Posted on 11/06/2010 3:58:56 AM PDT by SkyPilot
HAVING been taught by nuns in grade school and later going through military boot camp, I have always disliked uniformed authorities shouting at me. So I was unhappy last week when some security screeners at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago started yelling.
“Opt out! We got an opt out!” one bellowed about me in a tone that people in my desert neighborhood in Tucson usually reserve for declaring, “Rattlesnake!”
Other screeners took up the “Opt out!” shout. I was marched from the metal detector lane to one of those nearby whole-body imagers, ordered to take everything out of my pockets, remove my belt and hold my possessions up high. Then I was required to stand still while I received a rough pat-down by a man whose résumé, I suspected, included experience at a state prison.
“Hold your pants up!” he ordered me.
What did I do to deserve this? Well, as I approached the checkpoints, I had two choices. One was a familiar lane with the metal detector, so I put my bag on that. To my right was a separate lane dominated with what the Transportation Security Administration initially called “whole-body imagers” but has now labeled “advanced imaging technology” units. Critics, of course, call them strip-search machines.
I don’t like these things, and not just because of privacy concerns or because of what some critics have asserted are radiation safety issues with some of the machines that use X-ray technology.
No, I don’t like the fact that I have to remove every item from every pocket, including my wallet and things as trivial as a Kleenex. You then strike a pose inside with your hands submissively held above your head, like some desperado cornered by the sheriff in a Western movie, while the see-through-clothes machine makes an image...
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The one I have from Portsmouth Naval Hospital is similar to a credit card, but it takes a photo ID to go with it.
Our military and cops don’t seem to have a problem with skirts.
The “enhanced” pat-down technique is designed to make the naked scan the less intrusive option. In order to be worse than that, they pretty much have to grab your crotch and shake.
Why else would this new pat down have become suddenly necessary at the very time the naked scans were being rolled out all across the country. They are trying to herd us all through their scanners, and all the crotch-grabbing is the way they’ll do it.
The way to combat this, of course, is to opt out and demand that the TSA employee fondle you in a very familiar fashion. Then, what you must do (and this is the tough part) is pretend that you are enjoying it. If the TSA employees have to deal with dozens of passengers every day who are appearing to be gratified by their actions, this enhanced pat-down procedure will be modified in one heck of a hurry.
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