Thanksgiving Travel Tempest
Frisked freedom fighters? Airport full-body scanners trigger naked opposition
Privacy advocates feel the new airport scanners leave little too theimagination.
And even less to privacy.
Would you take a scan over a frisk?
Mounting resistance to the Transportation Security Administration's new Backscatter airport X-ray machines has culminated in National Opt Out day, to take place the day before Thanksgiving on Nov. 24.
Those with reservations about exposing themselves both to radiation and to the prying eyes of TSA officials are encouraged to refuse to submit to the full-body scanners at airports. Travelers are permitted to refuse, according to TSA guidelines, but should be prepared for an extra-invasive holiday groping frisking.
Growing accounts of passengers' airport opt-out experiences describe the new pat-down methods as sometimes bordering on sexual assault. The most forgiving accounts describe TSA agents causing something of a scene, with The Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg reporting that a TSA representative admitted to him directly that the point was to embarrass passengers into submitting to the scan.
One man, who taped his encounter on his cell phone and posted it to his blog, was even threatened with a civil suit and a $10,000 fine when he also refused the more intimate pat down. (He said he'd be happy to walk through a standard metal detector.)
I, for one, plan to arrive extra early for my Thanksgiving morning flight in preparation for an uncomfortable encounter with the TSA. I'll not be subjecting myself to radiation outside of a medical situation, and if I wanted to go through airport security naked, I'd be Gaga.
Houston's Bush International Airport is among the major airports that employ the "Advanced Imaging Technology," but if you're flying out of Hobby, you're safe. The full list of participating airports can be accessed here.
Editor's note: Vote in our latest CulturePoll and let your feelings on the airport scanners out. Will you risk the frisk?
