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The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been taking a beating lately over its new, full-body X-Ray imaging scanners that show people naked. People are concerned about both the humiliation of the procedure and the extra doses of X-rays they get from these scanners, but travelers who refuse to be scanned must submit to a TSA "enhanced pat-down," which now involves a newer, more aggressive policy: frisking with the front of the hand instead of the back of the hand, and feeling people's crotches and women's bras. These more invasive practices are leading the public from skepticism to rage and outright resistance to the new procedures, and for good reason, since TSA's track record of facilitating crime against travelers arguably far outstrips the amount of crime the agency has prevented.
A Pat Down Confrontation Goes Viral
A traveler at the San Diego airport recently made news after he used his cell phone to record an incident that involved the new airport security measures. The man had heard about the new X-Ray scanners and wanted to avoid them, so prior to leaving for his flight he checked the airport's Web site to see if the facility was using one of these devices. According to the site they were not, and he went to catch his flight.
But the traveler soon found the airport's Web site was out of date. As he stood in a security line awaiting his turn to go through a metal detector, a TSA agent pulled him out and ordered to submit to a backscatter/full-body X-Ray scanning machine -- the very type of machine he was trying to avoid. When the traveler refused the scan, TSA agents informed him that he would have to submit to a pat-down search that would include someone touching his groin. The traveler said he considered a stranger touching his groin to be a sexual assault, and pointed out that in any other venue such a touch would be illegal. He agreed to submit to the metal detector -- as about 80% of the other people in line were doing -- but told TSA agents he didn't want to be "groped." After refusing both the invasive pat-down search and the X-ray scan, TSA agents told him he would be prevented from flying. They escorted him back out to the ticketing area, where he got his airline ticket refunded. As the traveler was leaving the airport, a man in slacks and a sport coat approached him and told him that since he had initiated a screening in the secure area, he was not allowed to leave the airport until the screening was completed. The man informed the traveler that he was would get a $10,000 fine and a civil lawsuit -- even though TSA officers had escorted him out of the screening area.
The traveler recorded the entire incident on his cell phone, and uploaded it onto YouTube, where it has gone viral. The recording obviously hit a nerve with people who, like him, are fed up with the degradation of airport screenings.
Questionable TSA Activities
TSA's activities provide substantial fodder for both citizen and professional journalists. YouTube is full of citizen-made videos of TSA agents engaging in questionable activities, like aggressively patting down a three year old child or pulling the pants off a wheelchair-bound, 71 year-old man to examine his knee implant. A surveillance video shows a mother getting harassed by TSA over her baby's sippy cup. People report that their prosthetic limbs or body piercings routinely make them subject to degrading TSA searches whenever they travel. One woman says she was ordered to get out of a security line and undergo additional frisking because she was wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey. After being subjected to a embarrassing public body search in a clear, Plexiglas enclosure, the TSA agent then asked her "How does it feel to be a Dallas Cowboys fan in Philadelphia?" The woman sought an apology from TSA. Another video shows a TSA Supervisor asleep at work.
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