tanja

I know of people that went into scanners And then had their privates "touched". People who were invited by USA to work /have lectures. They have said never ever again. They got so offended by "touching their stuff".

chgoeditor

Actually, international tourism to the United States has almost doubled since 2003, and 2009 was the only year in the last decade where tourism numbers dropped. I'm not an economist, but I suspect that the weak dollar has something to do with it. (International visitor spend has doubled between 2003 and 2014, and was reportedly $180 billion last year.)

tanja

not according to the tourist board at all where I saw it. I just know what I have read and from friends/family and so on they have dropped from 100 % down to 10%. They all say cause of the rude treatment at airports . Have nothing to do with me at all.

GUWonder

Yes, the weak USD helped attract a lot of visitors; and yet the US lost global tourism marketshare despite the weak USD for much of that period even if controlling for growth in regional tourism within LDC regions.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/was...me-500000-jobs

http://www.travelandleisure.com/trav...at-the-airport

Apparently at some point last year, according to the above, more than 4 out of ten foreign visitors to the US would advise people to avoid travel to the US. That's not a good thing for American business.

WindOfFreedom

"Grow up" = Surrender all modesty, abandon all right to privacy. Accept that a dubious "authority" can do whatever it wants to your body, or prevent your flying if you don't "grow up."

Some of us refuse to "grow up." Some of us still believe in the Fourth Amendment. Even at airports.

cynicAAl

you make it sound like TSA are just grabbing boobs as people exit the scanner.

GUWonder

You make it sound like that.

The TSA are sometimes doing things that feel just like that, but the TSA doesn't limit it to just breasts.

tanja

The "people" I was thinking of was a man. A doctor invited and visting USA. He got his "junk" grabbed after the scanner.

Michelle2385

[QUOTE=WindOfFreedom;22918186]"Grow up" = Surrender all modesty, abandon all right to privacy. Accept that a dubious "authority" can do whatever it wants to your body, or prevent your flying if you don't "grow up."

Some of us refuse to "grow up." Some of us still believe in the Fourth Amendment. Even at airports.[/QUOTE

well said

manneca

The worst of the worst seems to get posted on FT. Until I got GE and pre-check, I refused to go through the backscatter machines. I was routinely patted down.

1. You do realize that it is always by a person of the same gender, don't you?

2. I have never had someone come close to my private parts. The breast pat down was always with the back of the hand, and only on the underside of my breast.

No, I didn't particularly like it, but I think the worst examples get broadcast so much that one expects that is the norm.

There is simply too much paranoia out there. Both from people who are scared of terrorists and from people who dislike government pat downs.

tanja

Depending how big your breast are . TSA have some times to push them and lift them to feel under. How great is that? Not very good to me.

I dont like any stranger male or female to my personal things just to fly. A NORMAL pat down no problem with me at all. But anything that is "private" Yes I do I think of it as molestation to me. And if it is kids grandkids and so on that is discussting rude disrespectful and you name it. That is really a paronia that "people" thinks that need to be done. Each to their own. But that is me and my family.

GUWonder

Your first item is incorrect and misleading. Sometimes there are female passengers who get patted down or groped by heterosexual males. In small town or rural regional airports this became patently obvious.

Your second item may be true for you but it is not true for all the TSA "screenings" and is misleading generally. Most TSA haraSSSSment targets and strip search machine denial passengers have sexual parts of their bodies rubbed or groped by the TSA. Other passengers also have this done by the TSA.

The underside of your breast isn't a private part? So next time some random stranger on the street wants to get a digital feel on the bottom side of your breast, you'll be fine with it and not complaining about it? I think you'd have a complaint about that too.

petaluma1

http://tsanewsblog.com/13931/news/ne...#disqus_thread

cynicAAl

which airport(s) does not staff both genders ? I've flown out of MMH airport, which has 1 commercial flight per day, and had an abundance of both gender TSA to process the single Q400 flight.

GUWonder

It's airports, and FOIA the TSA to find out if you are in so much doubt about it taking place and think the TSA will care to respond in any meaningful way that proves anything. [It's not like the TSA didn't come up with memos/policies about these kind of situations. ]

Just because TSA has staffed M and F screeners at an airport doesn't mean that the F screeners have been on duty and performing screening at all the times for the F passengers who showed up for screening at the TSA staffed airport screening checkpoints. This different sex screener type of situation has happened at TSA screening checkpoints from airports as small as RKS to airports as big as BOS, CLT and ORD; and yet sometimes it has been used to delay/deny travel to F passengers. Welcome to the TSA's being consistently inconsistent.

[MMH-LAX is not the only commercial flight that MMH has year-round. It has more than one commercial flight and destination per day, at least seasonally.]

[There are more than two genders, and there are also people who are intersex and not just M or F in the common understanding of M or F.]

The TSA says: "The patdown should be conducted by an officer of the same gender. Sometimes, passengers must wait for an officer of the same gender to become available."

What the TSA leaves out in the above is that the patdowns have sometimes been conducted by TSA employees of a different sex/gender than the passenger because the TSA doesn't always have F screeners available when a F passenger is trying to make a flight from some terminals/airports. The "option" for the F passenger is either (a) to not complete the screening and be denied/delayed travel until a F screener comes on duty and is again available or (b) to complete the screening under duress with a screener of a different sex/gender than the passenger.

The TSA also is playing its spin in the above TSA quote because it leaves out an important detail in the first of the above two TSA sentences.

The TSA doesn't even follow in practice its own statements when dealing with the screening of young children. I've repeatedly observed the TSA employees rubbing down diapered infants/toddlers without inquiring about the sex of the infants/toddlers before rubbing down the diapered infants/toddlers.