1) hands, particularly palms forward, are much more invasive than the wand was. A TSO can squeeze/pinch/grope with the front of the hand in ways that are impossible with the back of the hand.

2) a lot more people getting the hands-on treatment - including involuntary medical opt-outs

3) NoS seems to require far more hands-on resolution than the WTMD ever did.

4) When asked if the 'new' patdown made him uncomfortable, Pistole answered 'yes', that "it was clearly more invasive than I was used to". And I'm assuming he's had far more patdowns in his career than most folks. Perhaps he could best answer your question, particularly since his answer seems at odds with some of what has been posted here and elsewhere (did the patdown change or did it not change?).

If your hands are contacting the genitals during a pat down that is not acceptable. Now if reason can be established that a suspected threat is hidden in around the genitals then call police and let law enforcement do what it does.

I think 2 years will be to long for TSA to correct the wrongs it is forcing on the public. I don't think you guys have that long. I will not be satisfied until Congress cracks down on TSA and demands changes and with an election coming up TSA is going to be an issue for those wishing to stay in office.

I have heard of the Professional Standards group. I don't know how large they are but that seems to be a place to get in on the ground floor fixing TSA. I'm sure you could find a way to apply if interested.

Why did TSA feel a need to tell us that the pat down was going to be enhanced if nothing has changed? I think you know the answer.

Now, in fairness, he didn't say the patdown was unchanged. He said that part is unchanged.

See? And he's correct.

The only thing different about the pat-down from 10/20/2002-10/31/2010 to 11/1/2010 (or thereabouts) is the addition of the screening of the inside of the leg. Which is, to say (literally, given that this is explained and offered with a hands-off demonstration prior to the beginning of the pat-down), placing one hand on the hip and the other on the inner-thigh. Previously, from that point, we went straight down the leg. Now, the hand on the thigh rises until it can't easily go any further (i.e.: "Until it meets resistance." "Resistance" isn't a body part. You can't put your hand through a steel door because it meets resistance there, too) then go down.

Everything else? Aside from us using a sliding motion instead of the old "crush and feel" technique, it hasn't changed. Not a bit.

However, GSO, I can answer that question by pointing out someone else who already answered the question.

That's the only reason. Previously, the only people to get Full-Body Pat-Downs were the folks who had pacemakers and cochlear implants other WTMD-sensitive devices, and those people in wheelchairs who couldn't stand for a couple of minutes for a wanding.

Then, when Pistole ordered the wands to be mothballed and created the Standard Pat-Down, suddenly everyone who had knee implants, who opted out of the WBI, who wore suspenders, who didn't remember their cell phone was in their sock � suddenly, all of these people are getting the pat-down.

I think it was Buffalo, but do not hold me to that, that I approached The Decider of the Path and TDotP ask me if I had medical implants. I said no and TDotP pointed to the WTMD.

This really makes sense. The MMW, but probably not the back scatter, is a good option for those with implants as the WTMD would alarm. Without the wands (why, oh, why were they trashed, they had a place) it is a good option.

When my hand comes in contact with a door and meets resistance it is a door that my hand is feeling.

When a TSA screener feels up my leg and meets resistance it is my genitals that the screener is feeling . Why can't TSA just be honest about what you guys are doing and call an apple an apple or a penis a penis?

We have been told here that if we choose to wear suspenders that we won't be required to remove them like a belt but it seems you are saying that if we wear them we will get the full body sexual assault. Is that the case?

It was TSAs Blogdad Bob that posted on the TSA blog about the Enhanced Pat Down that I was referring to. TSA announced that the pat down was going to be different and brought attention to itself.

The other difference is the change from using WBI as a secondary as TSA told the public to a primary means of screening. TSA lied to the public on this matter.

TSA has made just about every error possible and has clearly turned the public against the agency and its employees. You guys on the front lines are the beneficiary of your agencies misdeeds.

I think I have the answer to that one, too.

That started in 2005, shortly after the bra-bombers in Russia took down two airplanes. At the time, it was just a torso pat-down - shoulders to waist, front and back and sides. This was done after any and every hand-wanding.

A little later, the so-called Bulk-Item Pat-Down came into being for people who wore clothes that could conceivably hide a non-metallic threat item that couldn't be detected by the WTMD. A little later after that, the decision was made to terminate the Torso Pat-Down in favor of the Bulk-Item Pat-Down. So, the process was that you had to undergo a hand-wanding, then received the Bulk-Item Pat-Down anyway immediately afterward.

Later, it's 2010 and we have a new Administrator. Pistole is, like, "Wha'? Why are we wanding someone at all if we just have to pat them down anyway?" and terminated the use of the wands.

The main difference, though, is that the Bulk-Item Pat-Down performed after the HHMD-screening didn't cover sensitive areas, and the Standard Pat-Down does - in other words, the sensitive areas of the body (buttocks, breasts, etc) didn't have to undergo pat-down screening if they didn't alarm the HHMD. Essentially, it changed the secondary process from HHMD-BIPD, to a blanket Full-Body Pat-Down (which did include the sensitive areas of the body since they're not otherwise already screened) done for everyone who needed secondary screening of any kind.

That didn't last terribly long. Pistole wanted just one pat-down � hence, the "Standard" Pat-Down � but one size didn't fit all, it turned out. We've since added the Targeted Standard Pat-Down (in other words, for very specific areas of the body. An anomaly on the WBI shows something on the arm, then you pat down the arm. It's "targeted"), and the Modified Standard Pat-Down (for children, for flight crews, for a few other things).

Regardless of the specific type of pat-down performed, however, the fact remains that a lot more people are getting patted down than used to. Granted, there's a lot of misunderstanding going about � such as the belief that the palm of the hand is used to screen buttocks and breasts and such � and these things inflame passions even in people that do not fly and have never undergone the screening themselves, but the simple and plain fact remains that the majority of people just don't like to be touched without a good reason.

And they usually reserve for themselves the right to determine what a "good reason" is.

Considering that 90% of the suspenders that I've ever seen come through HSV alarm the WTMD? Yeah~ If you have one of those new-fangled full-plastic variety of suspenders, then it's not going to be an issue at all. It's not a "OMG TARGET THE SUSPENDERS!!" alert or anything. It's resolving the WTMD alarms. I'm sure you can appreciate that.

(Remember, Huntsville doesn't have WBI devices, so I still can't speak to anything about them, citing a lack of personal experience.)

Most here have seen pictures and video or experienced themselves a front of hand pat down on breasts and/or buttocks. It exists, even if it isn't trained that way. And that must speak to poor training or poor reinforcement of skills amongst your agency. Both of you tend not to tell us 'it didn't happen' or insinuate that we are lying, and many of us truly can report such things are happening to us.

You also overlook the war on skirts; I have been told by several people now in your agency that there is a directive that either ALL skirts or MOST skirts now require a pat down. That was not the case in past (and granted, it still varies remarkably from airport to airport)

Again, just because things are done a certain way in GSO and HSV doesn't mean that they are done that way in ORD, or SAT, or DEN or any number of other airports. There is far too much inconsistency happening right now and that is one reason why you have lost public trust. Masking poor training and poor leadership under the guise of 'planned inconsitency' is just insulting to your customers.

Probably because GSO and myself are more tactful and polite than to do something like that? Besides, I never imply anyone's lying for the same reason I can't comment on anything related to the AIT — I'm not there. For all I know, some TSO did grab a lady's breast and give it a grip, squeeze, and row. It could happen, and the most I can or will say is that the TSO involved shouldn't be employed by the TSA after that point.

Obviously. But, like I pointed out to someone else in another thread, I can only speak to what happens in Huntsville. I saw that SATTSO told someone in one thread that his iPad has to be removed from carry-on bags and be put through the x-ray separately. Clearly, this is an SAT thing. We in HSV go by the baseline rule from TSA, in that they can stay inside so long as we can still reasonably screen the bag in spite of its presence (or, in other words, that it and everything else in the bag doesn't create a cluttered mess through which nothing else can be seen).

I've said the same thing.

I don't care if you use the front of your hand, the back of your hand, your foot or any other body appendage, when you are feeling my penis and testicles during a pat down you (the TSA you) have gone to far.

How much clearer does TSA need to be told?

Not customers but victims.

I can choose to be a customer or not but do not have that option with TSA,

Professionalism should be a sine qua non. I will say that most TSA clerks I've personally interacted in the past with behaved well. I have not flown since October 2010 though. It is the rest of it that needs changing, not just the "professionalism". I don't care how professionally the strip search is done or the groin feel, butt and boob rub. That is what has to change.

great. so we wait years to see whether a court thinks that strip searches and having a stranger's hands in our groin and rubbing our butt and boobs is an unreasonable imposition. Why don't you just do the right d*mn thing and STOP IT now? What if we all acted like this, doing whatever we thought we could get away with, and scr*w the other guy? That is not a society of any sort.

You folks are rubbing our butts, breast areas, and inner thighs to the pubic bone, rubbing the length of the groin down to the pubic bone. I appreciate the not squeezing or twisting of the family jewels, but those other things are absolutely intolerable!

The methodology, technique, and targeted areas are everything.

The old frisk was somewhat tolerable. It did not have the repeated sliding of hands all over the body. That is so d*mned offensive and useless. You can get what you need in the old frisk pat that WAS a pat. For crying out loud, LEOs have to restrict themselves to that, and they are in FAR more danger than you folks. And by frisk I do NOT mean the perp frisk, I mean the cursory frisk you got if you got momentarily detained (not a suspect) or that you got at the courthouse if the WTMD was not working and you were on your way to jury duty. They did NOT slide or even touch up into the area of the testicles or get so close in the front of the groin that there was any question of genital contact. I don't know how the women's chest areas were treated, but it surely did not entail what is being done now. The sliding rubbing action is simply obscene.

This precisely is the crap you need to stop. that is offensive. We are not perps being sent through a custodial search.

Yes, but that is a major change as the sliding is highly offensive. You need to stop it and go back to what people have been doing for decades. We are not perps, for pete's sake!

So is the solution (more likely for men) to having our balls touched to wear pants that have a slightly longer rise, then spread our legs in such a way that they are taught and leave some empty space between the trouser and crown jewels?

Can I assume that (sorry if I'm stereotyping) most of the suspenders coming through HSV are the clip-on variety, and not the button-on variety (which have significantly less metal)?

I can appreciate and respect your recognition that such problems can exist but it needs to spread to the rest of TSA. If TSA claims that touching breasts and genitals is not authorized as part of the administrative search, then a TSO who does touch a breast (and I don't mean clumsily, by accident, I mean a clear molestation) not only needs to be fired, but needs to have their administrative search immunity retroactively revoked, and charged with sexual assault.

What has made TSA's actions so repugnant on this issue is a combination of "that can't happen, because it's against the rules" (so's theft, btw) and "we can do whatever we want."

And where in TSA regulations does it say that individual airports can invent their own procedures? Oh, right, it's possible it doesn't, but SSI and all that.