5 reasons to reject TSA’s strip search and grope

Hello savvy travelers. Anyone who has read this blog – pretty much ever – knows that I’m no fan of the TSA and its asinine procedures. Momentum is gathering in both old and new media to question TSA’s use of visual strip searching and genital fondling, and I wanted to provide five points on this subject for your consideration. I’ll leave the constitutional questions out of this particular debate and stick to
specifics:

1. WBI (whole body imaging) is only-skin deep. That’s right, if a terrorist puts a bomb in a body cavity he’ll sail right through these machines without being stopped. Don’t think it’s been done yet? Ask the Saudi prince who almost lost his head when an al-Qa’ida guy detonated a rectal bomb a few feet away from him.

2. TSA lied about these machines not being able to store or print images. According to documents obtained by EPIC, in 2008 TSA specified that the machines had to have image storage and sending capabilities. Beyond that evidence, let’s apply some common sense to this: let’s say TSA catches an actual terrorist with one of these scanners. Are they trying to tell us they would not be able to produce evidence from these machines for law enforcement? I don’t believe it. And that opens up a
whole host of other questions, like how long are these images being stored for, how are they secured, who has access to them, what legal protections do travelers have to ensure they are not distributed? The list goes on.

3. The person viewing your naked body in a booth might be sequestered, but there’s no guarantee they are same-sex. How would you feel about a pervy 50-something TSA’er ogling the naked image of your teenage daughter? Enough said.

4. TSA’s alternative to the strip search – an ‘enhanced’ pat-down – would be sexual assault anywhere else. The nature of my job is that I’m in contact with a lot of frequent fliers. I’m one myself, but
thankfully have not yet had to opt-out of these machines. But for those who have, I’ve heard stories from credible people of testicle and penis fondling, breast squeezing and other inappropriate touching. If that ever happens to me one of two things is going to happen (and I say this
very seriously): I’m going to punch the guy in the head as hard as I can, or I will file sexual assault charges against him. It just depends on how much restraint I can muster when the moment comes.

5. The scanners are nothing more than another revolving door deal from Washington. Ex-Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has his own consulting firm now. Who’s on his client list? Body scanner manufacturers. Follow the money, folks.

All that and I haven’t even mentioned poor Rolando Negrin, a screener at Miami International who is facing assault charges against a co-worker. Why did Mr. Negrin assault him? Co-workers had been teasing Mr. Negrin mercilessly for months about the size of his genitals, revealed during a body scan. If the TSA can’t even keep its own house in order…

[Edited to add: I didn't get into the health risks either! See the resource sites below for more information on that.]

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Lest I be accused of offering criticism without suggesting a solution, I say focus on explosives. Whole-body imaging is about money, power and control, not security. Metal detectors and standard x-ray machines are very effective at detecting firearms, and hand and bag swabs (explosive trace detection) are more accurate in checking for bombs. That covers the bases, with the added benefit that no one needs to slip a Benjamin into my waistband as I leave the checkpoint.

Finally some resources for further reading. Learn what rights you have at the checkpoint:

Don’t Scan Us

Nudeoscope

Tags: TSA, airport, backscatter, body, imaging, millimeter, naked, scanners, security, wave, More…whole, x-ray

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Comment by Ryan Lile on November 18, 2010 at 3:18pm: There have been three notable attempts since 9/11: shoe bomber, liquid bombers and underwear bomber. Now putting aside the merits of how effective each of these may or may not have been, what is not discussed is that all these attempts came from airports overseas. So unless we can claim sovereignty over foreign countries and force them to install the naked scanners at every airport checkpoint there's no way to avoid attempts. That's why good intelligence trumps taking scissors away every time.

And that argument doesn't even touch the fact that these scanners can't detect explosives hidden up a body cavity, for example. So we get invasiveness and no security benefit for it. Lovely.

Comment by Jessica Fernholz on November 18, 2010 at 2:12pm: The think that puzzles me is that all of this is supposedly a result of the 9/11 attacks. These attacks were not explosive related. These people hijacked a plane mid-flight and crashed it. The only attempted explosion I've heard of was the underwear bomber and he was about a step shy of being a rectal bomb. So when did this become necessary. Pilot doors have been re-enforced. Flight attendants are more prepared than they've ever been to deal with situations in the air and when all else fails there are generally 100 or more of you on that flight vs. 4 crazies you do the math.

Comment by Ryan Lile on October 26, 2010 at 12:22am: Who wants a same-sex guarantee? I can think of many parents who would. But that's hardly the point: no one should be ogling us or our children.

As noted, these machines don't detect bombs hidden in body fat or cavities. So if that's the angle you want to run with, go for it. Whole body imaging is far less effective at stopping contraband than a combination of metal detector, baggage x-ray and explosives swab.

Comment by Cliff Stuehmer on October 25, 2010 at 11:15pm: The person viewing your naked body in a booth might be sequestered, but there’s no guarantee they are same-sex.

Who wants a same-sex guarantee? Don't forget, homosexuals are just as pervy as heterosexuals.

How would you feel about a pervy 50-something TSA’er ogling the naked image of your teenage daughter? Enough said.

About the same as ogling me or my wife, honestly. The big issue here for me is not that someone I can't see is ogling me or my wife or family, but that OGLING is happening while WEAPONSCHECKING is supposed to be happening.

You seem more hung up on the pervy aspects, but I'm more concerned that contraband will slip through.

So unless your argument can be reformulated like this,

TSA employees are too pervy to effectively check for contraband using those body scanner things.

...I have to say your argument #3 doesn't hold water for me.