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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (14566)	8/16/2001 10:35:12 AM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 59480

Every drug warrior should experience this. Woman says strip-search left her devastated August 15, 2001 BY STEVE WARMBIR FEDERAL COURTS REPORTER A former Chicago woman wiped away tears in federal court Tuesday as she testified how she was humiliated by smirking customs agents who strip-searched her for illegal drugs. Kathryn Kaniff, 36, told jurors how the two female agents told her to bend over in an examination room, her pants and underwear already down. Bend lower, she was told. Agents wanted to see whether she had any illegal drugs stashed inside her. She didn't. ''I was just so embarrassed,'' Kaniff said. ''I started apologizing to the girls, and to this day, I don't know why I was apologizing after what they did to me.'' Kaniff was pulled over for the search after returning from a 1997 vacation to Jamaica through O'Hare Airport. She's suing the government for $2 million. It's a search the government calls legitimate. Agents found no drugs during the strip-search, but that didn't stop them from handcuffing Kaniff, trotting her through the O'Hare terminal, taking her to Resurrection Hospital and having her X-rayed. But first, she had to give a urine specimen in front of agents for a pregnancy test before the X-ray. Again, no drugs. The search upended her life, Kaniff told jurors. At night, memories of the probe troubled her sleep, she said. Paranoia plagued her waking hours. New acne streaked her cheeks. And her career fizzled along with her love life as her energy dwindled, she said. Soon after the strip-search, she felt shut down during a family trip to Ireland. She couldn't even enjoy the beauty of the Irish countryside, she said. A psychiatrist has diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder. Government attorneys argue the strip-search was grounded in reasonable suspicion. Kaniff was returning from Jamaica, a known drug-supplying country, after a reasonably short stay, had paid $600 cash for her ticket and didn't know the exact address of the person who was picking her up at the airport, government attorneys argue. On Tuesday, they got Kaniff to admit that at one time, even before the strip-search, she suffered from some of the same problems she described in court. Kaniff also acknowledged telling a therapist she was ''constantly stoned'' on marijuana for part of her teen years. But Kaniff didn't smoke any marijuana while in Jamaica in 1997, she said. suntimes.com