The Airport Security Grope

I think the president, the VP, every senator, every representative, every supreme court judge and their wives/husbands should be required to go through this.<p>And the scanner print outs should be publicly available, as well as videos of the groping...eh "pat downs".<p>Surely they wouldn't require the cattle to do something that they themselves would object to? Surely.<p>BTW filling out a complaint form is a complete waste of time...if you want to get attention, actually call your senator/representative.

I'm hoping that this is finally the straw that breaks the camels back and people start to push back on these "security" measures. Not traveling via air is an option for some people but for most when they fly they aren't any reasonable alternatives. Making these invasions a prerequisite to flying means you are going to have strangers looking at you naked regularly or being groping (which I'm presuming is meant to be as invasive as possible to encourage use of the scanners). The alternative to this is turning down a job away from anybody you would like to see regularly, or any job that requires frequent travel or going to college in another state etc. And boy is your life about to suck if you travel with kids or someone elderly.

I wonder: can I claim to be gay and would therefore prefer to be patted down by a woman? Can we make this a standard thing to claim?<p>I would imagine that if they did not adhere to this request, then they would be guilty of sexual discrimination. I can equally imagine the scene if 95% of male travellers claimed to be gay and demanded to be groped by a lady 'for American values'. I cannot imagine that there will be <i>that</i> many women willing to grope a man on command.<p>Other things to try: not washing for several days before the flight, telling the patting-down officer to be careful because you have lice, feigning injury from an aggressive pat-down and rolling around on the floor clutching your privates, like a soccer player who's been roughly tackled. Air travel has been turned into a fucking circus; let's go along with it and have some fun at the same time!

I think we're at the point where if you offered every traveler a choice of a screened flight or a non-screened flight, most would take the non-screened flight.<p>I suggest we all write our Congresscritters and explain this. I don't think protesting to the TSA, at any level, will accomplish anything at all.

I've written to the airline I use for most travel and explained why this holiday season I'll be driving to my destinations.<p>The airlines have the power in this situation, if they protest, this <i>will</i> be changed.

A thought comes to mind: Is it arguably illegal now for a job to require you to fly? It may not be sexual assault in the legal sense when the TSA does it, but that's partially because you can be said to have consented. If someone else is "forcing you to consent" (quoted for oxymoronicity) then that is a different thing altogether, and given the extreme attention the law pays to sexual harassment in the workplace it would not surprise me that while the government and the TSA agents are indemnified, your company may not be.<p>Actually, let me refine that to merely point out that one could plausibly file a very expensive and uncomfortable-to-your-employer lawsuit over this; I wouldn't guarantee victory, but I wouldn't guarantee defeat, either.

The solution is rather simple tho requires a fair bit of determination and ground swell to achieve.<p>The Gandhian strategy of civil disobedience, TSA wants more people to pass thru the porn machine. We as a country should request not passing thru the machine. Assume that more people require individual attention resulting in greater lines and longer delays at the airports. Delays that will not be acceptable to the airlines, TSA or even us the traveling people.<p>Small price to pay to secure the freedoms of those after us.<p>There are a couple of consequences that could happen as a result, (a) mandatory porn machine scan for everyone no exception or (b) a change in policy.<p>For a president who claimed that we were winning the war because the terrorist hated our freedoms, this loss of freedom should come as a shock. We might be winning the battle of the guns, we are losing the war of the minds.<p>--- Interim recruiting slogan for the TSA --- Come one , come all, we grope them all. White or color, young or old, women and men. Gay straight and transsexuals we like to feel them all.<p>(Small print): TSA is an equal opportunity groper. Guarantor : United states Govt.

Is there a dress code at airports? To make a point, I’m considering showing up to the security queue in a Speedo.

It's hard to think of a procedure that would encourage more disrespect and fear of government, its personnel and policies than the aggressive pat down.<p>It's clearly meant as intimidation. Your government disrespects you so much that it will subject you to a humiliating experience to intimidate you into accepting a different humiliating experience.<p>When my government shows me this much disrespect and intimidation, I start to wonder whether they're serving my needs, and whose needs they really are serving.<p>This is thuggery, and the only difference between the aggressive pat down, and slapping me in the face until I agree to go in the scanner, is in degree, not in kind.

The actions by certain TSA employees as depicted by recent articles on HN are reprehensible. No doubt about it.<p>However! I fly about every 2 to 3 weeks in and out of big airports and small airports. I have had pat downs and swipes and millimeter wave scans. I have even worked on next generation explosives detection technology(THz,Long Range, Surface UV). Yet, over the past 3 years of this type of mobile lifestyle, I have never observed or have been subjected to the types of harassment recent articles have detailed. Surely it happens, yes. But my experience both on the inside and out of this industry tells a different story. Privacy IS respected by people developing and deploying these technologies. Privacy IS respected by TSA employees who are concerned for the safety of each passenger.<p>Whether these policies or technologies are effective is another debate, but I just think there is a great deal of overgeneralization going on here. Maybe I'm just an outlier.

I'm from Australia, but we will be flying to the US in the next few years with our son (and we have a second on the way).<p>My question is, are children subject to the requirement of either a scan or a pat down?<p>I find it hard to believe that any law would allow the photographing of a child effective nude, much less the touching of "genitals". I would never allow my child(ren) to be subjected to either of these measures. Does this mean I should find another country to visit?<p>Even for adults, call me ignorant, but how is this not sexual assault? In any other situation, if I was subjected to a genital grope I'd be pressing charges.

The war on terror is over. The terrorists won. God save us.

I think the interesting bit is this choice between getting groped in public vs. private.<p>Personally, I'm <i>much</i> more comfortable with an authority figure in public than in private. I mean, photos of some TSA guy with his arm halfway up my ass are going to be a <i>whole lot</i> more embarrassing for him than for me. I mean, he could loose his job, while for me, the worst that would happen is my friends would tease me a bit.<p>Really, "what you would be willing to do when other people are watching" is often a reasonable ethical shorthand for 'the right thing' - allowing people to (optionally) release the recording of their interaction with law enforcement would go a long ways towards reducing abuses by law-enforcement.<p>On the other hand, what I'm really afraid of is getting put on some secret list, and video taping doesn't protect me from that.

I'm flying for Thanksgiving, I plan to get to SFO a little early and hand out some of these flyers that a Flyertalk user created: <a href="http://www.dontscan.us/downloads.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dontscan.us/downloads.html</a> They're not perfect, but pretty accurate all-around.<p>Whether you prefer to let someone see you naked or grope you is a personal decision, but I imagine there are plenty of people who haven't flown in the last 2-3 years, and they should at least know their options before they get into security and blinded by authority.

Let's hope the next terrorist doesn't hide the bomb up his ass or ingest it, or else politicians will make sure those places are checked too.

Not explicitly tech related, but since a lot of tech folk are photographers and we all tend to fly a bit more than the average person, thought it was good info to have here.<p>Just wait until someone tries to smuggle something onboard using their iPad or Kindle. <i>shakes head</i>

I am reminded of the old Rodney Dangerfield joke:<p>"If it weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all."<p>Now available in a new, updated TSA version:<p>"If it weren't for TSA genital groping, I'd have no sex life at all."

Reading these stories it makes it sound as if American Airports are becoming a virtual Police State (I haven't been to the US since 2002).<p>I live in a first world country (New Zealand) and we only have metal detectors and x-ray machines (and you only have to go through them if your plane has more then 50 seats). They're quite lax about it as well I've gotten knives through (accidentally) both in my pocket and on a tray through the x-ray machine. Also our inbound customs care more about fruit than drugs or explosives: <a href="http://www.customs.govt.nz/nr/rdonlyres/9bec875b-dc37-4309-9033-67a34a770ed0/0/englishpassengerarrivalcardaug2010.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.customs.govt.nz/nr/rdonlyres/9bec875b-dc37-4309-9...</a>

I'd drive or take a train if I could avoid flying. Unfortunately, I live on an island, not much I can do except take a plane if I want to visit family in the continental US.<p>I pretty much have to do what they want or be stuck here.

It's interesting to note that if these machines produced a regular "skeleton" x-ray image, instead of the "nude" image, nobody would care that much, and it might even be an improvement, if it sped up the lines.

I think I am going to start wearing a protective cup whenever I have to fly.<p>Hmm, for that matter, would those protect you from the high tech strip search?

Pretty soon they'll be taking random innocent people away--for good. I've stopped flying, myself.

This is making the US look like a country with a repressive government. Many countries with repressive governments don't look this bad when you visit their airports.

Why do people keep insisting on flying under these conditions? Seriously, you can find pictures of pretty much any place you want online, you can have a video call to the other side of the planet for free through Skype, and you can buy pretty much anything you want online.<p>It makes sense for the photographer, but it makes no sense for most people who fly.

I fear that the military-industrial complex has finally found something to be afraid of that can't fight back: its own citizenry.<p>Sadly enough, this is not an issue of good people or bad people -- I think the vast majority of TSA screeners are good people who want only what's best for the public. This problem has two parts, framing and execution.<p>The framing is a one-sided issue: who's going to argue that we need less security? It's a system designed to continue to turn the screws. Mark my words. It will not stop here.<p>The execution is even worse: top-down, one-size-fits-all, factory-processing of people. This makes for an expensive, cumbersome, and inflexible system. Oddly enough, the more standardized you make security practices, the easier you make it for <i>real</i> terrorists to take down the system. It's the entire basis of asymmetrical warfare. Small groups of highly-nimble adversaries working against a huge standardized behemoth. The U.S. should have made a conscious decision not to play that game. But it didn't.<p>When you have a problem that's defined poorly and executed poorly? Not much chance of improvement, I'm afraid.

I wonder if this will ever get bad enough that we'll see people start to use trains again, even if it does take significantly more time.<p>Of course, if rail were ever to get popular enough again, they'd just institute the same scanning procedures there too.

As a counterpoint to what everyone is saying, there is no point in any pat-down if it's not thorough.<p>A pat-down that doesn't touch the genitals or other sensitive areas is not going to find any terrorists, it just gives the impression of security.

Haven't we had enough of these articles already? They're not about startups or technology, really, and I think we've all formed our opinions at this point. Posting them here won't change a thing, in any case.