# TSA's Groin check? Going too far? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 16, 2010, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853 "2010-11-16T14:08:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/121 "2010-11-17T17:43:20Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > I wouldn’t count on that continuing to be off the table, given the level of general public outrage. I would. Look, let’s be candid. With only a few exceptions the people of interest are males of Middle Eastern descent ages 17 and up. We know this, we’ve always known this, and yet we subject others to these searches regularly. Why? Because we don’t profile, we are not allowed to profile, and any attempt to do so will be met with howls of outrage, court challenges, and an all-but-certain finding that profiling is unconstitutional. And yet we know that the hot 23-year-old model, the 60-year-old grandmother and the 45-year-old business executive going on vacation with his family are not carrying explosives or weapons because they never have. There is no way that profiling will ever be on the table for US commercial carriers. None. It sounds discriminatory, it IS discriminatory, and it will never fly in this country. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/122 "2010-11-17T18:14:28Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > I would. > > Look, let’s be candid. With only a few exceptions the people of interest are males of Middle Eastern descent ages 17 and up. We know this, we’ve always known this, and yet we subject others to these searches regularly. Why? Because – until now – they haven’t reached the tipping point in public opinion. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/123 "2010-11-17T18:31:39Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The answer is simple. We will have to fly nude. Otherwise we just wont feel safe enough. Don’t forget the pre-flight purging that will be mandatory…otherwise, we won’t be really secure. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/124 "2010-11-17T18:46:35Z")
> [@jasg](#): > > Don’t forget the pre-flight purging that will be mandatory…otherwise, we won’t be really secure. TSA will have to remove and carefully examine every tampax and sanitary napkin. I wonder how much additional training will be required? ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/125 "2010-11-17T18:56:17Z")
TSA is in a no win situation. If a plane goes down, they failed to do their job. If the ratchet up security, they are child molesters. Can’t win. When I first joined the Navy in the 1980’s (getting too old for this stuff) and we talked about security, the answer always was, “If ‘they’ want to breach your security and are willing to sacrifice enough to do it, they can. It’s our job to make that price high.” We don’t hear that any more. It will never be full-proof. In my opinion, if we can’t live with a body scan, we are a bunch of total wimps. Come on people, it’s just a scan. It’s not rape or molestation, both of which dopers in this thread have equated it too. If that’s enough to make us go into a corner and cry ourselves to sleep, we’re beaten already. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/126 "2010-11-17T18:58:49Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > In my opinion, if we can’t live with a body scan, we are a bunch of total wimps. In **my** opinion, if we allow fear to justify forcing invasive procedures on an innocent public, that makes us wimps. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/127 "2010-11-17T19:00:34Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > TSA is in a no win situation. If a plane goes down, they failed to do their job. If the ratchet up security, they are child molesters. The latter statement begs the question by assuming that this Bavarian fire drill actually has the effect of ratcheting up security. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/128 "2010-11-17T19:06:15Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > TSA is in a no win situation. If a plane goes down, they failed to do their job. If the ratchet up security, they are child molesters. Can’t win. > > When I first joined the Navy in the 1980’s (getting too old for this stuff) and we talked about security, the answer always was, “If ‘they’ want to breach your security and are willing to sacrifice enough to do it, they can. It’s our job to make that price high.” We don’t hear that any more. It will never be full-proof. > > In my opinion, if we can’t live with a body scan, we are a bunch of total wimps. Come on people, it’s just a scan. It’s not rape or molestation, both of which dopers in this thread have equated it too. If that’s enough to make us go into a corner and cry ourselves to sleep, we’re beaten already. This is not even about the body scan. It is about the physical groping that has yielded no bombs at all. It is a trade off between the feeling of security and where it gets too personal and starts to infringe on your person and your rights. You can always argue that the next method they come up with will make your flight safer. But as you said, if you are determined and are willing to give up their life, you can not stop them. It becomes a show of force, a wasted show of force. It makes every flyer feel like he has to prove he is not a criminal. It makes more sensitive people dread flying at all. When does it go too far? Most people seem to think groping is too far. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/129 "2010-11-17T19:29:36Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > In **my** opinion, if we allow fear to justify forcing invasive procedures on an innocent public, that makes us wimps. Exactly. I don’t want to haul out old Godwin, and I certainly don’t mean to equate being felt up by the TSA to the Holocaust, but in a small way it really makes me understand how a populace can accept the truly offensive by the “first they came for my shoes” method. Seriously, first I had to take my shoes off, which infuriated me but hell, you can’t even complain about it, and it’s not like I’m going to drive to Italy, am I? So I did it. Then it was the water bottle, which was stupid bullshit, but oh well. Now it’s arresting me if I’m not cool with you shoving you hand down my panties, and it’s too late to say “Wait just one goddamned minute here!” If on 9/12 they’d started off with naked pictures, buy your water in the terminal, take your shoes off, and meet the Shocker, we’d have put our feet down and said “Hey, this is trading off all our liberty and dignity for no more security whatsoever, and that is not a bargain we are willing to make!” ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/130 "2010-11-17T19:35:00Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > … > > In my opinion, if we can’t live with a body scan, we are a bunch of total wimps. Come on people, it’s just a scan. It’s not rape or molestation, both of which dopers in this thread have equated it too. If that’s enough to make us go into a corner and cry ourselves to sleep, we’re beaten already. There is a problem with that. Apparently, they are selecting a number of passengers and subjecting them to the pat down regardless of the scan. Personally, I don’t want any goon jiggling the twins or touching my scrotum pole in the name of safety. I think the vast majority of people are sensitive to the thought of having some stranger in a white suit placing his/her hand where it isn’t suppose to be. Hopefully, congress, or the courts, will fix this. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/131 "2010-11-17T19:43:49Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > TSA is in a no win situation. If a plane goes down, they failed to do their job. If the ratchet up security, they are child molesters. Can’t win. And yet the Israelis manage to keep their planes in the air without molesting anyone and they do it without spending billions on machines that are easily defeated. You can put a fire out by smothering it with stacks of $100 bills or you can pour 2 cents worth of water on it. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/132 "2010-11-17T19:44:04Z")
911 started with essentially no security. We left it is the hands of the airlines and we all know they will spend a lot to insure quality and safety. They left the scanners sometimes unplugged, poorly maintained, , unmanned and when they were manned it was by poorly paid and poorly paid workers. But they made a lot of money. That is what they care about. We all saw the films of the highjackers running on board through the empty security checkpoints. They would have been stopped with rudimentary metal detectors. ---
**Author:** ![This\_Just\_In\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@This\_Just\_In\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/This_Just_In_2)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/133 "2010-11-17T20:00:51Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > In my opinion, if we can’t live with a body scan, we are a bunch of total wimps. But the point is - it is a pointless scan. It can easily be defeated by the bad guys. If this scan was the be all end all of knowing that no one is getting on aboard an aircraft carrying a bomb on their person - then ok, I’ll take one for the team. But when I know full well that anyone, anyone who really wants to can carry a bomb (in tummy, arse or even skin fold) through this machine and get a green light - then I must ask WTF. Does anyone really think a suicide bomber is going to balk as the inconvenience of having to shove C4 up his arse? ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/134 "2010-11-17T20:20:26Z")
> [@This\_Just\_In\_2](#): > > Does anyone really think a suicide bomber is going to balk as the inconvenience of having to shove C4 up his arse? Or vagina. The human body does come with a fair amount of storage space. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/135 "2010-11-17T20:34:57Z")
Does anyone have any data on whether these scans might be harmful to a pregnant woman? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/136 "2010-11-17T20:56:57Z")
> [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](#): > > Or vagina. The human body does come with a fair amount of storage space. Aw isn’t that cute, baby made his first boom boom. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/137 "2010-11-17T21:03:17Z")
This video shows exactly why we have to resort to measures such as these. If this idiot depicted here wouldn’t pull these kinds of crazy stunts, we could all get back to a reasonable level of security. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRpWnK6Rg3E) ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/138 "2010-11-17T21:12:51Z")
> [@Scuba\_Ben](#): > > You’d need a material that acts “flesh-like” under millimeter wave radar and X-ray backscatter imaging. A visual resemblance isn’t enough, so a fat suit won’t cut it. Or material embedded in something the TSA isn’t going to require that people remove to have swabbed for explosives, like breast prostheses worn by someone who’s had a double mastectomy. Sanitary napkins or incontinence pads that are cotton covered blocks of moldable plastic explosive. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I’ll take it because the scarring occurred with the rapist, not the TSA. Irrelevant to whether or not a survivor of sexual violence with PTSD will be triggered by the experience. > [@](#): > > Further, the TSA has women frisk women. Not to mention everyone stays clothed and it is in public (e.g. the woman is not alone and cornered). Also irrelevant. First because some women have been sexually assaulted/molested by other women. Second because a situation doesn’t have to situationally identical to one’s assault experience to trigger a PTSD reaction. > [@](#): > > Further still, even before this increase in pat downs, a pat down was always a possibility when going through security at an airport. Any woman who is still so shattered from being raped that she would be “scarred” by a pat down from another woman at a security checkpoint, that she knows full well is coming, has no business trying to go through airport security. Ah, so there we have it, the ultimate dismissal. Yes, you silly raped sluts, just stay home if your brains are so scrambled. You don’t have any right to bodily autonomy, or to try to go about your lives like anyone else who hasn’t been subjected to someone else’s criminal misuse of you. PTSD’s only worth respect if you get it by joining a volunteer military and go fight a war, anyway. > [@Sateryn76](#): > > So this is strange. CAIR has released [this statement](http://www.cair.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?ArticleID=26681&&name=n&&currPage=1&&Active=1) saying that Muslim women should refuse the scan, and includes these statements: They saying that Muslimahs should refuse the backscatter scan for modesty reasons, but the reference to searching is to the fact that in _all_ airports, whether they have the “enhanced” screening or not, any Muslimah who wears hijab is subjected to a secondary physical search (after passing through the metal detector or backscatter) in which her hijab (and only her hijab) is meant to be searched and the fabric swabbed for explosives. There is a procedure by which a woman may patdown her own hijab, and that’s what CAIR is encouraging women to do. > [@Rilchiam](#): > > I haven’t seen anyone else bring this up yet, so perhaps it’s just me. But that is my fear, that submitting to a search, patdown, scan, whatever, means you really have to be **submissive**. And that non-compliance, or what even appears to be non-compliance (suppose I’m on my period when I get a groin search, and that affects my reaction?), brings extra scrutiny, fines, arrest, and Og knows what else. It’s not the touching that’s a problem for me; it’s the uncertainty that it will end there. Exactly. There is no way to know how much is enough or where it will end, and what level of personal intrusion will be required to explain things that are not only not anyone else’s business, have nothing to do with security. Will you be made to explain why your back feels weird if you have scoliosis? Will you be made to explain why you wear a chest binder or be taken into a “private” room and made to take off your shirt (and maybe your binder too)? Will you have to pull the waistband of your panties out to show that the unexpected thing the screener touched is your sanitary pad (or your tucked penis)? And thus I’m returned to the issue of PTSD for sexual violence survivors, because one of the prime _emotional_ causes for being triggered is a sense of being utterly powerless in the face of physical intrusion. > [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Over on Andrew Sullivan’s site, someone is encouraging men to ask for a pat down while dressed in a kilt. Of course a man wears nothing under the kilt. Ah, silly men, thinking that this will do something? Women wear skirts in airports every day and guess what hasn’t been deterred? That’s right, intrusive physical searches. And in fact, women are reporting that screeners are putting their hands (and metal detector wands, inexplicably) _under_ their skirts, which is not what protocol calls for. What is this supposed to do other that ensure that _if_ protocol is broken, some stranger touches their naked genitals, and if protocol is followed, they’re just some dude in a skirt, getting chafed by their seatbelt rubbing the kilt against their unprotected goods? ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/139 "2010-11-17T21:29:09Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > Women wear skirts in airports every day and guess what hasn’t been deterred? That’s right, intrusive physical searches. And in fact, women are reporting that screeners are putting their hands (and metal detector wands, inexplicably) _under_ their skirts, which is not what protocol calls for. [One such report](http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=106481). From the linked news report: > [@](#): > > Gigliotti was wearing a loose-fiiting skirt and she said the TSA screener put her hands up the skirt. > > “She said ‘spread your legs.’ And then she took her full palms and started at my neck and ran all the way down my body, full palms, constant contact. And when she got down to my feet, she was in constant contact from my ankles all the way up to my groin, across my groin, and down the other leg. And she did that twice,” Gigliotti said. ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853/140 "2010-11-17T21:54:19Z")
Some New Jersey politicians, from both the right and left, are [introducing resolutions](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H9HNEtrvEE&feature=player_embedded#!) against the new procedures. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tsas-groin-check-going-too-far/560853.md?page=8)