Traveling last week to South Carolina with friends, I have an opportunity to experience the controversial “imaging scan” and “pat-down” airport security measures that are all over the news this week. Here's my take.
The imaging search is awesome for someone in my condition. I have a knee replacement, and so I always have to be hand searched when flying. Imagine my surprise when we arrive at security at LAX and it is a new imaging machine. I walk right through and that is it!
Since then, on the news, I have seen what the image looks like to the agents, and it isn’t like it’s X-ray glasses you could get by sending in coupons from comic books when I was a kid. Because it usually takes 5 minutes to get checked out using a pat-down and metal detector wand the way they used to, the quicker check-through is much appreciated.
When we are leaving Myrtle Beach returning to LA, I am looking forward to the same quick security check. As we are attending a working conference, we didn’t really take the time to check the news or watch it on TV, and so we had no idea how big of an issue this is as we are checking in. In fact, waiting at the ticket counter is a news team from Channel 13 in Charleston. So, naturally, Debee Jusko and I agree to be interviewed by the news reporter about the whole experience. You can see it here. Vickie says I look like a bobble head!
After this interview, little did I know, the Myrtle Beach airport didn’t have a scanner, yet. So, I get ready for my normal pat down, and the TSA agent tells me, “We don’t do it that way, anymore.” Oh, Oh…All I can think of is the word, “Probe”-
I proceed to get a full body Swedish massage. From head to toe, including wipes that have drug/ explosive(?) reaction chemicals. It is a bit over-the-top when he is putting his hand in my waistband, like he is going full circle tucking in my shirt, except I didn’t have a shirt on that needs to be tucked in.
The only redeeming factor is he doesn’t enter into the forbidden zone. The Bermuda Triangle is left untouched.
So, what do I have to say about all of this?
I don’t work for homeland security, and so I don’t know what’s going on with the new pat-down procedure. There is enough patting and such in the old method that I think the new regulations are just keeping their hands on you longer. I don’t think the new method accomplishes much more than the old, and so I would argue it is a bit too much.
However, I think most people who are getting upset by the full pat-down are people who opted out of being image scanned, and aren’t used to being body searched in the first place. I can certainly see how some people would be extremely stressed by such close contact if they hadn’t had a body search before. My first time was a little tense, as I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen.
Yet, if you are like me, and the body search is a normal part of your routine when flying, the new procedures, while perhaps a bit creepier (I don’t have to tip him, do I?), are nothing that is going to scar us for life, or whatever.
Last word, not original:
When you choose to fly, you choose to place yourself in these situations.
