NotSoFrequentColorado

Returning from Europe, August 2016, clearing customs and connecting through Dulles. I get to the security line for domestic departures and inquire about precheck (which was on my boarding pass). TSA <deleted by moderator> says (quite smugly) “There’s no precheck here!”

From the TSA website:
“TSA Pre✓® is available when you depart from a U.S. airport to a foreign country, and for domestic, connecting flights after you return to the United States. “

Not so much.

With no other choice, I proceed to do the shoes thing and walk through the scanner. Here’s the thing : I get a false positive EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I go through one of those. (I have found they have higher than a 30% false positive rate). So I expect a perfunctory pat-down, I’ve tried very hard not to get upset over it.

This was not a perfunctory pat-down.

Here I am, a 70-year-old, white, native-born American woman and they are not going to give up even though they must know about the high rate of false positives. I had to go BACK through the machine at least once, spread my legs farther apart, pull up my pants, hold my arms out to my sides, and then undergo a very aggressive search including hands jammed forcefully up around my genital area. In any other context this woman would be on the sexual predator watch list for the rest of her life. (And I was not offered the choice of a private room, which I would have declined anyway).

And I got LECTURED by another agent for complaining. God knows what would have happened if I tried to elevate the situation - would have missed my flight for sure, maybe would have been detained for questioning.