Following a discussion last evening with a friend, who is of the view that any action taken by the government to facilitate his personal safety is justified, comes this story via Boing Boing.
A large-breasted woman flying from Oakland to Boston was accosted by the TSA when the underwire in her bra set off the magnetometer. She was given a choice: allow her breasts to be fondled or give up on flying. Instead, she raised a stink:
Kates asked to see a supervisor and then the supervisor’s supervisor. He told her that underwire bras were the leading item that set off the metal detectors, Kates said.
If that’s the case, Kates said, the equipment must be overly sensitive. And if the TSA is engaging in extra brassiere scrutiny, then other women are suffering similar humiliation, Kates thought.
The Constitution bars unreasonable searches and seizures, Kates reminded the TSA supervisor, and scrutinizing a woman’s brassiere is surely unreasonable, she said.
The supervisor told her she had the choice of submitting to a pat-down in a private room or not flying. Kates offered a third alternative, to take off her bra and try again, which the TSA accepted.
To proclaim this ridiculous is far too easy. Like folks with metal pins in their legs, or plates in their skull, we now add large-breasted women to the list of people who are placed in an untenable position at the airport security checkpoint. But it’s people like my friend who are happy to argue that it’s the “price of freedom.” Only people like my friend are never the people who have to pay the price. Funny how that happens.
One reaction was to suggest that women who wear underwire bas go braless to avoid the problem. I’m unclear whether this falls under capitulation or appeasement, but either way this strikes me as the wrong answer. The idea of always taking the path of least resistance rather than buck the system stinks. This whole airport security scam is out of control, but targeting large-breasted women with the choice of allowing themselves to be subject to a physical search or forced out of their underwear is just too bizarre. Where are the family values crowd when it comes to TSA workers copping a feel?
At what point does this stop? Full body cavity search, perhaps? Maybe then my friend will feel differently about things.
Update: Anne Skove, taking a break from promoting judicial economy over at Court-o-rama, sent over this Washington Post piece, dated December 10, 2004. As time goes by…
Many passengers think it is worth the effort to find shoes and clothing that will help them avoid added scrutiny at the airport checkpoint. Travelers who set off the walk-through magnetometer are automatically pulled aside, and a screener waves a hand-held metal detector over their body. Then, the screener conducts a physical pat-down search to check for hidden explosives or other prohibited items. The pat-downs have become more common since September, when two Russian planes exploded after two women allegedly brought explosives on board.
Is it still worth it?
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Scott:
I heartily agree with you. And I truly hope no one responds with “well handled, Scott.”
So many possibilities, but I controlled myself. Thanks, Anna.
Where does it stop? Probably somewhere short of making all passengers strip — the new tech lets the officious officials look through clothes without it — then locking the naked passengers into stun belts and inserting a ProctoPod(tm)* — but not much.
But we’ll all feel so much safer.
Other than gratifying the understandable desires of low-paid government workers to grope women [and men], that’s really all the “security theatre” is about. Worth remembering that the National Guard troops stationed in airports right after 9/11 were carrying unloaded rifles, and no ammo; it was costume drama.
By the way, is that it often is folks like your friend who are reassured by the silly security theater. I was on a flight this year sitting next to a guy who apparently is on some sort of list; he flies a lot, and gets the full, private search every time, he says. Instead of being outraged by it, he said — and I quote — “If all this means I get to go home to my babies, it’s definitely worth it.”
__________
* There really isn’t a ProctoPod, at least not yet; it’s out of Bruce Bethke’s Headcrash. A very, very funny book, and winner of the most embarrassingly-named award in science fiction. Yes, Bruce got the Dick.
I hate to see this painted as a woman’s issue. Surely men with their names cast in belt buckle are victimized by having to remove their pants.
What you do is extract the wires from your oldest brassiere. You have more support left than going without completely, but not much (speaking only for me). I did this getting into Attica C.F. to see clients, starting the second time.
My first time? “Underwire?” (I batted my eyes and stopped myself from asking how he knew.) The CO gave me a brown paper bag and directed me to a women’s room to get out of the contraption, throw it in the bag, button myself up, walk out and hand him, yes him, the bag, to look in it (seemed like five minutes). Then I passed through the metal detector with flying colors, he handed me the bag and directed me to a women’s room on the other side to reassemble myself.
That was 10 or so years ago. Now they use a wand, which should have been available then, but I let it slide. I can see a howler in almost anything, I guess, and have an understanding of what the facilities are dealing with or trying to deal with.
The heads up about the airlines. This is nothing but an overreaction from them. I need to fly soon. I’ll find my oldest one and…
I always have to remove my belt, even though the buckle isn’t that sort — but it’s metal, and always sets the metal detector off.
That said, I don’t have to disrobe to do that, or reach around inside my clothing in a way that’s uncomfortable.
I’d certainly, were I in line behind an attractive woman who needed assistance in removing her garments, be willing to do the Boy Scout thing and be helpful and all, but I think that kind of offer might be construed as not entirely intended to be helpful.
At least, that’s what the one who got the restraining order seemed to be thinking …
I think you’re on to something, although not necessarily the underwire bra stuff, particularly.
Airport “security” is more and more about treating regular folks as though they’re either incarcerated criminals, or people going in to visit incarcerated criminals.
And that, well, sucks.
I can’t think of anything they could do to a man (aside from a full cavity search) that would be as intrusive and humiliating. But then, what of the father, husband, boyfriend who has to stand by and watch this happen, feeling helpless and emasculated. Not the same, but still significant.
And the more people come to accept this type of treatment by their government as acceptable, the farther down the slope we slide.
I beg to demur. Kudos to TSA for standing their ground. Why is a pat-down by a member of the same sex, in a private room, in the most a-sexual setting possible considered “putting women in an untenable position”? There is no abuse in this case. What I do find here is an abuse of language: “fondling of her breasts”? Please, gimme a break. This is clearly a case where privacy-rights people have gone completely crazy in the name of ideological purity. And for the record: I hereby consent to a pat-down in every nook and cranny of my body (and, oh yeah, I personally don’t mind at all that it be done by a woman screener…) Lighten up, people.
Largely it’s because, well, women are people, and people have rights. Groping folks for anything short of a damn good reason is just fine — as long as the folks are consenting adults, and wanting to get on a plane is not a damn good reason to grope people.
Now, if there were some sort of compelling damn good reason that the TSA gropenfuhrers might have why promiscuous copping of feels is a good thing, it’d be worth exploring. But “just ’cause I say so” is only a useful explanation when it’s a parent explaining to a child that, no, she can’t have some more Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs before bedtime; it’s a damn lousy explanation for why TSA screeners, of whatever sexual orientation, get to cop feels of whomever they feel like copping feels off of.
That said, if you want to consent to a body cavity search by whomever, hey, whatever floats your boat. As a dominatrix of my (entirely nonprofessional) acquaintance says, crop in hand, “Different strokes for different folks.”
Think what a better world if the government had done protected us before Sept. 11. But that is not the nature of government is it?
Ah Sam, mighty kind of you to give away someone else’s rights. But we’re coming from different sides on two separate issues, the first being the benefit gained by this show of security that has served no discernable purpose.
The second is your “crazy privacy rights” people. Since when is it crazy to live in America without government personnel touching a person, any person in any part of the body, when they’ve done nothing to warrant being touched? Privacy is a fundamental right here. So if, by “privacy rights” people, you mean Americans, then so be it. And since you exclude yourself from those “privacy rights” people, then perhaps you would feel more comfortable in a nation that didn’t hold privacy to be a fundamental right.
The bootlickers always amaze me. I know, I know, “9/11 changed everything,” but the most important change was that airplane cockpits have been secured. As long as people in the passenger compartment can’t take over the plane, we don’t need to screen passengers for every tiny metal object. It’s just security theater.
It’s not just the door, as important as it is; it’s the attitude.
It’s still possible for a would-be hijacker to get a weapon on board and, say, carve on a flight attendant, threatening to keep doing so until the pilot turns over the aircraft.
And that, with or without boxcutters, would have worked before 9/11, because the consensus belief was that the best thing to do was to go along, and let the authorities sort it out, later — storm the plane, arrest the guy, whatever.
These days, both crew and passengers would understand what the risks of cooperation are, just as the folks in Flight 93 finally did.
The change in paradigm is, IHMO and all, a much bigger deal than the door.
Uh, if that ever were to happen to you, you would probably react like an insane man.
I agree, but I just mentioned improved cockpit security because it’s tangible and documented.
What’s amazing about the change in attitude is how fast it was. The people on the first plane didn’t resist the terrorists (that we know of) but an hour later the folks on Flight 93 fought them with everything they had.