"No thanks, I've already had cancer, just feel me up or whatever." Tuesday November 16, 2010 This is an ancient blog post that was written many years ago. It’s archived here as a historical curiosity, and is likely to contain bad writing, bad ideas, and broken links. Please don’t assume that anything here is still accurate or represents my current opinions.

My former coworker Isaac Schlueter is flying today and brought some copies of the UCSF letter with him. While waiting in line at the TSA checkpoint, he struck up a conversation with the family behind him:

Turns out she’s a breast cancer survivor. And her doctor has told her to avoid x-rays, even at the dentist, unless absolutely medically necessary. And she didn’t realize that “millimeter wave digital backscatter detection” used x-rays, because the TSA doesn’t actually put that on the sign.



She did the rest.



When we got to the scanner, I opted out. Then they opted out. She’d already convinced the family behind them to do the same. Her response to the TSA agent was awesome, I wish I’d thought of it:



“Ma’am, please step over here.”



“No thanks, I’ve already had cancer, just feel me up or whatever.”



After the first 4 “ OPT - OUT ” calls, they just passed us all through the regular metal detector. No one got groped.

Internets, please do more things like this.