Passengers uneasy with pat-downs

USA Today ^ | 12/14/2001 | Kitty Bean Yancey

[Utah Girl]

It's touch and go at the airport now. Just ask everyday travelers pulled out of line at security checkpoints in these days of ratcheted-up scrutiny and random searches. Pittsburgh grandmother Marguerite Petito was "totally embarrassed" recently in Chicago when a wand beeped, "and the lady asked if it was OK for her to feel my breasts to make sure I was not hiding anything," she recalls. "This she did in front of all these men that were in line. ... I thought, 'Here I am getting felt up in the middle of O'Hare airport!' " The suspicious metal turned out to be the underwire of her bra. Thursday, a passenger at Boston's Logan airport refused a screening and bolted after her bra set off a metal detector. She was let go after being questioned by police. Their close encounters are not isolated ones. With more wands waving at airports than in any Harry Potter tale, running the gantlet of newly toughened screenings can mean allowing the liberties generally accorded only to a date, mate or doctor.

[Utah Girl]

Ping

[riley1992]

I will be sitting here quietly waiting for all those that will come running saying this is 'absolutely necessary if we are to live safely, blah, blah, blah'.

[technochick99]

If more people felt it was safe to fly, Baccus believes, "maybe my daughter could get her job back."

There is no absolute safety. This type of screening will make people want to travel even less.

[ChaseR]

"...there are also people for whom (giving a pat-down) is the thrill of their lives,"

These are life's perverts. I'll continue to keep my wife and daughter -Away- from all airports - for many months to come! - well take Amtrak this summer.

[Just another Joe]

If they want to live safely they should buy a bubble.
If they want to live to the fullest, That's another story.

[ErnBatavia]

Absolute, total Bullpuckey......If I had to go to Minneapolis from L.A., I'd rent a damn van and drive.

If this stupid "for show" crap doesn't stop soon, our infrastucture is finito.

The "we're doing something" crowd hasn't got a clue as to how they are part and parcel of the destruction of our travel network.

[LibKill]

Thankfully my job does not require flight.

I never liked airports before all this and it will be a looong time before I fly again.

Anyway I can find whatever I want here in the good old USA, and our 51st state, Canada. :)

[Mulder]

I will be sitting here quietly waiting for all those that will come running saying this is 'absolutely necessary if we are to live safely, blah, blah, blah'.

It may be awhile.

It looks like the "strip me, search me, humiliate me" crowd are at their weekly neighborhood "homeland security" meeting where they are learning to be good little sheep.

[Mulder]

And if you feel the search was highly professional, you could say, "Thank you."

Well, they got the phrase half right. ;-)

[Joee]

I am convinced that this type of BS is what is killing travel by a fair per centage of flying passangers. My wife and I, use to be frequent airplane riders, but will not fly again till some reason returns to the "search" process. Neither she, nor I, can stand an hour in line just to get our fannies patted. I understand, via air line friends, that this has been a major factor as to why the Japanese have quit coming this way.

[clamboat]

This type of screening will make people want to travel even less.

You can say that again. Before September 11th my fiance and I would fly from San francisco to Seattle every two weeks. Since September 11th we have gone exactky once, and we likely won't go again for months. When we went in Novermber was fine and was never searched, by my girlfriend was wanded and patted down both times after something she was wearing set off the metal detectors. Frankly I fear the security screeners more than terrorists.

[Utah Girl]

My job does require me to fly on business. I've flown once on business since 9/11, and have a couple of more trips in January. The key is to be prepared (don't wear anything metal) and don't take a huge carryon. I only carry on my laptop case, not even a purse. And if I get searched, I get searched.

[Dan from Michigan]

I'm now REALLY glad I'm driving to CPAC. I'd yap at it.

This whole society is becoming 'wussified'.

[Utah Girl]

I've been careful to pick the times I've flown. Although I didn't have much choice when I came home from Comdex in Vegas. We waited for two hours in the line. I just read a book. It is more inconvenient, but I guess I look at it as more time to read. And on business, I can chalk it off as work...

[Jesse]

I'm driving, and when I can't, I have started to take chartered air trips with other people who don't want to be subjected to this crap. Bizjet.com has a site where you can bid for trips. Flying out of where I do, I can't get 99 dollar trips anyway. Worth paying the extra buck.

I hope these new mini jets, such as the Eclipse, roll off the line soon. The Atlantic Monthly had an article (printed before Sept 11) about the coming decentralization of jet travel with the development of small, lower cost private jets which could function as air taxis and use smaller airports as their bases.

You think security and attitude by security screeners at the airport is bad now. Wait until they are federal employees.

Gutless GOP and their New age conservatism. Who would have believed in 1994 that in 2001 the GOP would have voted to nationalize an industry?

[Mulder]

The last time I had to travel, it was to a city about 500 miles away.

Others flew. I drove. I had my Sig 9mm on my hip the whole time. No body searches, no waiting in line, no crappy airline food, no sitting on the tarmac for hours while some bureaucrat whacks off.

The only harassment I got was getting pulled over for speeding. The state trooper didn't even care that I was armed. Quite a contrast to the crap at the airports.

[Dan from Michigan]

Security people - "Hey all you fliers out there....bend over, we're comin to getcha!"

[JoeFromSidney]

Federal Aviation Administration chief Jane Garvey concedes that some security measures "may seem time-consuming and intrusive, but the reality is they are absolutely necessary to keep you and your fellow passengers safe."

Baloney. None of this would have stopped the 9/11 hijackers. Let me carry my gun on board and I'll be a damn sight safer.

[RnMomof7]

I am a fat,white 58 year old grandma..I was pulled aside, screened with a wand and patted down..now do I fit the profile?

A friend found a razor blade stuck in a lap belt on a plane..seems to me the cleaning crews are more suspect than this grandma!