You keep bringing up this "witness of your choice," like that makes it better for a woman (or person) traveling alone to be going off to a secret back room having no idea what will happen to her and no idea what her rights are in the situation. How does someone traveling alone get the witness of their choice in that situation? A TSA-allied LEO wouldn't be "my choice," nor would some random airline employee or traveler who happened to be in the vicinity. My husband, lawyer, or intimidating, muscular friend with an anger management problem, those would be my preferred choices. But if I'm traveling alone? I don't get my witness of choice.

What you don't seem to understand, Ron, is that we ladies have our SOP we follow when we are traveling alone, not unlike how kids are taught about "good touch bad touch." One of the cardinal rules is not to allow a potential predator to lure you to a secondary (especially private!) location. Statistically, that is how crime victims get the worst of what's coming to them, including rape and murder. I'm not suggesting that rape and murder are what awaits ladies in the TSO's back room, but you are indeed "manipulating social norms" here, demanding that we drop our own, long-standing, well-crafted safety procedures to comply with your haphazard process which seems to change by the day and location, which we are not allowed to fully understand, and which is carried out by people we have no way to make sure do not, in fact, have hostile intent.

Just like you must assume we are all potential terrorists, it's in our best interests to assume that you and your colleagues are potential predators. You know. Out of the abundance of caution. Anything for safety.