Here to help
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.”
Read more “3 troubling ways the TSA punishes passengers who opt out”
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.
Read more “Is this the beginning of the end for the TSA’s full-body scanners?”
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?
Read more “Is this the only way to change the TSA?”
It started like it always does, just a few moments before I checked in for my flight.
Read more “How to kill the TSA’s full body scanners — once and for all”
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.
Read more “5 things you should never say to a TSA screener”
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.
Read more “Is “opt-out” always wrong? The Wall Street Journal doesn’t think so”
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.
Read more “On travel sites, the pre-checked box checks 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.
Read more “TSA denies it turned off body-scanners on “Opt-Out” Day — but where’s the proof?”
TSA Administrator John S. Pistole will testify at a Transportation Security Administration oversight hearing in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday.
Maybe our elected representatives will tell him what their constituents have been saying since the beginning of this month.
Maybe they will say, “enough!”
Enough with the full-body scans. The technology is unproven and may be ineffective and unsafe. It violates our privacy. We never asked for the machines, and we are not asking for them now.
Read more “ENOUGH!”
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.”
Read more “It’s time to say “no” to the TSA’s full body scanners”
