On October 28, 2010 the TSA issued a statement regarding new pat-down procedures being implemented:

October 28, 2010 "TSA is in the process of implementing new pat-down procedures at checkpoints nationwide as one of our many layers of security to keep the traveling public safe. Pat-downs are one important tool to help TSA detect hidden and dangerous items such as explosives. Passengers should continue to expect an unpredictable mix of security layers that include explosives trace detection, advanced imaging technology, canine teams, among others."

Sounds innocuous enough, doesn't it? There's no detail listed of what these new pat-down procedures include, but we've dealt with increased security before. We take our shoes off, remove laptops from bags, remove our baggie full of liquids and gels, and we adapt, right? Because a little inconvenience is worth the added security, right? Right?

Well that depends. Now, it seems passengers are given two choices. Would you rather be ogled or groped? Choice A includes stepping into a back-scatter scanner, which basically looks through your clothes, and sends an image of your naked body to be reviewed by a security official in some other room.

Don't want images of your naked body shown to anyone? Well, then there's Choice B. Although it's really more of a situation where if you balk and decide to "opt-out" for Choice A, you're shunted automatically to Choice B. Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic wrote about his experiences with the TSA's new procedures just a little more than a week ago:

In part because of the back-scatter imager's invasiveness (a TSA employee in Miami was arrested recently after he physically assaulted a colleague who had mocked his modestly sized penis, which was fully apparent in a captured back-scatter image), the TSA is allowing passengers to opt-out of the back-scatter and choose instead a pat-down. I've complained about TSA pat-downs in the past, because they, too, were more security theater than anything else. They are, as I would learn, becoming more serious, as well. At BWI, I told the officer who directed me to the back-scatter that I preferred a pat-down. I did this in order to see how effective the manual search would be. When I made this request, a number of TSA officers, to my surprise, began laughing. I asked why. One of them -- the one who would eventually conduct my pat-down -- said that the rules were changing shortly, and that I would soon understand why the back-scatter was preferable to the manual search. I asked him if the new guidelines included a cavity search. "No way. You think Congress would allow that?"

Well, if not a stripsearch, then what?

"Yes, but starting tomorrow, we're going to start searching your crotchal area" -- this is the word he used, "crotchal" -- and you're not going to like it." "What am I not going to like?" I asked. "We have to search up your thighs and between your legs until we meet resistance," he explained. "Resistance?" I asked. "Your testicles," he explained.

First off, "crotchal" is not a word in the English language. Changing it from "crotch" to "crotchal" isn't going soften it or make anyone feel more comfortable during said "crotching", with the notable exception of TSA personnel who have to explain this process, perhaps.

To continue:

I asked him if he was looking forward to conducting the full-on pat-downs. "Nobody's going to do it," he said, "once they find out that we're going to do." In other words, people, when faced with a choice, will inevitably choose the Dick-Measuring Device over molestation? "That's what we're hoping for. We're trying to get everyone into the machine."

I see, so basically if you humiliate enough people and make them cry while being manhandled and groped in public they'll eventually do what you really want them to do which is go through the Naked X-Ray machine and just suffer from virtual humiliation (and mild doses of radiation) instead, right?

Think I'm kidding? Nope.

Rosemary Fitzpatrick, a CNN employee, said she was subjected to a pat-down at the Orlando, Florida, airport on Wednesday night after her underwire bra set off a magnetometer. She said she was taken to a private area and searched, with transportation screening officers telling her the pat-down was a new procedure. According to Fitzpatrick, a female screener ran her hands around her breasts, over her stomach, buttocks and her inner thighs, and briefly touched her crotch. "I felt helpless, I felt violated, and I felt humiliated," Fitzpatrick said, adding that she was reduced to tears at the checkpoint. She particularly objected to the fact that travelers were not warned about the new procedures.

And, apparently this is not exactly being communicated all that well, so it's not like travelers have an informed choice if something like this kind of procedure might make the difference to them in deciding whether to fly or find an alternate form of travel.

"I am appalled and disgusted at the new search procedures and the fact that passengers have not been made aware of the new invasive steps prior to entering the security area," Fitzpatrick wrote. "It appears once you enter the security area, passengers forfeit their rights. There were no signs, video information, etc. at the entrance of the security area the airport. Why?" She added: "As an experienced traveler for work who was in tears for most of the search process, I have never experienced a more traumatic and invasive travel event!"

What about those who have already been traumatized, whether by rape or some other type of molestation or assault? Tough. (Warning: Some of the narrative below may be triggery for some.)

Celeste is a seasoned air traveler. She estimates that she flies upwards of 60 times a year for her job and she knows all the ins and outs of most airports in the USA. Want to know which airport has the best sushi? Celeste can tell you. What she, and most other people didn’t know, was that on October 29th the TSA changed their security guidelines. "I flew to Chicago with no problems. Everything was the same as before. It was when I attempted to fly back to Minnesota that I found out about TSA’s new rules. What they did to me, in full view of everyone else in line, was like being sexually assaulted all over again. I was in shock. I hate myself that I allowed them to do this to me. I haven’t been able to stop crying since." Previously, flyers walked through a metal detector and some persons were randomly selected for a pat-down that avoided the face, genital areas, and hair. This was the procedure that Celeste was familiar with. Then came the full body scanners, a device that uses powerful advanced imaging technology (AIT) to allow TSA agents to see the naked bodies of travelers. Not only have people expressed concern over being seen naked and having their photos stored in the machine, there are also health concerns from the scanners. Captain Dave Bates, president of the Allied Pilots Association, sent a letter to all 11,000 American Airlines pilots urging them to decline the full body scan, "It is important to note that there are "backscatter" AIT devices now being deployed that produce ionizing radiation, which could be harmful to your health. " Celeste is opposed to the AIT devices, "I knew there were more and more of these scanners coming on line at airports. I try to pick a line where there isn’t one installed yet, but this is getting harder to do. I fly often and I don’t want the extra doses of radiation and I hate the thought of people looking at me naked. Why should I have to let people see me naked to get on a plane? This is my body, I’ve worked many years to re-establish the feeling that I’m allowed to have control over my body after being raped. Even the thought of that leaves me feeling dirty and vulnerable again." About 500 scanners will be operational by the end of this year. Five hundred more in 2011. Ultimately, the new machines replace metal detectors at all of the roughly 2,000 airport checkpoints. Coming back from Chicago, Celeste, like increasing numbers of travelers, was forced to make a difficult choice – either allow strangers to see her naked or allow strangers to touch and squeeze her breasts and groin in full view of other travels and TSA agents. "This was a nightmare come to life," Celeste says, "I said I didn’t want them to see me naked and the agent started yelling Opt out- we have an opt here. Another agent took me aside and said they would have to pat me down. He told me he was going to touch my genitals and asked if I wouldn’t rather just go through the scanner, that it would be less humiliating for me. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I kept saying I don’t want any of this to happen. I was whispering please don’t do this, please, please." Since Celeste didn’t agree to go through the scanner, the enhanced pat down began. "He started at one leg and then ran his hand up to my crotch. He cupped and patted my crotch with his palm. Other flyers were watching this happen to me. At that point I closed my eyes and started praying to the Goddess for strength. He also cupped and then squeezed my breasts. That wasn’t the worst part. He touched my face, he touched my hair, stroking me. That’s when I started crying. It was so intimate, so horrible. I feel like I was being raped. There’s no way I can fly again. I can’t do it." The TSA has said that travelers will receive the pat downs by same sex TSA agents, but both Celeste and other flyers have refuted this. (See linked stories below) She said that fellow travelers, after seeing what happened to her, were more willing to go through the full body scanner. She noticed some, with small children, left the security line, refusing to put their children through the scanner or allow an adult to touch them that way. "What they did to me was criminal. I feel they are doing that demeaning of a body search to coerce others into going though the scanners. They made it as horrible as possible as a lesson to others, let me see you naked or I will touch you like I touched her."

So, basically the TSA procedure is to bully and punish travelers who don't want to go through the Naked Machine, by making the alternative even more humiliating? Or, as Chris Calabrese, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union said in USA Today last week:

"Are we giving people two intolerable actions at airports?" Calabrese asks. "They can be virtually strip-searched or endure a really aggressive grope?"

Apparently so, and as per Consumer Traveler, the TSA even says they know it:

However, when meeting with privacy officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and TSA later that month, I was told unofficially that there were two standards of pat-downs. One for the normal situation where passengers are going through metal detectors and a different pat-down for those who refuse to go through the whole-body scanners. With this latest announcement, TSA admits that it has been clandestinely punishing passengers for refusing to go through the invasive whole-body scans with an even more intrusive aggressive pat-down and that soon those more invasive pat-down will creep from airport to airport.

The word "creep" being the operative word here, I think....because if it is anything, the idea of being not just patted down in the more traditional sense, but actually felt up by a stranger in public or private is downright creepy at best, and seriously traumatizing at worst.

In researching this online, I located a site called thousandsstandingaround.org which has gathered numerous comments and anecdotes on various very recent TSA experiences.

They ranged from slightly amusing:

If by being "patted down" you mean a full contact groping of my nether regions, then it doesn't matter what gender you are. If you're not my gynecologist or my significant other, you have absolutely no business putting your hands there. Although I don't like it by any stretch of the imagination - I don't have a problem with TSA patting down my arms, legs, back or butt. Hell, I'll even offer up "the girls" to be honked, without batting an eye. But I draw the line at a stranger, male or female, who tries to fondle my hoohah.

To rather squirm-inducing:

He stood behind me and placed his arms around my neck, surprising me with how strong and firm his grip was -- it felt like someone choking me from behind. He squeezed the area around my collar, his neoprene blue gloved hands tickling my ears. And he kneaded around my shoulders, pressing with his fingertips into my muscle, as if he were tenderizing a piece of meat. With my arms held out straight he grasped both his hands around each one and pulled all the way down to my wrist. With the palms of his hands he stroked down my back to my belt, rounding the curve of my rump, with the tips of his fingers slicing into the cleft of my cheeks, pulling them apart with a gentle tug. He continued down the back of my thighs, his fingertips like a paintbrush running down my legs.... Kneeling, his face less than a foot from my crotch he advised me he would pass the back of his hands over my crotch, under my testicles, and in the fold between my legs. I felt him cup my testicles and run his fingers from my an-s down the back of my balls. By now I was turning red. I wondered what government official in what dark alley dreamed up this groping to protect the public?

To heart-breaking:

I just experienced my first "enhanced" pat down yesterday at the Baltimore airport for refusing to be radiated in the TSA nude-o-scope. As others have observed, there was an instant, palpable negative attitude towards me by the TSA agents for my choosing a pat down instead. They kept referring to me as "a refusal", and I believe there is an attempt to punish people for not complying with orders. After waiting and not being allowed to gather my belongings I went off for my enhanced pat down. The TSA agents apparently were not aware of something called a bra strap, so I was then escorted to a "private area" where I had to remove my shirt in front of two TSA agents. The whole thing took about 25 minutes, and it was humiliating and an absolute outrage. I had tears running down my face -- from both anger and sadness.

And how about our children?

Today when flying from Boston Logan to BWI my 17 year old daughter had quite an unpleasant experience due to the new scanner malfunctioning. There was some confusion of whether there was a scan or not. She was told that she needed to submit to a full pat down after being told "it did not scan" . She was told she would need a pat down. Being 17 she had no idea what that meant and how intense a full detailed full body pat down can be. Even when she began to cry, the TSA agent continued the pat down. My daughter felt molested and humiliated and as a parent I was helpless to stop this violation. .... As a parent, I have serious concerns that such a search would be done on a 17 year old minor. The searches cross the line, she was molested for no reason.

So, what about when you're dealing with a smaller child? We have told children that they have to respect authority figures, like police officers (which TSA are not, even with the police-like costume), but parents also try to let kids know what "good touching" versus "bad touching" is. How do you explain to a little kid that this kind of treatment should somehow be acceptable at the airport, when it's not acceptable in virtually any other place in society? Especially when you're there gritting your teeth in frustration at having to see your kid put through this, and even a kid can see that you're obviously not "okay" with it.

What's more, there were numerous stories about how during these "opt-out" enhanced pat-downs, you are separated from all of your belongings that have by now gone through the X-ray machine sit unattended at the end of the conveyor belt, with everyone else's stuff piling up behind it. Unless a particularly attentive TSA officer has collected them and brought them to you (which seems to not be the case that often), you must desperately wait for who-knows-how-long wondering if someone might be making off with your purse, wallet, phone, laptop, etc. while being barked at that you have to stay RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE. (With the implied "Or else".)

It seems rather absurd for them to do this, since they make it plain from the time you get curbside at the airport that you should never be separated from your belongings, right?

An online friend of mine had his own experience this week with the new pat-down regime:

Dear TSA, When you've diverted me for special screening and I am standing in a glass room where I cannot see my hand luggage or hear you asking whose bags they are, those are not abandoned bags. After all, you separated me from them. Also, the new pat down procedures? I've had good dates with less action. I'm sure America is safer for you inspecting the inside of my underwear while I was still wearing it. Love, Me

Then there's the issue that while these TSA folks may be remarkably well-trained to grope you and rifle through your stuff, they aren't all that well-versed on what your rights are:

She pointed to the NOS and barked "you will be going through this scanner". I stopped in my tracks and said "No, I was next in line to go through this one", gesturing to the WTMD. To which she said in a belligerent tone "I said you will be going through this scanner (pointing at the NOS). I looked at her and said "No, I will not." She said "if I tell you to use this scanner, this is the one you have to use." I replied firmly, "NO. I will not subject myself to unnecessary radiation or allow a government employee to see me naked just to get on a flight." She looked very peeved and pointed to the NOS, and said "walk through there and wait on the other side, if you are refusing to go through the scanner, someone will have give you a pat down search." In a level voice I said, "I already told you that I am not going through that machine. I opt out", to which she retorted "well, you have to go through it to get to the pat-down area." I pointed to the WTMD and said " I can walk though this to go to the patdown area. I also need someone to gather my belongings and bring them there so they can remain within my view." She barked, "the procedure says you have to walk though that scanner (pointing at the NOS) to go to the pat-down area and we have to follow that procedure." My comment about my belongings was ignored. My reply "I have the right to opt out of going through that machine and have chosen to do so. I will not walk through that machine to get to the other side. If this means I do not fly today, so be it." ... While my pat-down was not intrusive compared to what we've read about other's experiences, I am appalled at having to allow a government employee run their hands over my body simply to get on a plane -- and infuriated at the manner and tone taken with me by the original barker. I did speak to a supervisior before leaving the checkpoint and let them know that my right to opt out was initially refused.

How is any of this okay? Benjamin Franklin's quote about security and liberty comes to mind, for sure.

We need to put a stop to what is literally bullying and humilation. It is unfortunate that it will probably take a celebrity, or perhaps various members of Congress and their families being manhandled and humilitated in public before the outrage really has any effect. But, if you're not okay with the idea of having these things happening to you, your family, or your children, then we need to push back and tell the TSA that this kind of method is not acceptable in our society today, no matter how safe some people think it may make us.....and the conclusion that it does is dubious at best.

Here are more simple an pretty common sense conclusions:

* Humilitating and bullying any human being of any age into doing what you want them to do is plain abusive. The fact that it's institutionalized abuse that is now apparently TSA policy doesn't change that fact. * Separating someone from their belongings without securing them in a busy airport where they could be stolen is not any more acceptable than leaving one's bags sitting alone by themselves at a gate while you step away to go get a coffee. * Shouting at people because they assert their rights is not professional and not acceptable. * Traveling in general is stressful enough, but subjecting people to being groped as a punitive consequence of not wanting to go through the machine that will take pictures of your naked body instead is NOT acceptable. * Making the process of clearing security as painful and horrifying as possible doesn't make anyone feel safer. To the contrary, these new procedures makes me feel sick to my stomach at the thought of having to take another airplane flight at all. Let's see how good THAT method is for tourism and business in the United States.