I sure don't agree with every single post on board. In fact, I kind of shake my head at many of them.

But I'm not sure you can do the same. There are plenty of people who have answered your question, but instead of just letting it go, you decide to go after them and their viewpoints further. That's why you give the perception that you either: A) Enjoy conflict or B) Don't like people giving reasonable explanations to you, feeling like you must "one-up" others (which I thought went out in elementary school).

Further reasoning I have decided to pack in it for this thread, because nothing seems good enough for you.

LessO2,

Are you saying that this thread was little more than trolling for trouble?

I've come to think that it may have been. My participation in this thread is also over.

Quite honestly, if dude wanted to get his thrills off of some middle-aged, out of shape white guy, I'd let him go at it. Of course, I understand how some people might not be as comfortable with that situation, but I've got to many other things in my life to worry about. I can't let some potentially gay TSA agent get me all uptight.

You are very wrong. TSA is not at all happy to accomodate passengers who would prefer "flashing" to "groping". In fact, exasperated passengers who flashed screeners have been arrested and expelled from airports. I have asked on three or four occasions to be allowed to lift my shirt in private rather than have a total stranger touch me, and I was refused that option every time.

Being touched by a stranger on a sexual part of my body is much more offensive to me than being viewed. I change clothes in a common dressing room at the gym all the time, but if someone walked up and placed both hands on my chest I'd scream. Many other women on this board and elsewhere have stated that they would find a visual flash to be less offensive than being touched in this area.

Why won't the TSA accomodate this request? Perhaps it's because the courts have already said strip searches at airports and even at borders are illegal without articulable suspicion, and TSA searches can not meet that standard. Now, given that the methods TSA is using are even more intrusive and unacceptable than a strip search would be, I hope the TSA's disgusting methods will be struck down when they are finally challenged in court.

And there is the problem, in a nutshell. In the name of political correctness, we bend over backwards to avoid even the appearance of profiling, and concentrate on a demographic group that has not been involved in transportation-related security problems for decades. Any wonder why so many of us refer to TSA as window dressing, dog and pony show, Kabuki screening?

Kind of reminds me of the old joke, the telling of which which I may botch, about the drunk who parked his car in the dark lot behind the bar and entered through the rear door. When he leaves, he walks out the front door to the well-lit sidewalk. A friend follows him outside and asks what he is doing. The drunk replies that he is looking for his car keys, which he misplaced. The friend says that he should retrace his steps and look between his car and the rear door. The drunk responds, "It's too dark back there - I'll never find my keys there."

After secured cockpit doors, flight crews that stay in the cockpit and do not surrender control of the plane, and passengers who will resist, 9/11 style attacks will almost certainly not occur again. Flying bombs, on the other hand, are a real possibility because Congress has not addressed the lack of screening of cargo on passenger airliners and DHS/TSA has not raised this gargantuan loophole in aviation "security". Detonate an explosive in a cargo hold of an airliner over a large city, and casualties on the ground could be enormous, probably reaching unacceptable levels. But it is more impressive to search passengers, so let's just play ostrich and hope that no explosives are ever detonated on a passenger airliner. Forget Lockerbie, Air India over Canada, accidental disaster that was Valujet over the Everglades, ...

Then you go right ahead and let him have his fun with you. That is your choice. I do not want to let the implied consent of flying on a commercial airliner turn into a sexual assault committed under the color of state action. That whole issue is one of many that troubles several of us about TSA screening.

I fully concur that until the issue of cargo screening is properly addressed, the barn door is still open. I've never posted anything to the contrary. I have, however, addressed some of the myths about cargo that is brought on board passenger planes....something you still refuse to acknowledge in your posts because it goes against the grain of your hyperbole. Still, we agree that TSA needs to do a better job in both areas: cargo screening in general and screening of cargo that goes on board passenger planes specifically. The part you ignore is the role of the airlines in that matter. You conveniently forget that they have a say in it and allow this to happen in order to protect their profit margin.

I'm a man, but I agree completely with GradGirl. I have asked countless times if I could remove my shirt rather than be touched by an unwelcome stranger. TSA always refuses to accommodate me, sometimes threatening me with arrest for indecent exposure! (Like a bare-chested man is something they never saw before?) Making the same offer in a private room is also rejected.

This attitude is simply ridiculous. If the real goal is "keeping us safe," then they should be perfectly happy to peruse my naked body. In fact, that should be preferred to a pat-down! Their insistence on touching me is a form of assault. They know I hate it, but they force themselves on me.

Bruce

Several thousand miles from Canada. Off the Irish Coast. Unless you mean Swissair 111, but that wasn't cargo-related.

There are two issues to flashing though.
1. Someone could have an item fastened to the clothing and by flashing you the skin, they are further concealing the item. You would never see it.
2. It is a form of sexual discrimination. Males can go bare chested without an issue. Females cannot. So you are allowing a class of people the opportunity to do something that another class of people cannot. Some females object to showing their top half to anyone whether it is same sex or not.

Females can become pregnant; males can't. Is that discrimination, too? We should be able to accept some differences as just beyond our control. Your first point has some merit, but they are welcome to look through my clothes.

Bruce

TSA/DHS expanded the scope of the lighter ban. TSA initiated the shoe carnival on its own. If TSA/DHS were concerned about cargo, then it would approach Congress about this issue, if only to cover its bureaucratic a** in case an explosive on a passenger airliner kills many Americans.

I stand corrected. I recalled that the flight(s) originated in Canada, but fuzzy on the rest of the details, other than explosives in cargo hold.

While I agree with your post for the most part, I just wanted to point out that us guys don't have it easy when we get older. Getting our prostates checked isn't exactly pleasant (meaning rectal exam)