A Refuser

Being someone who travels quite a bit with my my job, I've been able to enjoy more than one encounter with the invasive new "security" techniques being employed at various airports around the country. I've always refused the invasive, non-secure, and unreliable full body scans using the $200,000 x-ray devices.

Today I caught a snippet from a TSA spokesman who said that complaints have not gone up significantly with the new "security" techniques. Imagine people not so much as attempting to register formal complaints with an agency whose employees will threaten to suspend you from air travel for life if you don't shut up and do what you're told.

Now, a chap might still want to file a formal report. In fact I did so, at the TSA web site. Here's the message I left:

"Your full body scanners are invasive and inappropriate, and your full body pat-downs are insulting techniques that turn people into cattle. When someone refuses the scanner and you have a team of TSA agents all shouting, 'WE HAVE A REFUSAL!' you are clearly trying to embarrass people into complying. You don't make airports safer; all you're doing is dehumanizing innocent citizens."

In a more enlightened age TSA gropers would be shouted down by an angry mob for what they do to innocent travelers.