ladytraveler

Wouldn't it be interesting to start a study that counts the number of men and women who go through specific TSA checkpoints, and compare those to the number of men and women who are chosen for frisks?

I would think that it would have to be done by pairs of people (you've got two variables to collect data on simultaneously) with those little clicky counters, one person counting how many of each sex go through the checkpoint and one counting how many of each sex are chosen for a frisk. The date, airport, and time period could be recorded as well, so as to compile a database of several different airports across the country.

This wouldn't take a large time commitment from any one person, and could be done while one is waiting around at the airport for a flight.

The purpose behind this? To find out if the anecdotal reports that women are chosen more often than men for frisking is verified by the data.

OK, go ahead and tell me I'm crazy! --ladytraveler

gojirasan

My guess is that you would find a much higher percentage of women, but only because they are selected for the NoS more often and then opt out. In terms of the "random" secondary gropes I don't see any causal link toward there being more female grope victims. I think it is safe to assume that the gropers of both sexes are enjoying their jobs. The NoS selection is only skewed I think because the men are more likely to have informal mutual agreements that allow them to see the most attractive women while on peep duty or any woman rather than a man. I wouldn't be surprised if the female peepers are even offered money or favors in exchange for their peep shifts. It really is like looking at porn, which is more of a guy thing, even today.

exbayern

I disagree. Based on the 'all skirts are bulky' fallacy alone, I would suspect that there is an equal or higher number of females receiving a secondary at the WTMD as well.

doober

No, you are not crazy. However, I think it should be focused more on who is chosen for WBI, including sex, age range and whether or not the selectee seems to be traveling alone.

I mentioned in another thread that yesterday the only person who was selected for a grope was a young woman traveling alone and who seemed quite submissive. This was at a small airport, no WBI. The majority of the passengers on the flight were male.

sheneh

Ideally screeners would not know they were being observed. One possibility would be to take a random sample of scanners and checkpoints and then for a particular time period, pull tape for each one. Could be tricky if both scanners and patdowns not visible on the same camera. If TSA cooperated maybe with live feed and camera control.

23TOPOS12

Saturday April 16 11am PHX an elderly couple/dog was picked to be patted down.the small dog-a terrier was also patted down!

FetePerfection

Too bad there's no video...

lmirante

If you're crazy, I'll join you. I think this information could be of particular use to the states with pending legislation. I'm in NJ and was thinking just today that this idea should be floated to our legislators. Would they be able to get us access to the airport? If TSA knows they're being audited, they would most likely change their behavior.

I would certainly be willing to volunteer my time to count people. But I have no expertise in designing a viable study.

Fisher1949

I've done many technical studies and data collection portion doesn't have to be particularly complex, just structured, consistent, distributed and reliable. The issue would be having a statistically significant sample.

Given that there are nearly 2 million enplanements each day a few dozen samples wouldn't be meaningful, particularly if taken at the same airports. It could be valid for say LGA if someone were to monitor that airport multiple days at various times over the course of a week or more.

Otherwise one would need a large number of data points distributed randomly throughout the system to eliminate any bias in the sampling. So 10 or 20 data points taken at hundreds of airports over the course of a month would provide a snapshot of tendencies of the aggregate during that term.

The challenge would come in the vetting of the data. Anyone opposed to the outcome would likely cite the potential for fraudulent data and ask for validation, which couldn't be done to an academic or technical standard here. A uniform data table would in part address that issue.

Nonetheless, news outlets use these sorts of polls and report them on a routine basis so while it may not get published in any journals, the standard isn't that high to sell newspapers.

ladytraveler

Fisher, this is exactly what I was thinking of -- a study that is both broad and deep. And while it would be useful to take note of age and body type along with sex, it might be more difficult to gather the data if we're looking at so many variables.

Plus, we would really need to get the total numbers of people going through the checkpoint so that we can compare the percentages of total males/females to the percentage of groped males/females. If 75% of the people going through the checkpoint are males, and 75% of people being groped are female, that indicates some illegal discrimination is going on.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to get tapes of random times so we could count these things after the fact? That way, the TSA wouldn't get forewarned by seeing someone sitting there counting. But seriously, I doubt they'd cooperate.

ladytraveler

gojirasan

Even if it were proven that women were selected far more often for scope 'n grope what could be done about it? Obviously men (or lesbian women) like to see pretty women naked and/or getting felt up. It's just human nature. Propagation of the species and all that. Attractive people are always going to be preferentially selected. Who would you rather look at naked? TSOs are human too. The anything-for-security folks like to deny their humanity and act as if they are perfect robots, but they are not.

DeafBlonde

But, but, but... they're not supposed to be "profiling!" Wouldn't that include singling out single attractive women for additional (i.e., enhanced/secondary) screening??

RatherBeOnATrain

I eagerly await Blogdad Bob's post about how they needed to make sure that he/she was not actually a cat.

tev9999

Would it be possible to get hours/days/weeks of checkpoint video (when not broken) under FOIA or other methods? That would allow for much better analysis without a time constraint, or the risk of DY...T when someone is observed observing the checkpoint for an extended time. Would also prevent the TSA modifying their behavior based on being watched.

jcwoman

I know you're joking. But searching the dog is really just as stupid as searching people's bare skin (bare feet, hands, etc).