I agree, Mr. Furious. I am very glad that people like Bart and TSAMGR are here and I am grateful that they have the helpful attitudes they do toward the issues FF'ers raise.

What Bart said is something many others have tried to say here: that objections to screening are really about convenience. I would gladly endure more inconvenience if it meant I kept my dignity, liberty, belongings, and clothing intact. Instead I am stripped of the above a bit at a time by this insane urge to physical search anything that moves, but only in one tiny corner of our daily lives. Because I'm a FF, it affects me more than most and so I complain more than most. To say that I am writing letters to Congress, trying to organize protests, complaining regularly in writing to TSA authorities, spending my free time on FT trying to get others fired up for activism on this issue - all for convenience, again(?) - has got to be deliberately dishonest.

I think being asked to remove parts of my clothing in public is shameful. I think having my breasts touched by government agents is sickening. I think people are put in danger of sexual abuse by checkpoint practices. I think the infirm are in danger of physical harm. I think medical privacy is in shambles when people are explaining their devices, drugs, and medical conditions to uniformed government officers. I think searching people's belongings is a crude and ineffectual response to the threat of international terrorism. I think I shouldn't have to discuss or reveal my travel habits within the U.S. to government agents, absent any suspicion of me personally. None of these concerns has even a passing relation with convenience. Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty, with privacy thrown in for good measure.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about tradeoffs between liberty and security.