SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) – A Canadian woman says she was violated by a Transportation Security Administration agent last week during a pat-down at Lindbergh Field.
Ashley Jessica uploaded a YouTube video of her controversial pat down on Sunday and it's received almost 100,000 views as of Wednesday night.
"When she was going up my leg she did hit my vagina and that point you can see me kind of jump back," said Jessica, a Toronto PhD candidate.
Jessica was visiting San Diego with her mother on Thursday when it came time to board her flight back to Toronto and to undergo security screening.
She and her mother opted out of the electronic TSA scanners due to concerns the machines might "unzip" human DNA, Jessica said.
Immediately before her mom is patted down first, she makes her concerns clear to three agents in the video.
"You're not going to make contact with her private parts in anyway, correct?" Jessica asks before a female agent confirms.
"This happens pretty frequently, the TSA touching people's genitals," said Jessica via telephone, "and it's becoming accepted and I think that's a very big problem."
She's told in the seven minute clip that the agent has to continue the search or she will not be able to fly.
Jessica consents to being frisked in her chest but not in her groin area.
"I felt violated and I was surprised," she recalls.
Eventually she lets the female agent finish the pat down and boards her flight.
Jessica has been an active online critic of the TSA's frisking procedures since she says she was first groped by an agent last year in Virginia.
Now she says gets all her pat downs are on camera.
"TSA agents will be less likely to touch people's private parts if they know they're being filmed and held accountable." Jessica said.
A TSA spokesman has reportedly seen the video and said the agents in question acted "appropriately and politely."