Transportation Security Administration agents check passengers’ bags on May 2, 2011, at Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Fla.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is taking steps to fire an airplane baggage screener who left a note in a passenger’s bag this when he or she found a vibrator in it during a random baggage check.
The screener scrawled “GET YOUR FREAK ON, GIRL” onto the TSA form that notifies a traveler that their bag was searched and zipped it up in the passenger’s luggage, CNN reports.
The owner of the bag, New York lawyer and blogger Jill Filipovic, tweeted a picture of the note Monday and also wrote about it on Feministe, a website she regularly writes for.
"This is what TSA will do when they inspect a bag you checked and find a, um, 'personal item,' " she wrote. "Total violation of privacy, wildly inappropriate and clearly not OK, but I also just died laughing in my hotel room."
"TSA views the handwritten note to be highly inappropriate and unprofessional and apologizes for this unfortunate incident,” a TSA spokesperson told CNN. "TSA has zero tolerance for inappropriate behavior by our employees as occurred in this instance. When this is brought to our attention TSA takes swift and appropriate action."
Agency officials have also reached out to Filipovic to apologize personally, the agency said.
"When I put the note on Twitter for what I thought was a relatively limited audience, I was hoping it would open up a bigger conversation about privacy rights (or lack thereof) in post-9/11 America,” Filipovic told CNN. “Instead [it] has turned into a media circus.”
Filipovic added: "The note was inappropriate, the agent in question acted unprofessionally when s/he put in my bag, there should be consequences, and I'm glad the TSA takes these things seriously. But I get no satisfaction in hearing that someone may be in danger of losing their job over this.”
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