As a grandma who got patted down in order to pick my daughter up at O’Hare airport on Sunday (the other grandma booked a 9 year old “unaccompanied minor” thru O’Hare with a layover!!!!), I would have rather had the scanner, too.
And, I’d rather all those Arabic, black, and Pakistanian/Indian men were scanned, also.
I don’t like to fly, but I do like to go places I couldn’t go otherwise - like St. Martin in January. I’m not going to let some crazy men keep me from the sun and warm water. And, definitely not from my granddaughter.
I was victim of a “no alarm” and “random” body search. The woman was young, and polite, but the pat-down was still intrusive. However, it did not include what could easily be considered the best areas for smuggling explosives - the “swimsuit areas.”
Bodies are made up of pretty generic parts and xrays and scans won’t show enough detail to be identifiable. I’m not sure how successful they’d be in the case of smuggling in body folds and cavities.
I, also a grandma, have only been patted down once. It was by a black woman who was so nervous and jittery you would have though I was some kind of wild animal. She lightly patted my groin area and then came up to my waist where her hand encountered my plastic telephone clip that I had clipped on my waist band. She almost shrieked and drew back in horror as if she had found me pointing a gun at her.
It was so funny it made me laugh out loud. I was a terrorist alright, I terrified her.