While heads were  spinning in outrage that an employee of the government of the United States of America was charged with the duty of rubbing her hands over the body of a six year old girl, we may have missed the point.  From the Washington Post :

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), a leading critic of the agency’s passenger screening policies, called the incident “another example of mistreatment of an innocent American at the hands of TSA.”

TSA spokesman Nick Kimball offers the carrot and the stick:

Last fall, agency officials began reviewing whether to move beyond TSA’s current “one-size fits all” passenger screening system, “while maintaining a high level of security,” he said in an e-mail.

Part of the review includes finding ways to “improve the screening experience for low-risk populations, such as younger passengers,” Kimball said. Significant changes could be announced this year, he said.

Pistole has said he is considering the concept of a “trusted traveler” program, which would speed passengers through airport security checkpoints who are willing to provide detailed personal information in advance.

It seems in my outrage that I forgot all about the “trusted traveler” program.  That’s the funny thing about being outraged, it clouds the mind and impairs the thought processes necessary to fully analyze a situation. 

It doesn’t mean that the theater of the absurd created by the touching of this child was deliberate, part of a carefully crafted scheme to generate sufficient outrage that people would become more willing, more pliable, to accept a choice that gives the government something it’s always wanted from the public, unfettered access to a private information with our blessing.

It seems that there will be three choices offered people who take issue with the TSA’s inappropriate touching of people, young or old.  The first is a choice they expect few to consider rational, to forego flying.  We’re not a nation inclined toward self-sacrifice these days, and getting somewhere by stagecoach fails to satisfy our need for immediate gratification. 

So given the sense of need for protection from the terrorists, carefully nurtured for a decade and part of our national psyche, the TSA has raised the threat level to its max.  When our mothers, our daughters, our infirm and ourselves, reach the point where the confluence of fear and disgust can no longer be tolerated, there will be a relief valve, and third choice, an option where no uniformed person will touch our genitalia, our children’s genitalia.  And still we will be safe.

Consider the thought that went into the name, trusted traveler.  Trust.  Isn’t trust a wonderful thing, the characteristic that we all strive to achieve in ourselves and seek out in others?  Trust is good, so much better than molesting a child.

And the TSA won’t be offering Sophie any other choices.