Let's see, how do I put this politely?

No one is forcing these people to work for the TSA.
Said TSA employees are free to make a choice and work for another company that neither requires them to perform same gender sexual abuse, nor to put their lives at possible risk due to unnecessary, daily radiation exposure.

Regarding #3 above: my mother taught my cousin to drive, who used to gun for cars that made left turns in front of them. His reasoning was that he was in the right because people turning left were required by law to yield to him. My mother reminded him that though he may be correct, he would still sustain injuries and be without a car.

So, pontificate all you want that it won't be effective for anything. In the probably likely event that a TSA employee gets their clock cleaned, or a swift kick to the groin as an unpredictable response to a perceived sexual assault, they can claim they were doing what the law required all they want. They will suffer the consequences of their actions, which may include sexual assault charges, registry to a sex offender list, and physical harm.

I personally question the sanity of anyone who continues to do this job faced with those options.

eyecue, I agree. I feel that too many posters re-enforce the worst stereotypes of both pax and TSA. Putting that aside...

The TSA has repeatedly refused to officially state what their staff can actually do during the hands on search.

So how do we know when the groper is doing their job or if they are committing a sexual assault under the cover of doing their job?

eyecue:
An honest question for you sir, do you & most of your co-workers enjoy doing this stuff ?

To steer this thread back on topic:

25 hours of training? Whoopie-sh!t.

Sorry, but that's the only response I can come up with to that statement. An x-ray technician working in a medical setting will have 1 to 4 years training before they point the machine at anybody.

I do not trust either the government or makers of the machines as to the safety of these devices. We all know the government regularly lies to us on the safety of food and drugs and yes, even on medical devices. Now they are turning over what is essentially a medical device to undertrained people with a political agenda.

I opt out.

Indeed .... my response would be along the lines of "unless and until you show my your Ph.D. in physics and your medical degree, your opinion doesn't count for much when it comes to my health."

Dont forget to add, state medical license as well.

I'll do one better. Show me at least 3 of the following:

1. Results of longitudinal studies confirming that the these doses of raditaion have not caused any health issues over the long-term

2. Results of clinical trials evaluating the effects of these doses of radiation as administered to the general public, along with tolerated doses and a full listing of resultant adverse experiences

3. Independent medical analyses by MDs and degreed physicists not affiliated with, employed by or contracted by the governement or the manufacturers of these machines, with a signed disclosure stating such

4. Peer reviewed medical journal articles and/or other peer reviewed literature (written by physicians not affiliated with, employed by, or contracted by the government or the manufacturers of these machines) published in legitimately accepted scholarly journals with references

Yes, indeed.

And, furthermore, before you tell us this thing is safe for everyone, we should have data of this kind not just for adult men, but also for infants, children, women of childbearing age (does repeated exposure affect fertility, for example?), and pregnant women.

Lets look at that 25 hours of training.

Training day one, first hour of training time devoted to forming the class and other administrative activities, mid morning break for 15 minutes, one hour for lunch, mid afternoon break.

8 hour day, 1 hour admin, 30 minutes break, 1 hour lunch, 5:30 hours real training time

Training day two: 15 minutes answering questions from day 1, 2 breaks totaling 30 minutes and lunch 1 hour.

8 hour day less 1:45, training time = 6:45

Day three same as day two, real training time 6:45

So for a scheduled 25 hour class (24 in this example) real training time =19 hours. Hardly time enough to learn complex equipment.

And senior citizens - in other words, all age groups, all genders, and all health conditions that passengers might present at a checkpoint.

But, in any case, why should ANYONE be asked to add to their personal accumulation of radiation exposure without personal benefit? Either the scanner will confirm what the passenger already knows (threat on body or not) OR (worse case) the scanner will result in a false positive. No benefit to confirmation of lack of threat. Cost to passenger for false positive.

So maybe TSA is trying to create a personal benefit by making the alternative to the scanner so negative (intrusive) that passengers are willing to pay the cost of additional radiation exposure to avoid the "enhanced" pat-down. (Enhanced = degrading in TSA speak, I think.)

And what about the confirmation of the threat? It is assumed that this will result in stopping the would-be terrorist from boarding a plane and carrying out the threat there. So, the assumption is that we all accrue some marginal benefit by stopping the terrorist and avoiding the threat on the plane.

But what if the would-be terrorist decides to move up the timetable and carry out the threat actions at the checkpoint? How much does a suicidal terrorist care exactly where he/she introduces injury/death/chaos into the system? Has TSA got a plan for how they will keep the explosive from being detonated if discovered at the checkpoint? For minimizing casualties if there is a detonation?

Excellent posts Ruth, Boogie, and BC!

There are so many issues and reasons why this is all lunacy that it is mind boggling. Someone said earlier that for political reasons, this will never be challenged by any elected officials and as much as I hate to believe that, I think it is true.

Unfortunately, this is going to have to be resolved by the Supreme Court once someone is wronged and stands up for themsleves. Let's just hope to a higher power that they do the right thing. I'd say it's 50/50 on that.

BC has it right. It's punishment so we do what we're told.

In fact, none of these has been done. A group of UCSF professors sent a letter of concern to the TSA about this earlier this year:

http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf

I opted out Friday at Memphis. The TSO said there was no more radiation than from the metal detector. I've had cancer and don't want to risk it

I've had cancer and don't want to risk it.

+1