As important as TSA is to our safety we can’t take any chances. I think their employees need to be patted down every day before entering work.
There are different pat down protocols now. (As of ~20 days ago or so.) What’s being complained about is not the protocol for someone selected for “secondary screening” which is what you experienced. That screening is still supposed to be performed in the back of the hand and in a far less invasive manner (at least for men).
Which is why, as concerning as their stories are, they’re not the worst we’ve heard so far, and not the worst we’ll hear. Sexual violence survivors who are faced with the choice between a scan that allows someone to assess an image of their unclothed body or a body search which will have a stranger putting their open palms all around the circumference of their breasts, cupping and dividing their buttocks and pressed into their crotches against their genitals may indeed find the situation untenable.
People with disabilities and conditions that create visible anomalies or require surgical implants instantly become suspect based upon the conditions of their bodies. Even after submitting to the backscatter scanners they may find themselves subjected to painful or even harmful physical searches. There are stories all over the web of TSA agents yanking on prostheses and insulin pumps (which, btw, automatically increase a flyer’s required level of screening,as does any kind of religious headcovering) and PICC lines and demanding (against policy) that people remove needed leg braces (while still being made to stand) or other needed supportive devices. Cancer survivors are advised not to go through the backscatter scanners; would you consider it untenable to have someone prodding at your prosthetic breast and questioning it? I would.
Transgender travelers already have difficulties when there are incongruities between appearance and the name or photo on their ID. Either the scanner or the alternative frisking will out someone whose genitalia doesn’t match their presentation (as well as a trans man who is binding breasts) which could be used as a reason for further screening or inappropriately reveal the travelers trans status to others.
It’s not always as easy as “suck it up and get on the plane” when one’s livelihood requires travel, or one has to journey for medical care. Or frankly, just for leisure travel. I should not be required to allow a stranger to see or feel the outline of my genitals in order to go on vacation.
Some of them aren’t fond of the scans, either - TSA employee beats coworker after small penis jokes. He was scanned as part of training and his, er, small package was noted and laughed about after that.
And hey, it’s totally OK - those images are deleted and won’t ever, say, be illegally saved. Oops. Maybe not.
You can’t see *anything *in those photos except for white human-shaped blobs.
I was thinking the same thing. To me they don’t even look very human.
I wouldn’t mind handcuffing her to a chair. Rowr.
They specify in the article that the courthouse was using the lower-detail version.
Hey, I’ll go for the body scan any day, especially considering that I was sexually assaulted and don’t know if one of the in-depth pat-down/feel-ups might be all triggery or something. But no one is supposed to be saving those scans, ever. These weren’t even travelers; they were people going into a courthouse and usually you don’t have much choice legally about opting out of going to court.
Hello! Does anyone remember that al qada wants a flaming explosion with as many Americans dead as possible? Thank the Christmas undie bomber and Mr. Reid for the new procedures. I live with a TSA officer. His goal is to prevent a bomb, a knife, a gun, flammable liquids from getting onto a plane. He really is not that interested in feeling you up or looking at your body. Consider that there are idiots as well as terrorists.
And you know a great way to cripple the entirety of American transportation without ever getting near a plane? Go and set off a bomb, doesn’t even have to be a very powerful one, just enough to massacre the several hundred people stuck in the lines at the security checkpoints at the largest American airports on a nice busy travel day, like next Wednesday or next Saturday. If the goal is actually the safety of travelers? We’re doing it completely bassackward.
I think the Join Date display is glitched.
Shoot, that IS my vacation.
I’m waiting for the inevitable YouTube mock leaked scan video of a black guy going through either the scanner or the patdown with the tagline, “It’s twu, it’s twue!”
I came up with the perfect solution. When you check in at the airport, you are issued a paper suit with your travel info imprinted on it. You go to a changing area, strip down, pack everything, and don your paper suit. Then you check in *everything *and proceed thru security and to the gate.
When you arrive at your destination, you gather your belongings, get dressed, and turn in your paper suit for immediate burning. The colors of the suit will be varied randomly to prevent counterfeiting. Plus the airlines can sell advertising space on the suits and make a few extra bucks!
Win-win!
OK, I’m being sarcastic. If this becomes policy, it’s not my fault.
You’re not afraid of someone ripping off your idea?
Rip away! Frankly, I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t proposed this already.
rrrrrrriiiiiiiipppppp
No weapons. Enjoy your flight, ma’am.
It’s only a matter of time before someone tries this (mildly NSFW) through the checkpoint.
A prank video with a dude in tights, with a huge dildo.
I don’t know precisely what al-Quaeda wants. But I daresay they’re pretty satisfied with what they’re getting. Us fighting among ourselves. It really makes me sad.
tumbleddown, someone in either this thread or a similar one said that won’t happen (bomb in security line), but I’m not sure. Their reasoning is that if a bomb went off in an airport, even if hundreds were killed, there’d be at least one survivor, and any survivors would be martyrs/heroes. Whereas if a plane blows up, there are no survivors and no one to tell their story.
It doesn’t quite add up for me, though. Because people did manage to escape from WTC before the towers collapsed, and a lot of people never went in at all. And if, as many say, al-Q didn’t know the towers would collapse, they went in thinking that far fewer people would die than actually did. So I don’t think that’s a deterrent. And it doesn’t even have to be al-Q bombing the line; it could be anyone with the means and desire.
I flew home out of Tampa-St. Pete Airport last night, (I had not heard anything about Meghan McCain until reading this thread earlier today) and have to say that while the TSA screening did indeed seem a bit more tedious and time consuming than at other airports that I have been in recently, from what I can tell, Meghan was just looking for a confrontation, clearly spoiling for a fight.
Of course with her family money, she can just charter a jet home, while the average traveller has to just put up with the new Security Theater or forget about flying, because the new regulations are never, ever going away, at least until they have a way of taking a DNA swab at the airport so they can trace your entire life’s history with the touch of a button.
Shame to see it get like this—Until just about 5 years ago, I ALWAYS flew home with a six-pack or two of a local microbrew from wherever I had been visiting, and no one ever batted an eye…
Though the names are similar, it’s not Meghan McCain, daughter of John McCain, blogger, author, and Republican activist/commentator. It’s Meg McLain, blogger.