I can completely understand why you wouldn't believe me, and I don't blame you for being skeptical. Honestly, if I weren't the one who had posted this, I'd figure I was a crackpot who made the whole thing up. I mean, how can this sort of thing be true? How can this actually be happening in a country like America? In a fascist dictatorship, sure, that's believable, but in America? It's logicial to dismiss the story as just some legend posted on the internet, too absurd to be believed. And in a minute, even the people who believed me before are going to say I'm making the whole thing up. But, at the risk of any future credibility, here goes...

After I heard this friend's story, I e-mailed a friend of mine who is a public defender, since I don't know anyone more knowledgeable about search and seizure law, because there was no way in my mind that this could be reasonable under the law. And here's the part where even the people who weren't thinking I'm making this up start to believe I must be a liar: she said her stepmother was also subjected to a body cavity search on her last flight. She said that the TSA people told her that it is their policy to do regular extra screening (pat-downs and questioning) when someone has booked a one-way ticket, and to do a body cavity search if they're on a one-way ticket that they didn't pay for themself. Since her step-mom was on a one-way ticket and hadn't paid for it herself, she got the "extra screening" that involves a body cavity search.

When I read her e-mail, I thought to myself, "Someone is playing a sick joke on me." I mean, it's just not possible that I, a boring middle-class suburbanite office worker, could know not one, but two people who have been given body cavity searches by the TSA. I mean, if it's this prevalent, it would be all over CNN, wouldn't it? But my friend the public defender lives in the Pacific Northwest, and my friend whose girlfriend got searched lives in the DC area, and they've never met each other. And neither of them is psychotic enough to play that kind of joke on me.

My friend the public defender says that the ACLU is probably going to be taking action on this issue, so she recommended that people who have been subjected to cavity searches contact their local ACLU chapter.

Personally, I just can't bring myself to believe that there is a real TSA policy allowing body cavity searches simply because someone bought you a one-way plane ticket. If there is, wouldn't this board be covered with personal stories about these kinds of searches? Wouldn't the lawsuits be all over the news by now? I do believe that these two people were searched, because these two friends of mine are not prone to making things up, but I guess I'm inclined to see it as some bad-apple TSA agents who need to be reprimanded, not a systemic issue.

Now, everyone can go ahead with their "This is totally not believable" posts. Like I said, I don't blame you a bit, if it were anyone else but me writing this I'd be thinking the same thing.