Yeah, reasonable procedure or no, “government security personnel” and “tact, compassion, and good people skills” don’t tend to mesh much, do they?
Yeah, no one can resist a woman who gets up early to stick a fist full of silly putty down her shirt.
No, I don’t do picture threads.
Look, I also have D cup breasts, and I’m afraid I, too, would not have subjected myself to that search. I am afraid my attitude is that, if you’re touching my breasts, you’d better be either giving me a medical exam or making love with me. In either case, I’d be in a situation in which I’d voluntarily chosen to allow someone I have reason to trust to trust my breasts. A search by a TSA employee doesn’t meet either of those criteria. Now, I am comfortable with social nudity, so, if I felt I had no alternative, I would be willing to disrobe from the waist up, but I would not be happy, and I would consider filing a complaint. I’ll also point out that I suspect the same amount of explosive which could fit in the space between my breasts could also be carried internally.
Back before 9/11, there was a case in which Northwest Airlines held a flight on the runway or the approach to the runway for several hours not giving passengers food and not telling them when they could reasonably expect to depart. At the time, people were asking how this differs from unlawful imprisonment; the response seemed to amount to, “You bought a ticket.” If I decide to fly somewhere, a search like this seems to indicate I’m giving up even more of my rights.
Then again, if past experience is any indication, they’d probably be a lot more worried about my knitting needles. That or the inspector’s watched Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me far too many times! 
CJ
Also remember folks:
Flying is a privalige not a right. So I could hardly see how anybodies rights are being violated here.
I mean hey, if you don’t like the terms of agreement, by all means rent yourself a car and drive where you need to go. (Which she did) But for crying out loud, don’t start boo-hooing to us all about how you’ve been “victimized”. :rolleyes:
This is a assuming it’s a couple of quick, gentle, back-of-the hand pats by someone who looks like my great aunt Mip?
Then (and I mean this in a completely serious and nonsnarky way, honest) you may want to be very careful about your habits when you’re getting ready to fly. Things like paying for the ticket in cash or having a one-way ticket (one airline out and the other airline back seems to count as one-way, in my experience) will likely get you shunted into the extra-scrutiny line, where they do wand you and pat you down.
Elfbabe, when I was a teenager, my breasts were fondled against my will by the father of a woman I was taking dance lessons from. Such a touch against my will in a situation where it was difficult to protest, would bother me intensely. While it’s been a while since I’ve been able to afford to fly myself, I have had to book one-way tickets for my ex-boss for legitimate business reasons, not to mention series of one-way trips on multiple airlines for trips to multiple cities. I don’t object to a routine patdown, although I have my doubts about its effectiveness; I do object to someone running his or her hands all over my breasts. I also know that just because the person doing so is a woman does not mean I’m necessarily safer than I would be if it were a man. Indeed, if something untoward did happen, I’m acutely aware that allegations against a woman would be a lot less believable than they would be against a man, which is one reason sex doesn’t make a difference. If someone’s going to behave dishonorably, they’ll do so whether they’re male or female.
CJ
You! Get off my side!
There are procedures that are reasonable to ensure passenger safety and there are procedures that are not. If this had been something like a strip/cavity search or the incident a couple years back when the woman had to drink a glass of her own breast milk, people would be justified in raising a big stink. What I’m trying to say here is that a quick, non-intrusive patdown that doesn’t leave out the breasts is reasonable.
This is what I am talking about. Have you ever seen a terrorist wearing explosives wrapped around their body? Form fitting clothes (especially tight tank tops) are not part of the procedure. There were some good pictures of the so-called “black widows” (Chechen women who wear explosives and blow themselves up) on the BBC website after the tragedy in Beslan. They most definitely were not wearing tank tops, and I doubt the women on the Russian planes were either.
In fact, this article from CBS News (scroll down to just past the midle), says:
So a normal frisking (no checking of ta-tas) should have detected the explosive belt. Even worse, it seems the women actually got on the plane without being checked by way of a simple bribe. See this article from CNN.
I am not joking. I just think examining a woman’s breasts for explosives goes way beyond normal security procedures, and is simply an infringement of that person’s basic rights. If my wife had been subjected to this examination while traveling with our three month old baby, I would be very angry and would consider the same actions this woman and her boyfriend took. In my opinion the paranoia in the U.S has just gone way too far.
I lived in Germany during the time that the Baader-Meinhof Gruppe and the Rote Armee Fraktion were very active. Not to mention the attack by the Black September Group group in Munich in 1972, and the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 (see second case study here) in 1977. Even after that hijacking there was not the paranoia I sense now. My mother never had to have her breasts examined (and my family traveled extensively in those years, because my father worked for the World Bank). Even after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 there was increased security, but no breast examinations.
Siege, I’m not trying to say you shouldn’t be uncomfortable with this. Even if nobody had ever touched your breasts in a way that was less than delightful, you still have the right to feel uncomfortable. It’s like telling someone who’s afraid of dogs how best to avoid them - I’m not trying to talk you out of what you’re feeling, just trying to warn you. (Like I said before, I swear I’m not being snarky!)
In my experience of it, this patdown was as routine as could be, and I definitely wouldn’t describe it as someone running her hands all over my breasts - just very quick touches at the sides, not rubbing the hand around at all. (Given my own personal history, which is not entirely dissimilar to yours, I’d be quite unhappy with more, too.)
It really seems like people are expecting this sort of thing to be a lot more pervy than it actually is. It’s really about as non-intrusive and non-upsetting as one can get while still doing a full patdown.
I hate it when TSA lovingly strokes my package. :o
They told it was cuz the Sheik of Araby had a shplosive shlong. :o
Elfbabe She had a 3 month old baby. Breasts get sore, nursing. She didn’t want them touched. She should be able to say “I feel violated”, and be offered an alternative. TSA didn’t give her a choice. With the tech money available to them, and the bad press they’ve generated every time something like this happens, they could have an alternative.
TSA isn’t hiring rocket surgeons. Its a stressful, boring, low paying job, that allows them to bully people.
You are absolutely right, that it should have been no big deal, but to her, it was. Your tolerance level is higher, you understand that they are mandated to do their job. But does that mean we all have to tolerate anything?
Then we should have full cavity searches at every airport, because we need to make sure that nobody has something dangerous and not detected by metal detectors shoved up their ass.
I’m with Siege. My tits have fuck-all to do with flying on a plane, and I’m getting really goddamn sick of this whole ‘we must protect you so give up every inch of your privacy’ bullshit that’s going on right now.
It’s ridiculous is what it is. The constant erosion of individual privacy and dignity for some misguided feeling of safety. Didn’t Ben Franklin once say something about people who give up their liberty for security?
Okay, so what if this woman had been wearing a sweater? Presuming that body pat-downs are reasonable security measures, (maybe) there are going to be situations where some check of the chest would be needed to make sure nothing was concealed there.
So what’s a normal frisking for a woman, then? Do they just skip the chest? If they do, I’ll have to remember that if I ever turn to the Dark Side.
I think it might be good to ask someone who does have to be involved with frisking people whether the area around the breasts is indeed completely off-limits. Qadgop, I bet they frisk people in prison - maybe one of your co-workers could help fight our ignorance?
From the link:
Elfbabe, that’s more than a routine patdown and it’s more than I’d be comfortable with. I’d hardly call it “non-intrusive”. Also, for me, since I don’t usually wear form-fitting tank tops (not a good idea given the size of my breasts and my age), it would require I take my top and bra off. It would also involve someone touching areas of my body I am genuinely not comfortable with because, among other things, they are highly sensitive.
I’ll also point out one other area where we’re operating on different assumptions. I was born in England and the culture I grew up in is English. We don’t hug or touch much; it’s not part of my background. There’s nothing in my background which would lead me to expect a “couple of quick, gentle, back-of-the hand pats by someone who looks like my great aunt Mip?” My great aunts didn’t hug, let alone touch me.
CJ
Honestly, I don’t feel we know enough about the facts of what happened here to say a lot for certain about this particular situation, and I don’t feel comfortable trying to adjucate this based just on this news article. I’m not trying to convince everyone that this particular woman is just a big ol’ wuss - just that, assuming that patdowns are generally a reasonable measure for airport security, it is also reasonable to include a female’s chest in the patdown, with alternative ways of doing the inspection if they’re required.
Or we could stop with routine patdowns altogether and rely entirely on bomb-sniffing dogs and other means of detecting chemicals to find explosives, and ensure that even if someone does sneak a ceramic knife on board somehow, they won’t be able to threaten the cockpit with it. (Again, all I’ve said has been assuming that frisking is generally a good idea for airplane safety, I’m personally a bit skeptical.) That would be a bit more reasonable, I think.
like the high risk passengers called out for special screening are dumb enough to be a terrorist. Sheesh, the boarding pass gets printed with “SSSSSS” at the bottom right hand corner. If I was a terrorist and I saw the “SSSSSS” on my pass, I’d dump the goods or not get on the plane.
Last week I got called out at LAX and Denver but no boobie pats. Second time I gave all my carry on to chinawife, who went through the normal security line.
Airport security is soooooo retarded and doesn’t do jackshit. The fourth flight on 9-11 proved that. Fucking Homeland Security bullshit
This is another reason it’s so hard to talk about this - it’s really difficult to communicate exactly what everyone thinks or believes is happening! I wonder if they have any “airport frisking 101” educational videos available online.
I’m flying on two one-way tickets in a couple of weeks, so I’m probably going to get extra scrutiny again. I will return with a full report.
When you respond to a post that includes a link, without first following the link, you run the risk of being WHOOSHED. 
Beware of Deadly Weapons!
That picture makes my chest hurt. Ai-yi-YI.
She isn’t married to the baby’s father (yet) so I don’t think she’s any kind of religious conservative.
I’m a D-cup too (36D, so not that humungous) and the only time I was patted down, she seemed mostly interested in the underwires. Maybe detonators can look like them?