I have been frisked at the airport - coming from India, just a few months after the December 2001 attack on Parliament, when security measures were frankly stronger in New Delhi and in Paris (my connecting flight) than they were in JFK. The frisking consisted of a female security officer patting down my sides (not touching my breasts) from armpit level on down, including the insides of my legs. It most certainly did not include “going beneath, between, and above the breasts.” If all those areas are of such concern, perhaps a crotch-grab should become a standard part of the pat-down for men, too, just to be on the safe side. And no one should complain, right? Right?
The article says she tugged down her shirt (not “flashed” her boobs) to show that she didn’t have anything, but no, only physical contact was going to be good enough for the TSA. That is just complete bullshit. I would love to see what happens if it ever crosses the puny brains of the people making up the regs that someone might have a breast implant made out of something other than saline or silicone. “Yes, we have to subject you to a manual inspection of breast density in the name of national security.” :rolleyes:
I am all for taking security measures that actually do some good. This is just window-dressing shit to justify the existence of the TSA, just like the confiscation of nail files etc. was.
Sorry, but this kind of stuff has been annoying the hell out of me for a while. Thanks for the opportunity to vent.
My wife and I were talking about this this morning, and she brought up a good point: Why doesn’t the TSA use dogs to check for explosives?
One dog could check five people in the same amount of time it takes one inspector to feel up one. They could also check for drugs and other contraband while they’re at it. Dogs are smart, and they have good noses. They can smell cancer for Christ’s sake!
I would also imagine dogs are a lot cheaper than the expensive detectors airports are ahving to buy.
It takes a lot of training to get a dog skilled at explosive detection, hard to ramp up supply quickly. You don’t just need more dogs, you need more trainers, so you have to train a bunch of trainers who start training dogs.
This woman is just a bit too uptight. She got randomly flagged for a pat down search. Pat downs follow (and rightfully so) a specific procedure that includes checking the chest. It’s fairly easy to pad your chest, lots of women do (Miracle Bra anyone?) there’s no reason to think one couldn’t replace normal padding with something a bit more explosive. Hell, my wife puts all kinds of crap there, money, MetroCards, cell phones. As she says, if you’re missing something, check her bra.
Frankly, we’re so damn uptight in this country, that the security officer had to “warn” her about the next part of the search. Just pat the twins down and let’s all move on with our lives. I don’t think the male searcher needs to warn me about when he’s going to grab my crotch, I know he will, no big deal.
Personally I find the increased security degrading. I don’t like having to remove my belt and shoes just to get on an airplane. Soon I’ll have to remove my trousers because there’s a metal button. It’s to the point where I’m seriously considering showing up at the airport wearing a bathrobe, boxer shorts, and slippers – and nothing else. There’s nothing I can do about the metal pin in my leg. Someday a terrorist is going to have some Sintex filling his colon, and then we’ll all be subject to cavity searches.
Maybe we should just require that anyone who wants to fly should have a background check? You know, like getting a Secret clearance. Or perhaps passengers can be required to be confined naked in a room for three days so that anything hidden inside of their bodies can be evacuated? Hell, let’s just ban air travel! If there are no passenger jets flying around, they can’t be blown up by terrorists! “If it saves a single American life…” :rolleyes:
Yes, that’s hyperbole. Reductio ad absurdum, and all that. But how many indignities must one suffer in the name of “safety”? People like to say, “If you have done nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.” But there comes a point where it’s gone too far. This point varies from person to person. Some posters in this thread see nothing wrong with breast-feeling being part of a search. What if it’s decided that the back of the hand isn’t enough? What if assiduous squeezing is determined to be necessary? Would that be going too far? After all, a well-endowed woman might have explosive implants. How about a gynocological exam, because a woman might have come explosives crammed into her uterus?
The obvious answer is “If you don’t like it, then don’t fly on an airline.” Oh yeah, that’s easy. We have children being sent home from school because they have an aspirin, or because they have a 2" plastic gun from an action figure. People get all upset about absurd “zero tolerance” rules. How many of these people think that intrusive searches are okay?
Americans like easy answers. “One size fits all”, until it doesn’t fit them. So some people will have no problem with having their breasts felt, their testicles felt, or getting an anal probe. They think that people who do have a problem with it are over-sensitive". (“Won’t someone think of the children!”) What happens when some “routine procedure” happens to cross their line? Too bad. They should have thought about that before.
Well, that was an interesting typo. You all know I meant vary, right?
I am not anal either, but I still think the right to privacy is more important than having to pat down the breasts to make sure the plane isn’t blown up. There are other ways of increasing security.
Bottom line: the lady didn’t want to be frisked, so she had to drive. BFD.
I’m a guy and I have twice had my… uh… pants checked for contraband before getting on an airplane: once pre-9/11, and once post. It took all of a quarter of a second with the back of a screener’s hand. That’s it. I don’t stay awake all night having horrible flashbacks.
IIRC, the Supreme Court has ruled that police can frisk people for their own safety, even if the subject is not being placed under arrest. Surely airport screeners, as surly as they are, can do something similar for the protection of all of the people who are volunteering to get on a plane with hundreds of other people.
Profiling. Is it fair and just that only women with large profiles are selected for mammary inspection ?
As far as I know men have been subjected to having their packages examined for years without complaint. Hey, I was arrested once. But what I recall was a very brief back of the hand contact all around. No big deal.
I have several times however had my package cupped without consent and unofficially, and that experience definitely would suggest justification for a 15 hour road trip in order to avoid.
And, for the record, I do agree with the concept of random searches and I do believe that security should be as tight as is feasible while enabling flights to get off the ground, I am not making the next few arguments based on my beliefs, but by examining the facts as presented.
See, you and I don’t get to decide what is “arbitrary” or “unreasonable.” So your “protections” under the UN and the Constitution don’t mean a damn thing in the face of the argument that random searches (carried out in a consistent manner) are “arbitrary.” That the reason these searches are performed is because people blow up planes means that they are certainly not “unreasonable.”
This woman does not get to set airline policy. Her predilections or discomfort are not to be entertained at the possible expense of the other passengers. The other passengers have the basic right to life, and that trumps this woman’s unwillingness to be searched, as the motive behind the search is defense of the other passengers.
I do understand that there is a certain element of dignity involved in searches (I’ve been searched myself, under many different circumstances). However, standard policy (which can and is influenced by prevailing law, not to mention legal action on the part of people like this woman) is designed (and yes, maybe poorly, don’t flame me over that) to accommodate basic levels of dignity. However, it is unreasonable and tactically unsound to accommodate every individual with the disorder of the week who decides to get shrill about it.
Honestly, the vast majority of the people who try to wiggle out of mandatory searches are the people with something to hide. If a cop asks me, “Whaddya got in the bag?” and I say “nothing,” or possessively clutch it, or say, “you can’t look in here!!,” he’s much more likely to look in there.
This woman should not have expected to be coddled or accommodated beyond the ability of the searchers to do so, and she certainly should not have expected to be released from her obligations as a passenger simply because she is capable of raising her voice.
If she wants to file suit, I support her right to do so. In fact, I would love to see her file suit. If it turns out that there is more to the story, she will get justice (morally and monetarily) and she will have scored a victory for individual liberty and human dignity (when the policy is changed by order of the court).
However, when someone explains to her that she will have to present rational evidence as to why she should have gotten special treatment, I think she will withdraw that suit.
You buy a ticket with the expectation that you will be searched, or at least you should. If you can’t wrap your head around that concept, well, all the miles are still free in Alamo country, aren’t they?
See, that’s where I have to disagree with you. If this woman has already been patted down, and has walked thorugh the scanner, and has been scanned with a wand, then I think the breast exam is unreasonable and arbitrary.
I agree that we can’t let one person’s discomfort be entertained at the expense of the passenger’s right to life, but I think that she is not the only person who would feel discomfort if treated this way, and I don’t think the patting down of her breasts (nor any other passenger’s breasts) is necessary to insure the safety of the flight. If it is necessary, shouldn’t we subject all passengers to the same rigorous searches?
I won’t flame you over this, because I understand where you’re coming from. However, I don’t think it’s fair to say that not wanting your breasts examined is the “disorder of the week”. I don’t know if this lady actually became shrill about this (I wasn’t there), but I do think that a lot of steps were already taken to make sure this lady was not wearing a bomb. Was it really necessary to insist on examining her breasts at this point, and if yes, why?
Well, if you argue this way, she could reasonably demand that all women on that flight have their breasts examined, and if all female passengers agree to this but she doesn’t, then she is asking for special treatment. If a majority of the female passengers on that flight would not want their breasts examined, what is so special about the treatment she demanded?
If that’s the case, why aren’t they free in Southwest Airlines country too? What’s to prevent me from loading the trunk of my Alamo rent-a-car with explosives and blowing up Terminal 2?
