GUWonder

Anyone here been subjected to the changed TSA "pat-down"?

According to this https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-more-invasive it's been tested recently and is designed to be more "intimate".

Sounds like the TSA really wants to feel up passengers more than it has already been doing for years.

petaluma1

So now, everyone (even crew members) who gets a patdown will be sexually assaulted.

What I want to know is how many what TSA calls "dangerous items" have EVER been found while assaulting passengers.

JoeBas

"More intimate contact than before"??? Pretty soon they're gonna be eligible to get busted under local lewdness laws for free handjobs the way things are now.

rickg523

I wonder what the TSO would do if people pretended to enjoy the intimate contact ("mmmm, you could do that again if you want..") instead of expressing their actual revulsion.

HomerJay

The President said you can do whatever you want. It was in that Access Hollywood interview with Billy Bush. Only he didn't use the word "bush," when he talked about grabbing.

GUWonder

That's exactly ehaf I was thinking. Between that and the "tougher on security" posturing, American passengers get to have these grab downs this year. That and worse consumer rights for American flight passengers.

Boggie Dog

If overt genital contact is made by a TSA screener then summon police and make a complaint.

petaluma1

Typical recently:

Then revised to:

IOW, your genitals will be grabbed or probed.

https://gizmodo.com/tsa-says-aggress...uch-1792953762

GUWonder

Typically dishonest effort to pretend this is to be the same business as what was going on last year? Don't know what else to make of the "several months ago" language from the TSA when the TSA knows full well when they first did this at airports.

eigenvector

Yes, I got it at IAH recently because I had a credit card in my shirt pocket when I went through the "bodyscanner". The agent also put my Amex card through the X-ray machine.

KDS

Although I was able to avoid the "intimate" personal contact yesterday, my laptop was not so lucky. I had put a small piece of paper with a reminder note inside the laptop and apparently it made the X-ray screener very concerned. A TSO had to have intimate contact with the outside and inside of the laptop in order to "screen" it. Good thing my laptop can't blush.



As a serious comment, this will further restrict traveling by air. Only in the USA must one submit to this despicable behavior in order to "freely" travel. The TSA must go away forever.

txflyer77

Any of the resident lawyers care to chime in on how far the TSA can push these searches without the courts taking a closer look?

It's only a matter of time before this ends in a lawsuit. Or a TSO gets his teeth kicked in by a sexual assault victim whose PTSD comes raging back while being groped at a checkpoint.

FredAnderssen

You know how those NBA players fall down after being barely touched? If I get the "karate chop" or "crotch grab," I'm liable to fall down, too. At least it'll make good evidence for my pursuit of compensation for assault.

gojirasan

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13788721

This is just horrifying. I am not sure but I think they can 'randomly' subject you to this even if you don't alarm the scanner. I tend to be one of those people subjected to 'random' searches by the TSA more often than most people.

Until this new 'more intimate' (whatever they mean by that vague phrase -- could it mean anything other than more genital contact?) patdown has been clarified by more travelers subjected to it I would err on the side of caution and just choose to change/cancel my ticket and exit the airport if chosen for a random patdown. Then I'd try my luck again another day.

Luckily I have never had a problem with the MMW scanners alarming and the milllimeter wave tech and cartoonish displays don't bother me. So I don't opt out. I'm more concerned being randomly selected for a search. Actually I tend to travel with lots of computer parts in my carry-ons and I have been selected for body searches for that reason. So I am probably a lot more likely to have problems with this than many of you.

Another option if you are like me and it is the same-sex nature of the molestation that is most disturbing is to 'present yourself' as a transgender person . Hopefully I would not need to actually dress up as a woman in order to pull this off. My plan would just be to tell them in a falsetto voice that I am a pre-op transexual and that I am mentally female and would like to request a female screener do the patdown.

Even if they don't buy it at the very least by doing this we could clarify what their actual rules are by testing them. If it didn't work I'd have to ask for my things and make sure I get my passport and boarding pass back and then just walk away and leave the airport.

I don't think I've posted about my experience here yet but I was the victim of TSA-inspired (for a flight to the US) sexual molestation and it really did cause me lasting mental trauma. It was just awful. More awful than I even imagined it would be before it happened to me. I would really encourage anyone who might willingly subject themselves to this new 'more intimate' molestation to choose a no fly option instead.

eigenvector

@gojirasan, what you describe is exactly what I experienced 3 weeks ago at IAH. The TSA officer was obviously quite uncomfortable with the procedure and said he had to call over a supervisor to witness it in case of complaints. Disgusting.