Yes, for the first time ever today I got a [false] positive on my cell phone after being randomly selected for additional screening.

I didn't expect to feel this way, but I felt soooo violated, almost to tears, afterward. I was talking to my DH and realized that it's because in no other context in my life, do I get zero input into how/when/where another human touches my private parts (even at the doctor's, where I go willingly, they are more respectful by a huge margin!).

The first guy was just stuffing my things where I felt they would get dirty and I reached to fold my jacket inside-in, and the woman was like, "I'll have to ask you not to touch your belongings". (Why? There's nothing I could have done terrorist-wise in that context; they "inspected" all my stuff plus me and I was under full observation.)

I don't think I'd last long in a police state. Oh, and they did the most half-assed inspection on my stuff in the end, as I watched. But don't worry; my bra and ponytail (!) and skirt were extremely thoroughly searched. It was terrible.

BTW has the TSA ever actually found something you know, dangerous, in one of these exercises? I already know that they miss dangerous things all the time, as per those news articles where reporters take through knives, bombs, etc. But I haven't heard of them catching any real explosives (!) with those mickey-mouse machines that seem to false-positive on lotion, wet-wipes, crayons, etc.

I was also really upset to see that the read-out when "positive" is "explosive detected" because that's absolutely not true. At most, some common-ish chemical is "detected". There's so not a need for that kind of as some say here, theatre.

--LG