That’s exactly what I did on a recent trip from Orlando to Atlanta. Actually, I do it every time I fly.
But as I waited for a male agent — who would ask me to spread my legs, would touch my torso, rub the inside of my legs, and feel the back of my neck and arms — I began to understand what the TSA really means when it says it’s focusing its efforts on “intelligence-driven, risk-based screening procedures.”
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the mainstream media last week ignored a legitimate grassroots protest against the TSA’s allegedly invasive full-body scanners.
Oh sure, there were whispers of National Opt-Out Week here and there. The trade publication Government Security News reported them, although it left readers with the impression that this action would fizzle. A lone op-ed in a New Jersey newspaper recognized the protest and supported it.
Here’s a question everyone should be asking after last week’s stunning verdict against Andrea Abbott, the Nashville mother who tried to stop TSA agents from patting down her teenage daughter: Where do travelers turn when they have a legitimate grievance against the agency charged with protecting America’s transportation systems?
It started like it always does, just a few moments before I checked in for my flight.
It happened to Ann Holley again last week. As she passed through the security checkpoint at Atlanta’s busy airport, she asked a TSA agent to “opt out” of being screened by a full-body scanner.
Is pre-checking the box on an online transaction always unethical? I thought the answer to that question was obvious after the federal government weighed in on the issue, declaring it an “unfair and deceptive” practice, and the state of Minnesota fined two insurance companies for opt-out violations.
The pre-checked box, a clever technique that travel companies use to extract a few dollars more from customers booking their trips online, may be checking out.
Two weeks after declaring National Opt-Out Day a failure and renaming it TSA Appreciation Day, the agency charged with protecting our transportation systems has formally denied it turned off its full-body scanners in order to squelch the pre-Thanksgiving protests.
“As soon as the media started reporting that Opt-Out Day was a bust, reports started coming in from blogs stating that TSA had intentionally shut down the Advanced Imaging Technology machines,” the agency says in a blog post. “This claim is utterly and completely false as AIT operations were normal throughout the holiday travel period.”
There’s just one little problem. In denying that it cheated in order to disrupt Opt-Out Day, TSA has offered no credible evidence — other than its own word — that the scanners were working.
Michael Roberts said no.
Karen Cummings said no.
You may have though of saying “no” to the Transportation Security Administration’s new full-body scanners, too, despite the agency’s decision to impose a more aggressive pat-down technique on passengers who do.
Well, now is the time. It’s time for all of us to say “no.”
Next time you check into the Fairfield Inn in Sandusky, Ohio, mind the safe in your room. They’ll add a $1.07 fee to your confirmed rate for having one — whether you want it or not.
But you probably won’t even know they charged you for a safe, because they list this surprise surcharge as a tax on your final bill.
Want to have the fee removed? Good luck with that, too.
Maybe it’s a dollar a day, but for Tom Slikas, it was the principle.
