious and understanding about it for the most part.

HH,
SgtSki
 

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