TSA touched my junk

[muckefuck]

So I finally drew the short straw in the security line. That is to say, I'd made it all the way to the front, my belongings where in the machine, but before I could walk through the gate, the guy manning the full-body scanner called me over. I was fairly annoyed, since I'd specifically chosen not get in his line and he probably wouldn't have noticed me if there hadn't been a hold up in both my line and his.

Naturally, this happens to me not, say, on my trip to St Louis, where I arrived at Midway with an hour to kill, but my trip away, where my ride failed to show and I was dropped off by my brother-in-law right before my flight began to board. (No surprise there, really; I flew a half-dozen times with an expired ID once and STL was the only place where anyone noticed.) So as I stood there listening to Sargent Gruff bark into his walkie-talkie over and over "I've got a male opt out here" with no sign that anyone was heeding him, it was a strain to keep a civil tongue.

Then the guy they finally got was a terrible mumbler, which is bad because part of the full pat down process is to explain every step before it happens and--apparently--obtain consent at critical points. I say "apparently", because soon I was saying "yes" to whatever came out of Officer Mumbles' mouth just to move the damn process along. He was as professional about it as possible, but there's no getting around what an invasive procedure it is; I can see how it would be intolerable for anyone with any kind of physical violation triggers.

I was literally the last paying customer to board the airplane (right after me was a pilot flying standby) meaning I was squeezed in between a large fleshy man and a polite sleeper who also hogged the armrest about six rows away from my second carryon. All the more reason to take the train next time I have to go to St Louis. Terrorists have attacked them, too, but you could still carry on a duffel bag of explosives if you wanted to.

Comments

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Good job not taking the path of least resistance-- it must have been at least tempting to just give up and go through the scanner.

(Which one suspects is the general thrust of the TSA's ground-level treatment of the opt-out procedure, however "voluntary" the scanners are officially supposed to be.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I've been psyching myself up for this for a while and was committed to opt out even if it meant missing a flight. Fortunately it didn't come to that. But the whole experience just made me feel worse for the people for whom opting out really isn't an option under any circumstances.

I keep hoping we've hit the high water mark with this nonsense and will see the reaction take hold, but I continue to be disappointed. The one move I noticed in the other direction was signs saying that under-12s and over-75s no longer have to remove their shoes. What happened to the overhearted rhetoric of "the moment we stop strip-searching children is the moment al-Qaeda begins putting kids strapped with explosives onto our planes"?

[kcatalyst.livejournal.com]

We went to the White House recently and no one fondled us at all! We did get sniffed by a dog behind a screen. I'm sure there are a zillion reasons, some of which aren't actually stupid, but I found it weird that getting into the White House involved less invasive security than getting on a plane.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Giving full benefit of the doubt: the White House can't be used to leverage relatively small armament to control of a missile that can take down a skyscraper.

Now, I'm pretty sure that with reinforced cockpit doors, passenger awareness that a hijacking isn't likely to lead merely to a few days on the tarmac in a third-world country, and an air force much more likely to react precipitously to a passenger jet deviating towards a major downtown, that's become very unlikely with aircraft. But while they also mean to protect the planes themselves from shoe-bombers, I'd say that's the last war the TSA is committed to fighting.

[sandor-baci.livejournal.com]

At Gatwick airport some years ago I was called over for a pat-down. I showed my -- business-class? Bronze medallion frequent-flyer card? -- to the screener as he violated my personal space and said "These should qualify me for at least a cuddle afterward." Not a blink. "I'm on duty now, sir, but I can meet you at the King's Arms in Gatwick town three hours."

All the best offers pass me by.