My plan: a negotiated conditional patdown
 

My tentative plan for the next time I fly is to opt out of the scanner if selected, request a private room, and try to negotiate a modified pat down. This is what I would say to the TSO who would be doing the patdown :

I will consent to a "pat down" but only under the following conditions:

1. No contact with my testicles or penis.
2. No contact with my anus or the inside of my butt crack.
3. No contact with the inside of my waistband or any bare skin.

If you agree not to touch my testicles but go ahead and do so anyway you can be prosecuted for "Indecent Assault and Battery on Person 14 or Older", Chapter 265, Section 13H of Massachusetts General Law with a penalty of up to 5 years in state prison. And I would press charges with the Boston Police immediately.

If the TSO does not agree to the conditional patdown. IOW, if he believes that he must "touch my junk" then I was thinking of offering him a gratuity (to express my appreciation) of up to the change fee for my plane ticket, probably somewhere between $50 and $150, in order to perform the non-genital, non-anal patdown. This is pretty risky though and probably not feasible if there are any witnesses around. Hopefully the private screening room would be private enough. Then if he tries to have me arrested for bribery it would just be my word against his.

If necessary I would allow the waistband/bare skin rub but only if he is willing to wash his hands or use an alcohol rub before changing gloves and only sticking his finger no more than the first segment of his fingertip or 1" below the waistband, whichever is shorter, and only if he does not pull out the front of my pants and peek at my package.

If he refuses the conditional patdown + (optional) bribe then I would of course opt out and be escorted from the airport by an LEO, at which point I would call the airline and reschedule my flight and try again in the hope of not being selected for the scanner next time. Rinse, repeat, and seriously consider moving to a country with more freedom. I'm wondering if I should write down the conditions under which I consent to a pat down and ask him to read it and maybe even sign it to indicate that he understands.

I like the first part, but I would skip the bribe part. If you insist on the bribe then make sure you're recording it.

The bribe is a horrible idea and will rightly result in your lawful arrest.

how so? TSO's arnt cops and therefore have no authority for an arrest.

They still count as federal agents though for the purposes of a bribe I would assume, making the act illegal.

The TSA can call real law enforcement to.

Not going to work. The TSA negotiates with no one.

That right! "Do you want to fly today?" There is no negotiation. It's "TSA way" or highway!

LAX

That was exactly the sort of feedback I was looking for. I have to admit that you are almost certainly right about that. Negotiating with a fare would at the very least be a sign of weakness. However from the reports I have seen it seems that not every TSO is doing the super-invasive patdowns, although the vast majority of them probably are. I guess the hope would be to identify when I have gotten lucky and landed a TSO who never had any intention of doing those things anyway. But even those people may get scared off by the formal list of conditions.

For practical purposes I would have to pay the extra money for a fully refundable ticket and just assume that I would have to double opt out 4 or 5 times for each planned US departure before getting lucky enough to make it past security unviolated and with my dignity intact (WTMT and no patdown).

A better option for people like me who unconditionally refuse to be porn-scanned or sexually assaulted might be to make a serious effort at trying to get a connecting flight from a smaller regional airport without a porn-scanner. The problem with that is getting picked for a secondary screening regardless. That seems to happen to me a lot. It really is very difficult to win this fight. No matter what we do I think we are left with the prospect of multiple double opt outs for each departure.

I'm not exactly sure why anybody would think that saying "you can pat me down, but you can't touch these areas" makes much sense. If you could do that, then there wouldn't be much point in doing the pat-down at all since you could have hidden objects in the area.

And I think that's the fundamental problem with the whole system. If you go for a protocol the depends heavily on pat-downs, you have no choice but to get into issues like "we can't exempt any part of the body" or that once you "find" something, you have to know what it is (e.g., a medical device or personal hygiene product). There's absolutely no point in doing the pat-down if you're not going to check the entire body or investigate anything it finds.

And I think that metal detector technology isn't useful now that the primary threat is explosives, not knives and guns. ETDs have their own limitations.

To me, I think this is pointing towards a much larger debate, which is about the fundamental nature of airport security and the inherent privacy vs. safety issue. I don't think that it makes sense to "nibble along the edges" of that debate.

I tried negotiation and compromise, and I got nowhere!


On November 20th, I was leaving Norfolk, Virginia for Seattle (on my way to Alaska for my niece's wedding. BTW- I am a middle aged white woman. I went through the metal detector with no problems, except they asked me to remove the jacket of my travel suit, which I did. Then I was approached by a woman TSA agent who asked me to go to a glassed in area. She then told me she was going to feel inside my waist band and then pat me down, including touching my crotch area. I said I was not comfortable with this and I would like to talk to her supervisor. The supervisor came over and said that "this is our procedure". I got loud at this point saying that I considered touching my crotch to be sexual assault. He said that it was the only way that I would get on the plane. Then he called his supervisor, for who I had to sit and wait. He gave the same answer "this is our procedure". I asked why I was being searched like this and was told it was that I had "baggy pants". The pants were made of a stretchy material for travel but were not oversized. I asked if I could go to the private room and remove the offending pants. I was told that they were going to do the procedure no matter what I had on. Leaving me no choice but to miss my plane and the wedding I submitted myself to the "procedure" which did include firmly feeling my crotch. I was traumatized by this experience and so shaken that I was crying and could hardly speak as they handed me the "complaint form" that I requested. The refused to give me the agents name other than "Angela". They said that they were not required to give last names.

I don't know where anyone gets the idea that it is possible to negotiate and compromise with TSA.

The complaint form is worthless; I suspect they just throw them away. You should add your story to those compiled by the ACLU at this link (scroll to bottom of page):

http://www.aclu.org/passengers-stories-recent-travel/

Unfortunately there are many hundreds of stories like yours. Please write to your elected representatives and report what happened to you. And please consider not flying again until this lunacy ends. If you do stay grounded, please write to your preferred airlines and hotels explaining why.

This is an excellent point. Another reason why I have given up on the negotiating idea. I'm either going to Double Opt Out and try again another day until I make it through, or I am going to passively submit to the patdown and when the TSO touches my balls immediately request an LEO. I won't give the reason. I will then ask the LEO to arrest the TSO under charges of "indecent assault and battery" (if flying out of BOS).

Luckily Angela is not all that common of a name in the US. It would probably be enough to positively identify her. I would encourage you to contact a criminal attorney about this. Tell him that you would like to press charges against Angela if there are any laws in your state against that sort of touching. You should also investigate for yourself. Google the name of your state and things like +sexual +assault, or +sexual +battery, or +indecent +assault etc. There is also the following federal law:

Since it is a federal law I don't know if we can use that one. It is very important that those of us who live in states with sexual/indecent assault laws (not California) start prosecuting the TSOs. That is IMO by far the most likely way of stamping out this molestation in the name of security.

I am considering the idea of something like this:

TSO: I am now going to [blah blah blah]
me: If you have any plans of touching my genitals or my butt crack would you still do the patdown if I were to tell you that I am planning to call over an LEO and press charges for Indecent Assault and Battery?

Note that I haven't actually refused the patdown per se which I assume means that they still have to do one. Lets continue the hypothetical conversation.

TSO: Do you want to fly today?
me: Yes. That is why I am not refusing the patdown. Although neither am I giving you explicit consent. It is my understanding that no form of explicit consent is required. I am merely advising you of what is about to happen out of concern for you as a fellow human being. Consider what 5 years in state prison and being put on the sex offender registry would do to your life. I thought it was only fair to warn you.

Initiating that dialog would likely be enough to get you arrested. TSOs aren't law enforcement professionals, legal experts, or even logicians. Don't do this unless you want to miss your flight.

How is this any different from the "don't touch my junk" episode?
And how do you expect it to end any differently?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ened-suit.html

Federal law applies everywhere. The problem is that what you posted is a definition, not a law. I don't see how there could be a Federal law against sexual assualt since all such laws are in the perview of the states. I'd guess that the definition is used in a context where state laws wouldn't apply (e.g., on a ship or plane).