"Enhanced Patdown" of Air Travelers Questioned

(AP)  The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is questioning the propriety of stepped-up security checkpoint procedures at airports in Boston and Las Vegas.

The Boston Herald reports that Transportation Security Administration screeners at Logan International Airport are testing what one official called an "enhanced patdown." It lets screeners use a palms-forward, slide-down search procedure on passengers' bodies.

It replaces the old back-of-the-hand patdown for passengers who don't want to go through full-body scanning machines.

The TSA says the new procedure is also being tested at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas before a national rollout.

The ACLU questions whether the new technique is effective enough to justify what it calls a "seemingly constant erosion of privacy."

[wyodutch]

America has become a nation of sniveling cowards.
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Overseas, we thump our chests and kill people antiseptically by remote control, while here at home, we are so frightened of the prospect of dieing that we'd much rather live on our knees.
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Grow a pair, America and boycott the airlines until this madness ends.

[documemts]

The reality is Americans need to find their balls. In the present age of female consciousness anything goes. Since straight white males long ago gave up any idea of asserting themselves. The white female: "I'll submit to anything if I can fly" mentality has taken root and is spreading in America. Forget flying wait till they do body scans at the side of the roads! Coming to a jurisdiction near you.

[documemts]

The US gov't keeps this going because it gives them more power over its subjects. By furthering the perceptions of threat and anxiety gov't intrusion into privacy is extended so that all areas (think your residence) can be legally justified as potential area for gov't search and detentions.

[either1or]

Of the 21 posts there were like three that actually got it. The rest of you should hide from "Big sister" and pat yourselves down. This away we can fly the friendly skies with less riff raff.

[wyodutch]

We used to call ourselves the Land of the Free... Home of the Brave. Now we're the country of the yellow-bellied chicken.

[jsf14]

We're in more danger every day from drunk drivers than we are from terrorists.

[RichardUSA2]

I had hoped that the change in administration and appointment of Napolitano would bring some reforms; like, fixing the no fly lists, making it easy to solve problems when someone is on there by mistake; like, some regard for the traveler at these checkpoints, maybe just some chairs and someone to assist the elderly and infirm and parent with children. NOTHING. Not a thought to fixing any of BUSH's mess. I don't know why the message doesn't get through--- they seemed to have it, change lots of things for the better-- when they were campaigning. Keeping the worst offenses of the Bush administration is one amazing disappointment. TSA checkpoint can easily be made to be less annoying with just a tiny bit of imagination and determination. I'd like 6 months at that task of fixing screening--and I'd do it for free.

[larrryshrine]

I fly with a service dog, and that has become almost unbearable. His collar usually sets of the alarm and he has to be patted down; sometimes I have to take his vest off. I refuse to have the full body scan, so I get thoroughly patted down as well. When I go through the detector, I have to let go of Buster, and that is not good. Some airlines are better than others. Southwest is good. American is awful. They ask - illegally - for documentation of my disability, they make it hard to get an appropriate seat, and are condescending to me. I know this is a little off topic, but, like pat down searches, it is yet another intrusion in what has become the nightmare world of air travel.

[walnuttrees]

How far away can actual strip searches and body cavity searches be? Who would have thought 5 years ago that we would be subject to virtual strip searches and body gropes, verging on sexual assault.

I predict that the next incident on an airplane, which WILL happen, brings on just such searches.

[n4zhg]

Remember the movie "Con Air"? In the not too distant future that will be the way all of us fly: In orange jumpsuits, shackled to our seats, begging for permission to use the restroom. And that's for those of us not on the so-called "watch list". The ones on the watch list will be in special "cells" denied any restroom privileges.

[larry0304]

As long as it's a hot young girl doing the "enhanced patdown", I have no problem with it. However, my homophobic syndrome would make me nauseous being patted down by a man..........