All depends on the airport. No nude body scanner not only means no nude body scans, but also significantly fewer pat-downs.
Call me tin-foil hat if you want -- I don't believe in government conspiracies, just government stupidity, power plays, and dirty money -- but I've seen many people with blue gloves on their crotches and in their pants.
It's all for nothing. If you had to sneak a handgun through security on your body, would you try it with a metal detector or with a nude body scanner? There are plenty of ways to defeat the nude body scanner (cover item with proper density material, hide in body cavity, hide under large breasts or other body fat, get lucky and end up with a screener that's not paying attention,
etc.), but there's nothing you're going to do to get that handgun through a WTMD.
...and I'm sorry, who were you referring to that understands security that thinks highly of the TSA?
Originally Posted by
cb1111
The people who understand security agree as well. It is the paranoid group that thinks that they understand security (but in reality are clueless) that disagree with anything that the Government does.
It is funny, I travel a great deal (on a plane at least once a week for the past 6 months) in various airports in the US and have yet to be groped or asked to do anything but walk through the WTMD. I must be doing something wrong because I'm not subjected to the indignities that the tin foil crew is exposed to.
Maybe my mistake is that I take everything out of my pockets and stow it in my carryon before I get to the checkpoint. I remove my watch (and only have been asked once to remove my belt) and put my shoes on the conveyor. I've never even had my carryon pulled aside for an inspection.
I've even been known to say "Good morning" to the guy or gal checking my boarding pass against my ID.
Obviously everyone is shocked by some of the stupid things that happen at times but even the tin foil crew has to admit that they are isolated cases given the sheer amount of passengers transiting airports every day.
Come to think of it, in the last month or so I've only seen one pax pulled out of line for additional screening. Perhaps I'm traveling in a parallel universe.
Or maybe it is that I don't expect to get hassled and so I don't.
--Jon