Photos: How Your TSA Pat-Down Will Look On Opt-Out Day

On Wednesday an unknown number of travelers are expected to participate in National Opt-Out Day to protest the controversial full-body imaging scanners by requesting time-intensive pat-downs. WiIl it make pre-Thanksgiving travel even more of a nightmare? "Just one or two recalcitrant passengers at an airport is all it takes to cause huge delays," Paul Ruden, a spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents, tells CBS 2. "It doesn’t take much to mess things up anyway—especially if someone purposely tries to mess it up." Speaking of messed up, these photos give you a detailed look at what awaits if you decide to forgo the porno scanner for the personalized groping.

Yesterday, Senator Chuck Schumer urged travelers to submit to the new invasive security theater at New York's airports. "If you’re going to travel you have to cooperate,” Schumer told reporters. "Our job is to make sure that if there’s a real public outcry, to make sure it’s readjusted." Chuck, we're pretty sure the public outcry is real. Also, is that really your job description? Shouldn't your job be to confirm that the security procedures are as effective as possible, regardless of their popularity?

Leading the outcry in NYC is Council member David Greenfield, who has introduced legislation to ban the scanners at all NYC buildings, not just airports. In an op-Ed in today's Post, Greenfield recalls that after last year's failed Christmas underwear bomber, "Michael Chertoff, former secretary of Homeland Security, was trotted out before the national media to proclaim that if these full body scanners were deployed they 'would pick up this kind of device.' What Chertoff neglected to mention to the nervous American public, while shilling for a machine that wouldn’t have stopped Abdulmutallab, is that, as the head of The Chertoff Group, he was now being paid as a lobbyist for Rapiscan, a company actively pursuing a contract for these scanners. Within days, Chertoff’s client received an astonishing $173 million to manufacture and install these machines in airports across the country."

Greenfield also notes that the full-body scanners "can detect guns, knives and box cutters, but they cannot pick up materials, like plastics, liquids and powders, most frequently used in attempted post-9/11 airplane bombings." These scanners are now deployed in 70 of 450 airports in the United States, and TSA chief John Pastole says, "We cannot forget that less than one year ago a suicide bomber with explosives in his underwear tried to bring down a plane over Detroit." And yet Pistole also seemed to leave the door open for backpedaling, telling the Times, "This has always been viewed as an evolving program that will be adapted as conditions warrant."

The uproar comes as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terrorist group behind the underwear bomber and for placing explosive devices aboard cargo planes last month, released a new issue of their glossy, English-language magazine, Inspire. In this most recent installment, the group reveals, "This strategy of attacking the enemy with smaller but more frequent operations is what some may refer to as the strategy of a thousand cuts. The aim is to bleed the enemy to death." The Times says this new strategy "represents a victory for Western counterterrorism," and James Carafano, a security specialist at the Heritage Foundation, thinks, "it’s a good marketing spin on a pretty desperate strategy."

So does that make you feel very secure and very warm inside? If not, maybe this video of an 8-year-old boy getting a pat-down by four TSA screeners will put you at ease:

UPDATE: The TSA says the boy's father removed his son's shirt in an effort to expedite the screening.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on November 22, 2010 11:25 AM

Comments [rss]

potsmoker

oh i cant wait for some improv comedy troupe to film this one,,,

guy wears giant plastic schlong tsa guy keeps groping it,

tsa gyu keeps rubbing it top to bottom, guy whips it out in front of crouched tsa guy, members of improv group take cell phone pics, and instantly TSA guy has giant rubber schlong in his face posted all over the internets,..

freddynyc

BTW do they frisk midgets?

Cannibal

You know, I'm kinda looking forward to these seaches, its pretty kinky. Some people pay a lot of money for this type of things. Just relax and enjoy it. A hand is just a hand, right?

Sketto

The video shows a small boy being searched so thoroughly that it shows we've lost our collective fucking minds. Are we not allowed to include common sense in our airline security decisions?

Cannibal

No. Move to Afghanistan.

Tamara

I'm all for flying safely, and catching the "terrorists" beforehand, but can't this pat down be more private, would a small wall be to much to ask or something sheesh.

Can you ask for a female when you get scanned I wonder?

SFNY

Pat-downs are supposed to be done by officers of the same gender as the passenger, so be sure to ask. (This obviously raises issues and questions for LGBT, intersex, pre-op trans, transgendered, and other individuals).

You can request a private area for your pat-down, but this often means you will be taken elsewhere, sometimes without your belongings and away from potential witnesses should things go awry.

You are also allowed to request a fellow traveler be present during your pat-down This is more difficult if you're traveling alone, but probably worth making a new friend in the security line.

Dogsbody

If they're gonna pat me down, I want a private area, some subtle lighting, marvin gaye on the CD player, the whole works...

SFNY

Hoping you won't need a cigarette after, because you'll never be able to find a place to smoke inside the airport.

unretrofiedforu

Unless you're in atlanta

Dogsbody

I believe you are always patted down by someone of your own gender. Which personally I think raises problems in its own right that I brought up in another thread.

HBHB

I'm still trying to figure out what the threat is? Why all of a sudden are we having this? If I didn't know any better I would have thought we had at least a dozen attacks over the summer.

Preston

I'm in a wheelchair, so I have no choice but to get patted down every time I fly. I always find it quite funny because they're always so thorough with every part of my body. This is funny because they completely ignore what I'm sitting on. They naturally can't (or at least haven't) pat down what I'm sitting on. That means they check my balls (the top side)... but not the underside of my thighs or rear (because I'm sitting on them). I also sit on top of a cushion that is 20 inches long and 2.5 inches thick... that's not checked.

In the end, it's not that I mind being patted down. What I mind is the fact that it's pointless if you can't do it 100%.

In my family, we also joked that we weren't afraid of someone with dark skin smuggling something onto an airplane... but anyone in a wheelchair... now that was something to keep an eye on.

While they're confiscating someone's nail clippers... a wheelchair has enough places to put an entire arsenal.

HormelChavez

They don't check baby strollers very well either

nicemarmot

While on the one hand this is outrageous, on the other hand I'm kind of pleased. Why? Because they've been doing this shit to me for years while all the rest of you stood there like sheep and watched. I've never been able to get any explanation for why I get pulled out of line and groped almost every single time I fly. I'm not on the no fly list. I don't wear a burka or a turban. I've never committed a crime unless you count smoking pot or driving or the speed limit. I don't carry anything suspicious with me when I fly. I don't have a metal plate in my head. I don't set off the metal detector. Nevertheless I know I will almost always be pulled from the line, either at security, while boarding, or both, and groped violently. The last time I left the country, the woman groping me squeezed my crotch so hard I actually yelped.

My husband, who is often travelling with me, suggests it's "something about my body language." So the sullen annoyance of knowing I'm about to get groped again gets me groped? Also that would imply that the TSA agents are paying attention to body language, which I doubt. My mother suggests the agents just want to touch my boobs. Well guess what America: now they're going to touch your boobs too. Have fun!

JenChungsBaby

They have to make sure you're not hiding two midget terrorists in there.

nicemarmot

Hey, those wouldn't be *midget* terrorists!

SFNY

That's awful.

Here's where to file a complaints about TSA experiences. If you can, do both, one with the TSA, one with the ACLU:

https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageNavigator/TSA_Travel_Complaint

https://contact.tsa.dhs.gov/DynaForm.aspx?FormID=10

(so many complaints to choose from in the pull down menu!)

nicemarmot

I've filed the TSA complaint. No response.

SFNY

This sh%t is seriously crazy, and I'm sorry you've been, ah, consistently overscreened. I really do appreciate anyone like you who goes on record to try to make it better for everyone else. Hopefully you'll get more than the standard form letter response.