Half the public opposes pat-downs, while two-thirds support digital scans, a new poll found. TSA uproar moves to the Hill

The uproar over new TSA screening procedures expanded from airport checkpoints to Capitol Hill on Monday, as the Democratic and Republican House caucuses convened a rare House-wide staff briefing on the new procedures this morning in the Capitol basement.

The briefing came as a new Washington Post poll shows that half the American public opposes the controversial enhanced pat-downs, the paper reported Monday. The poll also showed that almost two thirds of Americans – down from 80 percent earlier this month according to another poll the administration has widely cited to defend the policy — support the use of digital scanning machines at airports


The enhanced pat-downs that have sparked passenger complaints are used as secondary screening as part of a new TSA policy that went into place earlier this month.

The comprehensive briefing of House staff, by a TSA deputy, covered everything – the threat from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, screening procedures, pat-downs (standard and enhanced) – “the whole works,” one House staffer who attended the briefing told POLITICO.

He said that several House staffers were uncomfortable and averted their eyes when the TSA demonstrated an enhanced pat-down in the room of 200 people.

“The dumbest part: they did two pat-down demonstrations – male on male, and female on female,” the House staffer said. And they used a young female TSA volunteer “and in front of a room of 200 people, they touched her breasts and her buttocks. People were averting their eyes. The TSA was trying to demonstrate ‘this is not so bad,’ but it made people so uncomfortable to watch, that people were averting their eyes.”

“They shot themselves in the foot,” the staffer continued.

Obama administration and TSA officials have been trying to downplay public horror stories that have exploded on the Internet and in the media in the last few days at the controversial screening procedures, suggesting that some of them are exaggerated or even fabricated.

TSA officials note, for instance, that a widely disseminated YouTube video of a shirtless young boy having a TSA officer put his hands inside the waistband of the frightened boy's pants had had his shirt removed not by the TSA officer but by his father who was trying to speed up the TSA pat-down that the child was resisting.

But TSA officials have not explained why an ABC News producer reports that a TSA officer put her hands inside her underwear and touched her extensively at Newark Airport on Sunday in an experience the producer called demeaning and inappropriate.

"The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around," ABC producer Carolyn Durand told ABC. "It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist. It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was inappropriate."

TSA Administrator John Pistole told ABC that that incident should not have happened.

"There should never be a situation where that happens," Pistole said.

A TSA official contacted after the report said they were trying to look into the incident but were having a hard time because the ABC employee had not lodged a formal complaint. The TSA can’t look into an incident without a formal complaint from the traveler, a spokesman said.

ABC News, contacted by POLITICO, said there was no question that the incident happened and that Pistole told the network it should not have.

“I don’t know about a formal complaint, but we certainly made TSA aware of it and when our anchor asked the head of TSA for his reaction, his reaction was that should never happen,” ABC’s Jeffrey Schneider told POLITICO.

Pistole also issued an apology Monday to a retired special education teacher, Thomas D. Sawyer, 61, who ended up covered in urine and weeping after TSA officers ignored his pleas that their pat-down was too rough and would break his urostomy bag. The bag broke, leaving him soaked in urine and humiliated as he walked went through the airport to his gate.

One staffer who attended the House briefing this morning asked the TSA officials, essentially, why are we doing all of these intelligence operations if we are going to treat the entire traveling American public like terrorists, the staffer relayed. “Why fund this huge intelligence operation if we are going to treat everyone like terrorists?”

It’s a message the Obama administration and TSA are still finding it tough to answer, despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying on Sunday that they would seek to bring more “balance” to the controversial screening policies.