Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Airport screeners get more aggressive with pat-downs - USATODAY.com

I have issues with this. Let he amongst you with no issues go first.

Airport screeners get more aggressive with pat-downs - USATODAY.com: "The new searches are done with screeners' hands sliding over a passenger's body. However, the searches require screeners to touch passengers' breasts and genitals. And that's prompting some fliers and the American Civil Liberties Union to question the policy's intrusiveness and effectiveness.
Frequent business traveler Richard Boyd of Beverly Hills says the pat downs 'serve no real purpose.'
'It's another TSA delusion of enhancing security,' Boyd says. 'It will accomplish nothing other than adding to a traveler's frustration and time required to clear security. It should be abandoned before implemented.'
Pat-down searches are used when a passenger sets off a metal detector, chooses not to go through a 'full-body' scanning machine or the machine detects something suspicious.
'Invasive' techniques
Frequent flier Leslie Ashor says she advocates 'anything that keeps us safe,' but she's concerned about a search she underwent Thursday at Denver's airport.
'I stood there thinking that this is somewhat humiliating, even though I didn't know all the people around me,' says Ashor, an architect from San Diego. 'As a woman, it is somewhat unnerving to have someone touching you in these areas in full public view.'
The TSA has private screening areas, but Ashor says she doesn't opt to use them to save time.
An effective pat down 'has to be invasive' and touch both breasts and genitals, says Billie Vincent, a former security director for the Federal Aviation Administration. 'It is clearly a technique that most people would consider an invasion of their privacy.'"

No comments: