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Don’t You Feel Secure?

Thousands of travelers pass daily through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint in Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia International Airport, where Thomas Harkins works as a supervisor. “We are screened to our underwear getting on a plane,” said Karen Polesir. “And yet they hire a man like that.” Polesir is a spokeswoman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and Harkins was a priest for the Diocese of Camden, N.J., until he was removed on charges he’d abused girls. The TSA said it checks new hires’ criminal records, but Harkins was never criminally charged — although a third alleged victim is now suing the diocese saying he abused her 10 to 15 times in 1980 and 1981, when she was 11. Harkins told a TV reporter that travelers don’t need to worry about him, then escaped further questions by using his security badge to enter a restricted area, where the reporter could not follow. (AC/CBS News) ...Now there’s a man who really grasps what the TSA is about — and that’s not all he grasps.
Original Publication Date: 17 June 2012
This story is in True’s book collections, in Volume 18.

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