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<p>Yep. We need protection, but we need freedom more.</p>
<p>My sister recently chatted with a frequent flyer business man who had the new pat down. He was very upset and said he felt assaulted.</p>
<p>Here is a news story form ABC news:</p>
<p>The beleaguered head of the Transportation Security Administration said today that at least one airport passenger screening went too far when an officer reached inside a traveler’s underwear, and the agency is open to rethinking its current protocols…</p>
<p>“The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around,” she said. “It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist. It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was inappropriate.”</p>
<p>[TSA</a> Responds to Passenger Outrages: Underwear Search Should ‘Never’ Happen - ABC News](<a href=“White House: Terrorists Have Discussed Use of Prosthetics to Conceal Explosives - ABC News”>White House: Terrorists Have Discussed Use of Prosthetics to Conceal Explosives - ABC News)</p>
<p>For those people who refuse either the scanners or the pat downs: If there were two flights, one of which didn’t do either and one did, which would you choose? Maybe that’s what should happen. Those who aren’t concerned about security can take their chances and those that are, can go through the procedure.</p>
<p>Why does it have to be all or nothing? Has the threat level changed? As far as I know it is still orange. I flew a couple days after the underwear bomber and security wasn’t anything like this. I am fine with the metal detectors and can handle the inconvenience of the shoes and liquids. To me the electronic strip search and aggressive frisking violate my presumption of innocence (as well as seeming creepy).</p>
<p>I’d choose the one where we go through metal detectors, show our I.D. and put our bags through screening as we have for years. In the past, if you set off the alarm, you’d take off your watch or take out your keys, and go through again. No problem. No one groped you just because you forgot to take out your pocket watch.
But I’d really like to see all cargo screened- not just random cargo screenings. Put the money and manpower there.</p>
<p>Yes, I’d definitely take the plane with the security we had these last few years, before Nov. 1, 2010.</p>
<p>3bm103 said: “For those people who refuse either the scanners or the pat downs: If there were two flights, one of which didn’t do either and one did, which would you choose?”</p>
<p>You cleverly avoided the actual choice:</p>
<p>Would you prefer a system that looks for bad things or bad people?</p>
<p>As Jeff Jacoby in today’s Boston Globe said, In Israel’s Ben Gurion airport or on El Al, the system doesn’t involve taking off shoes, confiscating water bottles, patting down toddlers, or conducting nude X-ray scans. Nor does it involve shutting down an entire terminal because a passenger inadvertently walked through the wrong door.</p>
<p>It does, however, involve careful attention to behavior, individual conversations with every traveler, and a lack of politically-correct inhibitions about profiling. Unlike TSA, the Israelis focus not on intercepting dangerous things, but on stopping dangerous people.</p>
<p>What we are doing . . . nude pictures for all and invasive groping for some . . . is on its face unreasonable.</p>
<p>I have read that TSA is considering exempting Muslim women from these searches because they find it offensive on religious grounds. The plan, as I read it, was to allow them to put on gloves and essentially pat themselves down and then TSA would check the gloves for explosive residue. Does this sound fair?</p>
<p>Where did you hear this?</p>
<p>If they offer this option to all travellers, then it is fair. If not? </p>
<p>I don’t know. I have 4th amendment problems with this whole thing. There has got to be “probable cause.” Do we now consider it to be probable cause to buy a plane ticket?</p>
<p>If so, it’s just a sad state of affairs.</p>
<p>gamom- no it’s not fair and I highly doubt it will happen. It does highlight a problem, however, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>I have a suspicion that this weekend we will see fewer travelers pulled out of line for the machines if metal detectors are in place and working. I think that the TSA wants this whole controversy to go away, and by minimizing the passengers affected, they can temper the outrage. As it stands, it’s mostly the major international airports that have the scanners, anyway-- there are only around 400 of them in the entire country, I believe ABC news reported. Although with that few machines, it’s amazing how much trouble they have caused people, already.
If they do minimize the intrusive searches this weekend, they may come back and say,“See, the machines/patdowns really aren’t a problem. We had very few complaints.” And they’ll hope the whole thing dies down.</p>
<p>[Napolitano</a> considering allowing Muslim women to pat themselves down at Airports! | Greeley Gazette](<a href=“Index of /press”>Index of /press)
If you google the question,there are pages of different reports. Anything political will result in numerous pages for either side, but the majority of these quote Napolitano as considering the recommendations of the Committee for Arab International Relations (CAIR). I googled the question because I was wondering how the government was going to handle Muslim women in burquas, as their religion is very strict in regard to females, and I found all of the articles relating to that question. I am not an authority, and intensely dislike vitrolic political discussions, but if this is true, I don’t think it is fair or reasonable to exempt one segment of the popution. Muslim women also have the option of not flying.</p>
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<p>I don’t think the regime is capable of that kind of self-reflection or implementing effective changes as a result of that kind of self-reflection…</p>
<p>thanks gamom–</p>
<p>I had heard that at a party this weekend, but it was a very hillarious conversation and I thought maybe we were all just joking around. So, I was wondering if it was just a rumor.</p>
<p>But, I sse it has some veracity, which is puzzling.</p>
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<p>The last time I was in Israel (several years ago), all access to the Mount was shut down for security reasons. Access to the plaza in front of the Western Wall is highly restricted, with metal detectors. I don’t remember a pat-down. I assume that the same type of security that one sees at El Al counters around the world is in force here. </p>
<p>Just to clarify: the warning sign about Jews not entering has nothing to do with modern day security concerns. It’s to avoid accidentally stepping onto the site of the Holy of Holies, which is only supposed to be accessed by the High Priest. </p>
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<p>Some of us already have that choice, because we live in areas where there are airports that have backscatter machines and others that don’t. I’ve read of people opting to go to the airports that don’t have the machines. I haven’t heard (yet) of anyone saying that they won’t fly from airport X because it doesn’t have the backscatter machines.</p>
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<p>Come on, now! Is there no reasonable in between?? No one is saying let it be a free-for-all, let everyone on, no screening.</p>
<p>…I think the Muslim woman question will help toward getting this policy changed for all of us.</p>
<p>I think a main concern we need to keep in mind is to not take offense with the actually TSA agent doing the scan/pat down (unless they are being extremely inappropriate). They are just following protocols. It was not their idea to do this, and they are probably against it too. I highly doubt they are doing high fives over getting to rub down some hundreds of people everyday. If they do do anything inappropriate then you can make a complaint and you are on camera the whole time so there would be a good case against them (not to mention the line of witnesses behind you). So my message is that yes the new process sucks but try not to kill the messenger they are just doing what the corporate bigwigs have decided.</p>
<p>Statistician and analyst Nate Silver writes about the possible economic impacts of the new security protocols. He has interesting speculations (backed by research) on how backscatter machines could depress demand for air flight–or increase it. Well worth reading.</p>
<p>[The</a> Hidden Costs of Extra Security - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/the-hidden-costs-of-extra-airport-security/]The”>The Hidden Costs of Extra Security - The New York Times)</p>
<p>The muslim woman issue is interesting. Here in Minnesota we have a very large group of Somalia refugees and a tiny number returned to Somalia for jihad training.</p>
<p>At the airport in the secure area, it is not uncommon to have a Somali woman ring up your purchase of a book, gum, whatever. Are these clerks going through these security protocols or just going through the metal detector? I wonder how their community feels about this issue.</p>
<p>To all of you who say “no big deal” I would like you to have the image burned into your brain as I do now - my 81-year-old frail mother (twice!) in a glass cage in the middle of security with her arms over her head having her crotch and breast felt multiple times and her waist band pulled out and looked down. </p>
<p>I wanted to cry. And no, the security personnel do not make the rules, but they are certainly allowed to be kind and pleasant, aren’t they? Are they required to be surly and rude to people who have done nothing wrong? Are people still not innocent until proven guilty?</p>
<p>Can we no longer fly and keep our dignity?</p>