Prepare for closer inspection
 

Star-Telegram Article

"A new focus on finding explosives concealed on a would-be terrorist's body or in carry-on luggage will have Transportation Security Administration screeners touching where no screener has touched before.

The next time you set off the airport metal detector, or are randomly selected for extra screening, be prepared to be patted down at your waist and below."

Admiral David Stone - you are a disgrace to the United States of America. I don't know how you managed to serve in a branch of the United States military since you're nothing but an un-American filthy communist who couldn't secure a wet paper sack.

Your intrusive and meaningless policies do nothing to protect travelers as most explosives do not contain metal and can easily be hidden where your perverted little touchy-feely gropings can't find them. It's bad enough that you've continued and now expanded the Shoe Carnival. Did you and the rest of your little pervert cronies tire of merely looking at travelers' feet at your last circle jerk? Now you can get your jollies pretending you're there feeling up the passengers, too.

If you were even half a man, you'd put in the GE EntryScans and quit on this latest version of harassment. But you're not. You're a candy-assed little coward who belongs in a North Korean gulag. I sincerely hope that your sorry, un-American ... is sent there when these latest policies of harassment fail to detect explosives and a plane gets blown up.

Don't hold back spiff, it isn't good for you. Tell us how you really feel! ;)

More from the article:

Two Chechen women are believed to have passed through security with explosives hidden around their waists or in their underwear.

Same-sex screeners will do the touching, looking for larger-than-normal bulges, bumps or irregular shapes.

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Wow. The persons of size lobby is going to have a field day with this one. Have you ever looked, I mean, really looked, at what a 300+ pound woman's waist area looks like? Um, larger than normal bulges are pretty normal in our overweight society. There is no way you could do the kind of checking this article seems to imply without literally lifting peoples' fat rolls and feeling around inside them. It's official : these guys have completely lost their marbles.

Yet another in a LONG line of overeactionary measures from this joke of an agency.

I am still waiting for that "Professionalism" that Comrade Daschle promised us.

Bugmenot.com is down, so I created the following account to access the article

[email protected]
flyertalk1 [the password required a non-alphabetic character]

Expect complaints and instances of assault on screeners to go up. I'm sorry, but thats the kind of self-defense reaction they should expect if they start touching the "bulges" in people's groin area.

I warned of this in another post. It is not the only thing that's gonna get you a pat-down.

What else wil get me a pat down? Please don't say shoes...

This is not only going to lead to an increase of violence against screeners, but also an increase of sexual assualt charges too.

I will not strike a screener, I have too much to lose. But, if any of them touch me in an inappropriate way, I will press charges.

Too bad there's a lot of overreactions in here from what I would presume to be decent folks.

TSA procedures do not allow screeners touching people directly on personal areas. (GradGirl, the sides of the breast are not considered a personal area. Nipples are. And no screener ever touches women's nipple area. Screeners will still use the back of the hand to clear the underwire portion of a bra. Guys, no screener will ever touch your groin.)

If someone is overweight or has the typical "love handles" around the waist, nothing is going to happen to that person. However, if a screener notices a square-like shape where there shouldn't be one, such as around the waist, then that will require further inquiry. It could very well be an insulin pump that some people need to wear all the time. It could very well be a wireless phone that someone forgot to remove prior to passing through the WTMD. It could also be an attempt to conceal something like a weapon or weapon component.

Calm down and wait to see what happens the next time you enter a checkpoint. I view a lot of these changes as common sense finally taking root.

BULL****! :mad:

It's happened to me, it's happened to my male colleagues, and it will continue to happen.

You are but one reasonable screener in a sea of 45,000; when will you stop speaking for all of them (including the goons)?

Did you ask for a supervisor? Are you sure it wasn't done accidentally? Did the screener apologize? Did you fill out a complaint form so that the FSD could take some action? Did you notify your airline representative so that they could intervene on your behalf?

Any word from airlines on whether they'll allow us to leniency to cancel our travel plans after these officially sanctioned assaults begin? After all, when we bought the ticket, we didn't know that the TSA would be making this policy change. It sounds only fair. I am contacting my airline immediately.

We'll see who's overreacting next week.

The Rest of the Story...
 

While we're knee-jerking like only the TSA can, we now find out that even the rudimentary Russian version of the TSA did their job:

Bribery, Negligence Cited in Russian Jet Sabotage

From Reuters -- Link to Washington Post (sorry about the registration)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Sep15.html

I suppose it depends on your contract with the airline. For example, AA's conditions of carriage state that they can refuse to transport you for "Refusal to permit a search of person or property for explosives or for deadly, controlled, or dangerous weapons, articles or substances."

Later, "In the event the refund is required because of American's failure to operate on schedule or refusal to transport, the following refund will be made directly to you -

1. If the ticket is totally unused, the full amount paid (with no service charge or refund penalty), or
2. If the ticket is partially used, the applicable fare for the unused segment(s)."

I wouldn't rely on this. If you did it a few times, you might find that the airlines in question would refuse to transport you at all, searched or not.