"We are your neighbors, friends, and relatives"*

 
*first words on the TSA website

I just got back from a business trip requiring me to fly through BWI (Baltimore-Washington International). BWI was one of the first airports in the country to implement the TSA strip-search scanners, but it's the most convenient airport for me. Besides, as the TSA itself tells us in several different places on its website, "advanced imaging technology screening is optional to all passengers."

Many of us on this blog have already discussed the bullshit-o-rama that is airport security, especially the pointless and invasive strip-search scanners. Costing taxpayers billions of dollars, they are the biggest boondoggle to come down the pike in a long time. Like so many of the other procedures we go through at airport checkpoints, they don't make us any safer, they just provide a showy bit of theater in which we all play our parts: we pretend we're actually doing something to protect ourselves from The Terrorists. Because The Terrorists are always On The Verge of Getting Us.

So of course I was prepared to step into my starring role along with everyone else, except that I knew I was going to decline the strip-search scanner.

(Pause for the priggish: I go to nude beaches, so please don't lecture me on why showing my bits is no big deal. It's not about showing my bits. It's about that picture up there.  I don't want to be what's depicted.)

I was stunned to find the airport so empty at 9:30 in the morning. Security will be a breeze, I thought, though I was still glad I had 70 minutes before my flight. There were four lines open at the checkpoint, with easily a dozen TSA officers on duty, and only about that many passengers as well. A few people walked through the metal detector, collected their things, and went on their way. Then, just before my husband and I stepped up, the officer in my line pulled the strap across the metal detector. (Come to think of it, those straps look just like the ones used at movie theaters and concert halls. Perhaps we could increase the theater factor by making them red velvet ropes -- so much more elegant, don't you think, with the added benefit of making us feel even more like the stars TSA tells us we are!) 

 

 

I had just gone through the ID check, where they match up your ID with your boarding pass, and I'd been chatting with two of the officers who were oohing and aahing over the ballgown I was carrying in a plastic garment bag. Girls will be girls, you know, even at airport security, though not once you've passed that point. I guess they're allowed to be friendly there but not in the strip area.

Hubby opted to go through the strip-search scanner. I declined. A male officer said, "I don't know why; it's faster and safer." "That's okay," I said, "I have plenty of time before my flight leaves."

A female officer told me to walk through the metal detector -- which I did without dinging anything -- and stand aside.

Okay, let me say that though I don't like the procedures, I still believe that most TSA officers are in a luckless position and are just trying to do their jobs. They probably have to put up with a lot of crap themselves, and I'm not interested in making their jobs any more difficult. I believe in being polite. Deferential but not obsequious. I think if you treat people well, generally they will treat you well in return. So no matter what the situation, I always smile and say "yes, sir" or "yes, ma'am," with a liberal sprinkling of "please" and "thank you" in between.  I also clean up after myself, stack the grey plastic bins neatly, including those left laying around by other passengers, and in general try not to be a nuisance.  (And I was wearing a clingy jersey dress -- always my policy when I fly, so that it's obvious that I have nothing hidden on me. Hey, it's all I can do to suck in my gut; I sure as hell don't want anything else protruding from my body.  Vanitas est securitas.) 

I do as I'm told and stand to the side at the checkpoint.

A few more people wander through. Some step into the strip-search scanner; others just pass through the metal detector. There are still four lines open, and still a dozen or so TSA officers on duty.

I'm still waiting.

I shift my weight from one foot to the other, the way you do when you're standing in line at a movie or the checkout counter at the grocery store; ya know, just killing time.

"Don't move," the female TSA officer says to me. "Don't go anywhere."

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere," I say, "I'm staying here."

That should've been my first tip-off. I'm being chastised like a five-year-old in Catholic school, where the nuns ruled with an iron fist. "Don't move."

She puts on those blue latex gloves, which she hadn't been sporting before. Okay, I think, now she's getting ready to pat me down.

Nope.

Two women walk through the detector. One's metal knee dings the thing. She's questioned for a second and allowed to continue on her way.

After about five or six minutes, I look around. I see something I've never seen at an airport before: there are no passengers. There is no one -- no one -- in the security line. It's empty.

Surely, I think, now that no one is here -- not that it was crowded before -- someone will come to check me.

Nope.

"Excuse me," I say to my minder, "but is someone going to pat me down?"  I add cheerfully, as if this is a game show, "I'm ready!"

"You just wait there for two seconds," she says. "Someone will come when they have time."

"But I've already been --" I begin.

The smackdown is swift.  And loud:

"Don't disrespect me! Don't disrespect me! Don't you talk to me like that! I didn't talk to you like that, don't you talk to me like that! Now you just wait there until somebody can get to you!"

You could've heard her a block away. And that, obviously, was the point.

Because shouting "don't disrespect me!" to someone is sorta like asking "when did you stop beating your wife?" or saying "don't be a racist." The presumption of guilt is embedded in the statement. There's no credible comeback (even if I were allowed to talk back, which I wasn't). Clearly, for the benefit of all to hear, she wouldn't have shouted "don't disrespect me!" unless I had disrespected her, right?

Duly chastened, I look down and say nothing.

I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Most of the TSA officers are standing around doing nothing, because there's nothing to do. There's hardly anybody coming through. By my peripheral vision only -- I don't dare look directly at any of them lest I be accused of being "disrespectful" -- I notice a few of them looking blandly at me. Nobody comes to check me.

Finally, after I wait still more, a TSA agent from the far end of the security checkpoint walks over to me. She smiles the way they've been trained to do and says, "step over here, please."

And finally, finally, I get the pointless pat-down. She asks if I have any sore spots (she was, in fact, polite), and I say I can't lift my left arm because of a chronic injury. She wands and pats every limb from every different angle, my underwire bra keeps dinging the thing, she keeps checking, it keeps dinging, she keeps patting, and on it goes, with even my bare arms and bare feet being wanded every which way but Sunday because, of course, don'tchya know I could have teeny-tiny explosive thingies embedded in my triceps or wedged beneath my toenails.

My head gets wanded but she doesn't go through every strand of hair. One wonders why, since it's only a matter of time before some bozo tries to light his hair on fire and we're all forced to get shaved before we board a plane, as I wrote about here. But then, even if that were to happen, most people would probably go along with it, because, after all, It's For Your Protection. And if we don't, The Terrorists Win.

When I'm finally cleared for take-off, I gather my things, which had been watched over by my husband. But what if I'd been traveling alone? In the past, before the existence of the strip-search scanners, the few times when I'd gotten pulled aside for a pat-down, I'd been moved to a spot where I could clearly see my belongings, and, in fact, had been told to, "keep your eyes on your property while we're doing this."

But for the 10 minutes or so I'd been standing around waiting, I couldn't see my belongings at all (I wasn't allowed to move, remember?). So if I'd been traveling alone, anyone could easily have walked off with my purse, my wallet, or whatever they wanted. And needless to say, the TSA wouldn't have been held responsible.  So what if you're stranded in an airport with no money, no credit card, no ID, and no way to get help? They don't give a shit. That's not their job. Their job is Your Safety.

And if that did happen to you and you complained about it, you could be hauled off in handcuffs and detained for god knows how long. You don't have any rights when you go through security. You know it, I know it, we all know it. But hey, like the poster says, "Take my civil liberties; I wasn't using them anyway."

Indeed we aren't using them as long as we acquiesce to every new so-called security procedure the state throws at us.

Sooner or later, someone will succeed in smuggling an explosive on board that will go off. He might hide it where the sun doesn't shine. Don't know how that would ever be discovered, since presumably his ass and everything attached to it would be blown to smithereens, but that day is coming. (Or how about plastic explosives -- we're really living on borrowed time there. Or what about checkpoints at train stations? Shopping malls? Stadiums? Or outside the airport, at the curb, before you even get to a checkpoint? Good flash potential there. Great gory pix for the newspapers.)

So when that day comes, then what will be the new boneheaded procedures that will be implemented?

I posit this:

You'll be asked to drop your pants and spread your cheeks, but only in a darkened room where you'll be alone, pressing your ass up to a curtained "security checkpoint" behind which anonymous fingers in plastic gloves will probe your anonymous ass -- but only same-sex anonymous fingers, of course -- we're not barbarians after all! -- and after you're, ahem, cleared, you'll be allowed to pass back into the light, secure in the knowledge that you've done your part to protect us from The Terrorists.

Hey, it could be fun -- like glory holes in the gay bars of old. Maybe we could add disco lighting and a thumping beat to make you more comfortable and enhance the experience!

I know you'd want to do this, because it's For Your Security.

For all those out there -- and I've already tangled with many of them, including journalists whose job supposedly is to be skeptical -- who claim that all the undressing, the jewelry-removing, the metal hip and knee clanging and dinging, the strip-search scanning, is necessary, who claim that it's all keeping us safer, that it's "reducing our risk" -- your argument is specious and hypocritical.

How many of you talk on your cellphones while driving? Or, worse, text? Or speed? Or drink and drive?  If you're so concerned about safety, why don't you put your money where your mouth is and get off the fucking phone?  Or drive more responsibly?  You're far -- very far -- more likely to be killed or maimed in a car crash -- 40,000-plus killed per year in the U.S., 2.9 million injured -- than you are to be on a plane that gets blown up by A Terrorist.  Yet you won't change your behavior (oops -- there goes your argument that you're concerned about safety).  But you're more than happy to hand over your civil liberties, one by one, to the security apparatus that tells you it's for your own good.  Even when, again and again, the smartest people in the field tell you it's not.

So my question to you, and those aforementioned journalists, remains: Is there anything you won't do in the name of security? Is there any point at which you'll push back? Is there any procedure that will make you sit up and say, 'enough'? Or will every new requirement that comes down the pike be Necessary For Our Security?

I have yet to receive an answer from any of the security cheerleaders. As at BWI last week, I'm still waiting.

Comments

[Sir Charles]

I traveled to Boston using just my gym bag because I didn't need a whole lot in the way of clothing. I was humiliated when they flagged my wife's "Hello Kitty" water bottle in there -- and since it contained a liquid, I had to go back out of security, empty it, and return through security again, rather than just empty it in the trash can there.

Pointless, pointless exercizes.

You know what TSA stands for Lisa? Thousands Standing Around.

[litbrit]

*Sigh*

I totally agree with you Lisa. This stuff is pointless. Worse than pointless, in fact--it's exorbitantly expensive and pointless.

Fear controls, and apparently fear sells, too. What is needed, for optimum security in every respect--and at every venue--is good police work, not billions of dollars spent on the latest gadget designed to invade the privacy of every single human being. And that should be the goal here: optimum security. Not "keeping us safe", which is bullshit, and we all know it, if we're honest.

Optimum national security means catching terrorists before they go anywhere near the airport, much less board a plane. And that requires good police work, good intelligence, good training, and good followup and support and inter-agency communications systems.

Oh, but it's so much easier to hire a passel of ill-paid workers and dish out the billions of dollars to some defense contractor instead.

I rarely travel any more, and security theatre is one of the main reasons why. And I am at the age when people generally begin to travel more, not less.

Excellent post.

[low-tech cyclist]

Is there any point at which you'll push back?

There is just so much bad shit going on right now that you've got to pick and choose your battles. As I said in an email this morning, Obama's astounding claim that he can assassinate an American citizen, and not even have to explain himself afterwards, is all but getting lost in the white noise of our political discourse.

And all this is happening when it's politically as good as it gets - 59-41 and 255-179 Democratic majorities in the two houses of Congress, majorities so big I may never see the likes of them again.

I don't even know how to push back anymore. Can't push back through the Democratic Party, even on far easier issues. And no one seems to have a plan for turning the Dems into a party that we could push back through.

Yeah, I know - I'm one cheery little sunbeam this afternoon. David Kurtz of TPM (unintentionally) managed to convince me of the hopelessness of politics yesterday. I'm still looking for the refutation.

[Crissa]

I've been through special screening so often that I've almost forgotten how it is to be just ushered through...

[litbrit]

you've got to pick and choose your battles

I'd argue that the unconstitutionality of both situations is deeply disturbing, and that both are battles worth fighting.

With the potential of a president ordering an assasination, we're entering a kind of no-man's land, crossing one kind of border of What We Consider Acceptable In Order To Keep Us Safe. (Although I would argue that CIA-led assassinations have been going on since the Agency itself was founded, and I am thus in no way shocked that America doesn't always follow the rules, but rather, am shocked that the matter is actually being discussed in the open for once.)

Whereas with the virtual strip-searches and warrantless wiretapping, we've crossed a different kind of border re: What We Consider Acceptable In Order To Keep Us Safe. Clearly both searches are violative of the Fourth Amendment (unreasonable search and seizure). Yet warrantless wiretapping has not yet been halted (as far as I know) and people are, as Lisa points out, perfectly willing to submit to having their naked person searched and photographed electronically for the sole purpose of being allowed to get from point A to point B.

With the first, you have serious action that affects a very tiny number of people (in this case, one particular person in Afghanistan/Pakistan). With the second, you have action that is less dramatic and violent yet still, to my mind, invasive and unconstitutional and UTTERLY contrary to any modern definition of civil rights, AND it affects millions of Americans and people who travel in and through America.

The Dems are all but useless at the moment, unless you're part of Big Ag, Big Insurance, or Big Pharma. I have no idea how to change that, either.

I do know that for anything to change re: airport security, it will takes large numbers of people being aware of their civil rights and demanding them. And look what happens when you politely decline the wiz-bang techno-strip machine or your damned bra sets off an alarm! (Lisa and I have discussed this at length, as we've both been there.) Even if we weren't such a convenience-addicted society, not being permitted to fly would be a pretty big inconvenience for just about everyone and a hardship for many. Unless our leaders are willing to recognize virtual strip searches for the Fourth Amendment violations they are--and those of us who would champion the demise of their use can come up with campaigns to rival the lobbyists who represent the makers of the damned machines--they've got us over a barrel.

Bastards.

[Crissa]

Yanno what, ltc? Funny sa it sounds, you could select a minority of Congress from Democrats and they'll represent a majority of the population...

[anonymous lawyer]

I'm with you on the faux security. Have thought about those strip-search scanners, and I won't do them either -- fortunately have not been to an airport with them yet. A stupid idea that will do no good, and someone gets to look at you nekkid as well.

I regularly visit death row inmates, and there is a lot of security hoo-ha there. No underwire bras -- if the guards are nice, they'll lend scissors and allow someone to gut the bra in the rest room -- the metal detector is set high enough to catch the forgetful, so experienced visitors have "prison bras." No sleeveless shirts, no short skirts, certain colors are outlawed for being too close to inmate clothing or guard clothing; one friend was denied entry for violating both rules. Two keys, cannot be electronic; two pens; ID is required, wallets are not allowed. No paperclips. Forget computers or any electronic device. Money for the vending machines must be in a clear baggie; only $1 bills and quarters allowed. Everything goes through the x-ray machine; every person goes through the metal detector. Etc. Rules change w/o notice.

Prisons have their rules for institutional security reasons, and to a certain extent they are allowed to infringe for specific reasons. I go along because I need to go there, and my clients endure worse to see me -- strip searches before and after, for example. It just isn't worth my time to litigate sleeveless dresses. My prison wardrobe is limited.

So, I'm pretty well trained for the airport routine, and keep wondering when underwire bras will be outlawed there. But you know, it is ridiculous to treat every traveler as a criminal. It is ridiculous to think that looking at the nekkid bodies of travelers via swoopy means is going to save the nation. Litbrit is spot on.

[Eric Wilde]

I was pulled aside in airport security because the metal splints on my fingers (of which many were broken at the time) kept dinging the metal detector. Security personnel insisted that I take the bandages off my heavily wrapped fingers so they could inspect my hands directly. I put up a fuss and asked to see the officer on duty, who duly came and let me after looking at the X-Rays I brought with me. So standing up and going up the chain of command can sometimes work.

It would have been quite a site for them to see my fingers at the time. Hopefully nobody would have lost their lunch. It was grisly.

This was in the EU, though.

[Joe]

Yeah, I had to take depositions in prisons before, and it is an experience. The weirdest part though is walking across a crosswalk with signs like "People moving toward helicopters will be shot."

[ballgame]

Great post, Lisa.

I'm reminded of this post by someone exercising his rights at the airport. It and its followup are worth reading.

(Don't remember how I found those; if it was from prior Cogitamus links then apologies for the redundancy.)

[litbrit]

ballgame, thanks for those links. Excellent, excellent posts--although being British and therefore not entering my own country, I would not be able to assert myself that way, unfortunately.

I especially liked this, from the followup:

When it comes to rights, you don’t know in advance what battle will be important. But you do know, based on history and human nature, that a right undefended will shrivel and die. If you don’t fight for the small right, you won’t be in a position to assert the large right.

Moreover, the existence of the right of privacy is usually based on whether people have a current expectation of privacy in a certain situation. To the extent that people decline to assert their right of privacy, it slips away. Lack of vigilance by citizens begets more government power.

[low-tech cyclist]

There still has to be some sort of rallying point, some sort of way of unifying those who want to push back. A thousand individual acts will disappear like a thousand pebbles tossed into a stream.

[Lisa Simeone]

low-tech cyclist,

I wasn't thinking about an organized movement so much as individual acts, over and over and over again, that add up to a mass movement. I don't think a thousand individual acts would disappear like a thousand pebbles. If 70% of passengers -- hell, if only 50% of passengers -- refused to go through the strip-search scanners, that would bollux up the works so much that the TSA would be forced to say, well, clearly people aren't going to put up with this, we have to come up with a new method. More importantly, it would place in high relief the futility and stupidity of the method, instead of what we have now, which is a populace tacitly agreeing that yes, this is a good thing, this is great technology, this will keep us safe, blah blah blah.

But of course, 50% won't do that. 40% won't do that. 20%, 10% won't do that. I doubt 2% will do it. Because it requires taking a stand. It requires sticking your neck out, even though only a tiny little bit. But 53 years of life have taught me that people won't stick their necks out for even the most minor things, so they sure as hell won't stick them out for something major.

As I said, anonymous ass to anonymous wall . . . . People would fall right into line.

(Oh, and yes, litbrit, god forbid they should be "inconvenienced." Showing up at the airport a little earlier is more onerous a burden, apparently, than losing your civil righs.)

Anon lawyer,

I was thinking precisely of prisoners as I was standing there at the checkpoint. It kept going through my mind that the admittedly teeny-tiny bit of inconvenience and attempted humiliation I was going through was what prisoners experience all the time. The similarities are impossible to ignore -- the uniformed authority figures, the capricious demands, the contemptuous tone of voice, the yelling, the berating, the veiled threats, the officiousness, the power.

You and I (and most if not all the people who read this blog) are privileged and comparatively well off. We're not used to be treated like this. We're lucky. But millions of people are treated like this, routinely. It's the State saying, "I can do whatever I want with you, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it." I can only try to imagine what that kind of routine humiliation does to a person. And having done a bit of volunteer work in prisons, I have only the smallest idea.

By the way, I'm still waiting for the security cheerleaders to chime in. Two in particular who've read this post and are always arguing to me that Homeland Insecurity's methods are necessary have yet to utter a peep.

[low-tech cyclist]

But of course, 50% won't do that. 40% won't do that. 20%, 10% won't do that. I doubt 2% will do it. Because it requires taking a stand.

Exactly. And like it or not, most of us have only so many stands in us. And wasting those stands where they're likely to disappear into oblivion is...well, a waste.

Suppose a thousand people refused to go through the scanners next week at various airports throughout America. That's 143 a day. How many airports do we have? O'Hare and LAX might see a few each day, easily enough to haul off to the back room before too many others notice. Other airports would suffer even less disruption. It would be nothing. So what's the sense of any one person taking a stand, when even a thousand a week would be rendered invisible?

You'd need a mass movement, one that would either dwarf those thousand people a week, or somehow concentrate their actions. If you can do it, great, but I'm just saying that anything less is just asking people to mess up their lives to no avail.

[Lisa Simeone]

Oh, well. Ya gotta start somewhere.

Though perhaps it has to get to this point -- then again, even if it happens to a few thousand people, that's not enough, I suppose, to wake them up. After all, what's a little humiliation when your plane is waiting:

Woman mocked during airport strip search
By SHEENA GOODYEAR, QMI AGENCY
Last Updated: July 20, 2010 11:50am

Shileen Flynn, 29, had already missed one flight and lost her luggage when she says she found herself in a room at the Vancouver airport, naked and squatting, while two crude border agents strip-searched her.

. . .

With no mention of the alleged verbal harassment by the border service officers, the letter explained that a strip search can be conducted if an officer “has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has secreted contraband on or about their body,” as long as a senior officer approves the search, and the suspect is informed of their rights.

“It was sickening to watch and see what they were doing. They then went into full cover-up in the investigation and simply lied when convenient to cover up any wrongdoing,” Charlie told QMI Agency.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/07/19/14759016.html#email

[tata]

These stories make me so angry I haven't been able to compose a sentence in response. I'm thinking I may never get on another airplane.

[Lisa Simeone]

Journalist Amy Goodman Detained at Canadian Border

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF0_JcxKv5k

(This is in addition to her arrest while she was covering the Republican National Convention in this country in 2008.)

[Lisa Simeone]

U.S. Border Patrol Stole $7,000 And Medical Marijuana on 1/14/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4ukfaf1epE

[R. Stanton Scott]

I would have asked for a senior officer about two minutes after my wife was told to stand at the side. Activate the chain of command as soon as it becomes obvious that they are ignoring you on purpose.

Don't be afraid to mention to them that you intend to stand up for your rights, and they might not want to be the TSA officer on CNN that night for refusing to recognize them.

[ballgame]

I remember seeing that about Amy, Lisa. That was disturbingly reminiscent of the old "provided of course/You're not dumb enough to actually try it" lyric.

Here's a recent piece of good news on this front: wiretapping charges against the motorcyclist who recorded his own arrest were just thrown out. Yay, Maryland!

(Massachusetts and Illinois don't seem to be doing as well, though.)

[kathy a.]

they do not have these strip-scan machines at very many airports, do they? the darned things are really expensive. so i wonder if they will really roll them out everywhere -- the combo of expensive, offensive, and ineffective sounds like a trifecta to me.

i don't let strangers look at my body, except for reasons of medical necessity, so i will not be doing the scan if it is offered.

lisa, i think you should complain about your treatment. TSA kind of bills itself as performing a customer service, and you were treated very poorly. for no good reason. they offer wanding as an alternative, precisely because they know it will be offensive to many to be strip-scanned.

[Lisa Simeone]

Kathy, the TSA is rolling them out all over the country. Though BWI was one of the original 6 airports to get them last year (or maybe it was the year before? can't remember -- time files), it's by no means an anomaly anymore.

They also had them at the Charlotte airport, from where I returned, though I wasn't pulled aside there. I merely went through the metal detector and went on my way (though must offer this girl-to-girl aside: I mentioned above that I was carrying a ballgown in a plastic garment bag -- every single female TSA officer at the Charlotte security line made a point of coming over to look at it -- they were silent, sober, unsmiling, but they all wanted to see the gown -- and why not? It's gorgeous!).

As for registering a complaint, gawd, no. It'll go nowhere, as all such complaints do (my god, just look at the poor girl who was strip-searched), and the only thing that will happen is I'll get put in a database and be hassled every time I fly. Hell, I hemmed and hawed just about putting this piddling little post up. I know similar ones are being written by all sorts of people all over the country, and Big Brother doesn't have time to read them all, but ya never know . . . .

I have to go to NC several times a year, but I'll just take the train from now on. It's a 10-hour trip, but hey, that just means I'll get to see great scenery, read a novel or two, and not get hassled by officious goons. Plus I'll rack up frequent rider miles. It's all good!

[kathy a.]

italy is abandoning its body scanner project, as ineffective.

there are reports that the scanners can save images.

others are complaining about privacy concerns, and that it "lets you see all but the bomby parts".

reportedly, screeners in take peeks. buried in that story is that israel does not use the scanners because they are ineffective, and that they would not have detected the underwear bomber's stuff.

apparently the terminal i use at the local airport is going to get a scanner soon. so, i guess i'll be putting my money where my mouth is, at some point.

[Lisa Simeone]

Kathy, yep, I also linked to a couple of stories about the scanners' saving and transmitting images -- even though it still says on the TSA website that they don't.

And yes, Israel has long said the scanners are bullshit.

And the guy who was bullied to the point of violence by his TSA colleagues -- well, if that's not a clear case of workplace harassment, I don't know what is.

Brava Italia! They have a mess of a bureaucracy over there in general, but at least in this regard they've come to their senses. Then again, The Market is not a deity in Italy, so they're less likely to care about the scanner companies not making a fortune. Whereas here -- well, it's positively un-American to suggest that corporations don't have the right to fleece citizens.

[Lisa Simeone]

"Right from the get go, the idea that there would be no push for this to be primary screening is completely ridiculous. Of course, there would be a push," Vonn said when informed of the U.S. change.

Greg Soule, a spokesman with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), said the decision to use all newly deployed full body scanners as primary screening was made earlier this year to address evolving threats to aviation such as explosives and other non-metallic threats.

The TSA plans to deploy 1,000 machines by the end of 2011 and already has [over] 200 units in 52 [58] American airports.

"We have made the decision to deploy all of our machines in the primary position and I am not going to speak for Canada on their decision to deploy their technology. However, we will continue to share information and intelligence and best practices with all our international partners," Soule told QMI Agency.

Pressure on Canada for full body scanners
By ALTHIA RAJ, PARLIAMENTARY BUREAU, QMI AGENCY
Last Updated: September 11, 2010 3:03pm
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/09/11/15318646.html

[Crissa]

The sleeveless thing is from courts, they want to continue a set of fashion set a hundred years ago. It's stupid. You go to a random court and you have no idea what sort of dress code they'll have - it's not like they post it on their websites. Grr.

[low-tech cyclist]

Lisa: in local police stations and jails all across America on any given day, I bet there are newly arrested people who are treated like crap above and beyond what's necessary to book 'em and get them into a holding cell. That doesn't delegitimize the power that police have to arrest people in appropriate situations.

In other words, it's important to distinguish between abuses of a process and the process itself. Conflating the two just muddies the debate.

At any rate, you're calling your fellow citizens sheep for failing to engage in what I've argued would be fundamentally self-destructive behavior to no useful end. There are certainly times when a bit of random standing up for oneself on the part of the citizenry is a good idea. I don't see that this is one of them.

[tata]

LTC: "There are certainly times when a bit of random standing up for oneself on the part of the citizenry is a good idea. I don't see that this is one of them."

Enjoy your police state? That's a great idea! Why did no one else think of that?

[kathy a.]

l-tc, when people are arrested, there has to be probable cause to believe they have committed a crime. for the police to do a pat-down, they must have at least a reasonable suspicion that the person may be a danger to the police.

conducting a virtual strip-search of an ordinary traveler, with no reason to believe they have committed crimes or that they personally pose some danger, is a very different situation. TSA is now saying the alternative it will offer is not wanding, but a physical pat-down [front, back, sides of the body, between legs].

i have problems with letting even an anonymous stranger look at my body without some good reason. i think this procedure could be very traumatic for certain people. the folks they are going to "catch" could include those using incontinence products, those using certain feminine protection products, people with medical or prosthetic devices that normally would go unnoticed under clothing.

it's one thing to announce that you'll set the metal detector off because of a joint replacement, which isn't generally seen as a humiliating condition, and something else again to reveal a need for depends because your bladder isn't reliable. or that yes, you have a prosthetic breast because the real one was removed. or that the plastic device implanted in your chest is for the fucking chemo. and so on.

the metal detector dance is an inconvenience. this is a personal intrusion, and without any evidence that it will actually improve security. i hope someone is working up a lawsuit aimed at an injunction.

[low-tech cyclist]

kathy - I'm not defending any aspect of the TSA security theatre. I get pretty damned disgruntled about it every time I travel, especially now that my wife and I have to shepherd a 3 year old through the process at the same time as we get ourselves through.

The question is, what is it reasonable to expect people to do about it?

tata - with all due respect, there's some truth to the adage "you can't fight City Hall." I don't think it's true, but the takeaway is that your battles with City Hall are going to be various levels of uphill.

I think expecting people to take on every damned battle with City Hall that they have the opportunity to get involved in is an incredibly unrealistic expectation. Equating them with sheep for failing to do so is really pretty insulting.

I don't expect anyone to "enjoy [their] police state" but more importantly, I don't regard random citizens as sheep if they fail to double their enjoyment by spitting in its face.

[Lisa Simeone]

Not to mention women who've been raped. Do you realize how many women have been sexually assaulted or raped in this country? Can you imagine their having to go through either the stripsearch scanner or patdown, or both? And if they exhibit any "nervousness," they can be further humiliated and even hauled off in handcuffs (will post Philly Inquirer article on this scenario).

I got the back-of-the-hands plus a bit of front-of-the-hands patdown. (I've obviously given up that bit of my civil liberties -- I'm not a purist because I haven't stopped flying -- yet.) The reason I find it preferable to the stripsearch scanner is because it throws into sharp relief the idiocy of the whole process. The TSA employee knows damn well I have nothing to hide, she can see my clingy clothes, she knows my bra is dinging the thing, she knows it's a pointless exercise, I know it's a pointless exercise, and everyone else knows it's a pointless exercise. It's not silent and "unobtrusive" like the stripsearch scanners. It's not a quiet acquiescence. It shouts its idiocy. And it takes up their time. It forces them to work. That's my admittedly teeny-tiny itty-bitty minor way of protest.

After January, I won't be flying anymore anyway, so my protest will be complete. To each his own. Everyone has to figure out their own limits, their own point of no return.

(Oh, yes, and Rapiscan is the name of the biggest scanner manufacturer. How appropriate.)

[R. Stanton Scott]

If you go along simply to get along, follow instructions from government agents however silly they are, and respond to improper treatment from government agents simply for personal convenience, then the pejorative "sheep" describes you perfectly.

[kathy a.]

i go along to move along with the regular TSA screening -- got my whole routine down. not expecting everyone to take on a battle they do not need to fight. but i object to the body-scanning and won't do it. and i will thoroughly HATE it if i get patted down physically. and so i am hoping that there is some litigation, because this is outrageous. note: i will not be doing that litigation; but i really support it. support your ACLU, because that's the organization most likely to work this.

the realistic outcome is that many people, like lisa, will just not fly. that isn't really an option for me. the places i need to go are usually 1-1.5 hours by air, but there is sparse train service, none of it high-speed. as in, maybe one inconvenient time per day, from an inconvenient location to an inconvenient location, plus transfers, plus the 10+ hours on the train.

[kathy a.]

p.s. for l-tc -- i'm not at all sure that feeling unhappy about this screening and refusing to do it amounts to "spitting in the face" of government employees. don't think lisa did that when she refused -- there wasn't a reason for her to have to wait when there wasn't a line, or for catching disrespect for choosing the TSA option. i expect that when my time comes, i will keep as cool a presentation as possible. but this is wrong.

on the kid front -- my dad was ill with stage 4 cancer when 9/11 rolled around. so, the kids and i went to see him at times when the airport was filled with impossibly young national guardspeople toting automatic weapons, and the security persons opened every checked bag to root through the used underwear and such. we sucked it up, but my daughter got busted for something suspicious in her backpack. she was 12, and extremely hormonal at the time. i mean, very. the suspicious item was a film cannister of quarters that her beloved grandpa had given her, because he thought that was something useful to have, but she was pretty freaked and i was simultaneously trying to calm her and hissing that it wasn't a good idea to actually scream out loud with all those excitable people around with automatic weapons.

let's just say i'm grateful that the strip-scanners were not then in use. i can talk down automatic weapons soon after an air attack, but not that.

[low-tech cyclist]

If you go along simply to get along, follow instructions from government agents however silly they are, and respond to improper treatment from government agents simply for personal convenience, then the pejorative "sheep" describes you perfectly.

Stanton - if you were responding to me, let me just point out that there's a big difference between "people have to pick their battles," which was my point, and "throw in the towel across the board." I hope you weren't trying to characterize my comments here in that manner.

[Lisa Simeone]

Litbrit had sent me this earlier this year; I'm sure many people have seen it:

TSA Forces Disabled Boy, 4, To Remove Leg Braces

"Unfortunately, it's no joke," writes Daniel Rubin for Philly.com. The child, Ryan, was en route to Disney Land to celebrate his fourth birthday when TSA officials ruled he must clear customs without his leg braces, on his own two feet. To prevent injury, his parents walked just ahead and just behind him though security.

The boy's furious father, a police officer, complained to a TSA manager at the airport, and was told to "calm down and enjoy his vacation," Rubin writes.

Reading the TSA Web site, it would appear that the agency has very clear guidelines regarding "Prosthetic Devices, Casts and Body Braces." Although the officers will need to examine your device or brace, they "will not ask nor require you to remove" it. In fact, the agency makes the following request of passengers: "During the screening process, please do not remove or offer to remove your prosthetic device."

The TSA has apologized and agency spokesperson Ann Davis tells the Associated Press that the TSA believes the family's account.

Rubin's column chronicles other incidents of bizarre behavior by security screening personnel at the airport of the City of Brotherly Love, including a TSA worker who pretended to find a bag of white powder in a traveler's carry-on bag (the worker was fired, according to the Inquirer).

Rubin writes in a separate column, however, that he has received "scores of tips of other alleged abuses by those who work to keep us safe," and that most of the stories happened in other airports.

http://www.parentdish.com/2010/02/17/airport-security-forces-boy-4-to-remove-leg-braces/

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/airport_security_officials_apo.html

[Lisa Simeone]

For those who think that acquiescing to the stripsearch scanner is all you're going to have to do, think again: The TSA is preparing a "national roll-out" of the full-on groping they're now "testing" in Boston and Las Vegas. And going through the scanner won't guarantee that you won't be subjected to it. As they do now, they will be allowed to pluck people at random for the Full Monty, whether you've gone through the screener or not, whether you've dinged the metal detector or not, whether you've smiled the wrong way or not.

Hands on: TSA tests 'enhanced patdowns'

By Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY

The Transportation Security Administration has started performing what it calls "enhanced patdowns" at two of the country's busiest airports, the Boston Herald reports. The newspaper says the "more aggressive palms-first, slide-down body search technique … has renewed the debate over privacy vs. safety."

The Herald writes "previously, TSA screeners used patdown motions of their hands to search passengers over their clothes, switching to the backs of their hands over certain 'sensitive' body areas, such as the torso."

The TSA says the effort is being tested at the Boston Logan and Las Vegas McCarran airports ahead of "a national rollout," The Associated Press reports.

The American Civil Liberties Union is now questioning the procedure.

"We're all for good effective security measures," Christopher Ott, a spokesman for the ACLU of Massachusetts, says to the Herald. "But, in general, we're concerned about this seemingly constant erosion of privacy, and we wonder whether or not it's really going to be effective."

Ann Davis, TSA spokeswoman for the Northeast region, confirmed the procedure to the Herald, telling the paper the "enhanced patdowns" are part of the agency's constantly evolving efforts to enhance "our many layers of security."

In a follow-up article mostly critical of the TSA's effort, the Herald offers this description of the procedure from 50-year-old Las Vegas passenger Rob Webster: "It was extremely invasive. This was a very probing-type touching - not just patting over all your areas, but actually probing and pushing and seeing if I was concealing something in my genital area."

http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/post/2010/08/tsa-enhanced-security-aclu/109307/1?csp=34travel#uslPageReturn

But what's wrong with a little groping, right? It's all For Our Security!

[oddjob]

Mostly on all this I am simply reading because I want the education and I'm not offering my own opinion at all. I'd rather educate myself, thanks.

However, my pedant self can't stand not to pick this particular nit (& if I had been Rubin's editor I would have carped at him for the misuse of the term).

One does not clear customs when boarding a flight from Philadelphia to Orlando! You clear customs when you enter a different country than the one in which you are located (or have most recently left in the case of sea or air travel). The TSA is not the US Customs Service.

[Jim Hussain Shirk]

Lisa, litbrit, LTC - it's time to link the hybrid car and the Internet to bypass the airlines for US travel. I drive from the Tampa Bay area to Arkansas approximately every two months for family reasons, and I've thought that organizing riders along the way would increase my Karma and decrease my personal carbon footprint. Any thoughts on a Facebook approach, some way to build in security for the driver and passengers and scale this up to a national program?

[Lisa Simeone]

Jim Hussain Shirk,

I think this is an excellent idea. There actually is something similar that's been going on in Washington DC for years -- I forget what it's called, but the Post has written about it so I bet Sir C knows -- commuters line up to hop into cars that are traveling back over to Virginia every day after work. I don't remember how they solved the security problem thing (not getting into a car with a perv/murderer), but somehow they have.

Again, it's a great idea. Unfortunately, I think most people are just going to suck up whatever -- and I do mean whatever -- the TSA throws at us and keep on flying. (Metal bracelets with electro-shock capabilities, similar to a Taser, for every passenger -- don't laugh -- they've already been proposed and the TSA has already gotten shit about it; but these are early days. Give them time.)

I've been saying "God bless the train" for years now, since I used it to commute Balto-to-DC every day. But I understand it doesn't make sense for a lot of people, especially if you live west of I-95, because the tracks are taken up by CSX freight and as a result Amtrak is often, through no fault of their own, late. It's going to take me 10 hours by train from Balto to Charlotte, but that's what I'm doing from now on. Not everyone will be able to make that choice.

[Lisa Simeone]

Daniel Rubin: An infuriating search at Philadelphia International Airport

At what point does an airport search step over the line?

How about when they start going through your checks, and the police call your husband, suspicious you were clearing out the bank account?
. . .
screener started emptying her wallet. "He was taking out the receipts and looking at them," she said.

Two Philadelphia police officers joined at least four TSA officers who had gathered around her. After conferring with the TSA screeners, one of the Philadelphia officers told her he was there because her checks were numbered sequentially, which she says they were not.

"It's an indication you've embezzled these checks," she says the police officer told her. He also told her she appeared nervous. She hadn't before that moment, she says.

She protested when the officer started to walk away with the checks. "That's my money," she remembers saying. The officer's reply? "It's not your money."

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/daniel_rubin/20100818_Daniel_Rubin__An_infuriating_search_at_Philadelphia_International_Airport.html

[ballgame]

This story suggests that X-ray scanners are now being deployed on public highways.

[Lisa Simeone]

Thanks for posting that, ballgame. The hits just keep on coming! This story will undoubtedly please Michael Dresser and Michelle Deal-Zimmerman of the Baltimore Sun, as well as Eva Rodriguez of the Washington Post, all shameless security cheerleaders who scoff at civil liberties.