Finally, one should consider the implicit message that the full-body scans conveys to travelers. The explicit message is that the T.S.A. is doing everything in its power to keep us safe — something which might increase confidence in air travel. Many travelers, however, might read between the lines in the following way: the T.S.A. is making us go through all this rigmarole because otherwise air travel would be very, very dangerous; terrorists might be hiding explosives in their underpants! (Among other places.) One can draw an analogy, for instance, to the new security cameras that the city of Chicago has been installing: they are deliberately designed to be conspicuous, since the cameras are accompanied by extremely vibrant blue police lights — and they may well decrease crime. But they only appear in marginal neighborhoods that were susceptible to high crime rates to begin with. The explicit message is that the Chicago Police Department is doing what it can to keep everyone safe. The implicit message is that it is doing so because this is a really dangerous neighborhood — and perhaps you should be buying your condo, or planning your wedding reception, somewhere else.

How the new security procedures affect demand for air travel overall is hard to gauge. And of course, if they indeed prevent another terrorist attack, the upside would be quite significant, since few events would do more to reduce air travel than another 9/11.

Nashville fliers feel frisked
Travelers complain pat downs, scanners are far too intrusive
BY JENNY UPCHURCH • THE TENNESSEAN • NOVEMBER 19, 2010

Some travelers at the Nashville airport say new full-body scanners and security pat downs are something they can live with if it makes flying safer. But others are so outraged that they vow never to fly again. One Nashville woman who endured a pat down likened it to police frisking a criminal.

Travelers flying the day before Thanksgiving are being urged by civil liberties groups to refuse the scanners, a protest that could throw the busy day in the skies into chaos on the ground.

5 Tips for TSA from Their Government Peers
by Steve Ressler

Earlier this week, we posed the following challenge to members of GovLoop, a group of nearly 40,000 people who work in and around government:

Help TSA Out of This Mess! Share Your Ideas to Improve Travel Right Now!

As you might suspect with all the mainstream media coverage, this post has been our most popular over the past week as it has elicited over 80 comments to date. While we've seen some of the flagrant flaming of TSA that is typical of most forums across the Web, we have also been impressed with the number of thoughtful responses with constructive ideas for TSA. Since the community is mostly comprised of civil servants and private contractors who work alongside government, you might consider it something akin to a family intervention.

Like the UCSF scientists, Brenner adds that he'd like to see "more independent analyses of the radiation doses involved," since "there is fairly convincing evidence" that the FDA is underestimating the radiation dose delivered by these scans.

Anti-gay activist: gay TSA workers are ‘secretly getting turned on'
by GoPride.com News Staff
Wed. November 17, 2010 5:15:33 AM : 4 Comments - continue the discussion

Chicago, IL — The debate and uproar over airport full-body scans and pat-downs by the Transportation Security Administration continues to heat up, but one radical anti-gay activist has given the debate a new homophobic spin, saying gay TSA workers may become secretly "turned on" during a pat-down.

"Is it fair to travelers who may end up getting ‘groped' by homosexual TSA agents who are secretly getting turned on through the process," says Peter LaBarbera who heads the anti-gay group Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), based in west suburban Naperville.

In a press released designed to garner attention for his anti-gay group, LaBarbera raises the concern of male travelers getting "groped" by Barney Frank and female travelers getting a lesbian pat-down from Ellen DeGeneres.