'At Manchester airport, a humiliating trip'

By ROY MORRISON

For the Monitor

Last modified: 3/2/2011 12:00:00 AM

The U.S. government has done the impossible. It's made me more angry and worried about the Transportation Security Administration than about the terrorists.



A 64-year-old guy flying from Manchester to Orlando, Fla., with my wife to visit her sick mother, I recently experienced the privilege of an 'enhanced' pat down.



Dutifully, I'd taken off my shoes, my belt, my jacket, my sweater, emptied my pockets, put my computer and cell phone through the x-ray machine, and then walked through the metal detector which uttered not a sound. I was not questioned - not asked who I was, or what I was doing, or who I was with, or had the terrorist database checked for my name and connections.



For some reason unknown to me, I was nonetheless chosen to stand spread-eagled and have a guy put his hands into my underpants and then run them up the inside of my legs as far as he could go, grazing my scrotum.



The options, of course, are to endure humiliation or attempt to escape and not to fly. What would Tom Jefferson do?



In the United States, we used to have the protection of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution: 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searchers and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause.'



Instead, in our 'war against terror' all Americans are deemed, unless proven otherwise, suspects and terrorists. We are all subject to being stars of security theater, our dignity stripped away literally and figuratively, forced to remain on exhibit in strange, uncomfortable postures.



My friend described his experience with flying El Al. The Israelis were friendly and inquisitive and spent time resolving a discrepancy in the travel plans of his group. No one stuck hands into pants.



We spend billions on intelligence, watch lists and data bases and yet subject completely innocent Americans to full body groping without reason, without evidence, without any hint from travel history, demeanor, current plans and without recourse to our extensive intelligence data bases.



This is more than balancing rights against security. It's clear that terrorists have already figured out, as they did in Saudi Arabia, how to conceal explosives in their rectum and get through two body scans to blow someone up.



I fly. I want to be safe. I want us to end our endless wars that breed terrorists. I also want my human and constitutional rights. The alternative to degrading security is an intelligent protocol of actions by the TSA, data base use, combined with polite questioning for people considered worthy of further scrutiny.



Bomb -niffing dogs, not hands in the pants, is a last resort.



I still have a sense of humor.



When I'm back home, if the TSA and the terrorists allow, I will go to the Warren Rudman courthouse in Concord and get the forms to file a pro se suit against the TSA, Janet Napalitano, and Homeland Security asking for injunctive relief.



'Now comes Roy Morrison . . .'



Meanwhile, if you don't want hands in your pants, go to an airport with Whole Body Scanners, get a dose of radiation and pray they don't find any 'anomalies.' At the Manchester airport, in the 'Live Free or Die' state, the incisive judgment of the TSA goons will determine your fate.



(Roy Morrison of Warner is director of the Office for Sustainability at Southern New Hampshire University.)





