Ask…
Share your views on hot topics
Are new security screenings affecting your decision to fly?
Email 
Print
Stepped-up security screening at airports in the wake of foiled terrorism plots has provoked an outcry from airline pilots and travelers, including parents of children who say they are too intrusive.
Industry officials, travelers and pilots have complained bitterly to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about new full-body scanners and more rigorous patdown checks begun recent weeks.
Security officials have defended the measures as necessary after foiled plots by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has tried to hide bombs in clothing and parcels that have made it aboard a U.S. passenger airliner and two cargo planes.
With the busiest holiday travel season nearing, fliers face long security lines and new rigorous patdown checks aimed at discovering hidden explosives. As a result, some travelers are questioning whether to fly at all.
Loading ...
Comments RSSPost Your Comment
As retired senior naval officer (aviator) and licensd FAA rated pilot holding an air transport rating with more than 14000 hours of flight experience, and having been cleared for a top secret clearance by US authorities, I no longer use our domestic air carriers. The last time I used a commercial carrier, I was fondled by a pervert TSA person, and my reaction to that action nearly landed me in jail. Until some sanity is restored to the system, I suspect the public will reject the TSA polocy at an ever increasing rate.
Do you people have terminal memory loss? The only problem I have with these scans is that they should not be random. Everyone should undergo them – and opt out?? I don’t think so. Opt all the way out of the airport I say.
My wife already did the arithmetic. Our family of four can rent an SUV and drive home for Christmas CHEAPER than flying. Overall trip time goes from 8 hours to 12 hours, no big deal when you consider the 8 hour trip time is NEVER 8 hours, there’s to and from the airports PLUS delays. So long airlines, See-Ya.
This is a perfect time for hotels and AAA to get into a great advertising campaign about the beauty of American roadways. Instead of a 1h 45min flight to Las Vegas, we drove last week…. and yes, 10 hours of driving may seem amazingly painful for some, we turned it into a mini vacation along the way and had the best time ever. Stopped by the Hoover dam and other places to see the great beauty of this country. If everyone skipped just 25% of their flights and took the road, the airlines would definitely notice and lobby for changes. How about a giant ultrasound system? No radiation there!
This kind of abusive overreach and violation of the 4th Amendment was completely predictable by the very act of FEDERALIZING Airport Security and creating a new agency, full of FEDERAL EMPLOYEE security guards! If we simply kept private security, and issued security guidelines comparable to those of El Al… we’d be FAR better off!
Meantime, I have no plans to fly as long as TSA is in charge of security! If I can’t get there in 10 hrs of driving, I probably won’t be visiting that destination!
My children and I were going to accompany my husband on a business trip shortly after the New Year, but we have decided in light of this abuse of power, we will not go. Moreover, I refuse to fly or to subject my children to these procedures. On another note, our insurance premiums are going up substantially next year even as my husband received virtually no pay raise. Of course, at this point, I’m just extremely grateful he has a job. This government under Obama has done NOTHING to make life better but in fact, has done EVERYTHING to interfere and make it worse! I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he took office, but now I absolutely cannot stand him or his arrogant administration.
Before Deciding I would like to see Goofy Napolitano go through the Body Scan 100 times then have her checked for radiation and or Derangemnt syndrome….
It is what you get when an idiot is in charge. Elect Obama, get Napolitano as a hidden prize inside the box!
SCAN THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS!
Why don’t they take their fancy naked scanner equipment and surley TSA perverts, go down to our Southern border, and apply these security measures there?
Why not? They keep telling us thay can’t secure the border. If they can grope, fondle and screen 49 million American citizens each month, CERTAINLY THEY CAN DO THE SAME FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS!
There are a damn site fewer than 49 million illegals and the resulting safety and lives saved from stopping drugs, weapons, disease, murders, rapists, and gangsters would be far greater removing shoes and taking grandma’s tweezers at airports!
THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED IN SAFETY, THEY ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN COWING AMERICA!
Its not “liberals” or “conservatives”, democrats or republicans that are causing this country to devolve into dictatorship. Its “elitists” and they come in all denominations. They “know” whats “best” for you. They are training you and your children to “obey”. Pavlovs dogs is what they want. Live in fear they say…only Big Brother can protect you. Pitiful.
I will not allow myself to be sexually assaulted or imaged by the perverts at the TSA or DHS. I will walk, drive or take a train rather than be subjected to this illegal, unconstitutional invasion of my privacy.
well I prefer Amtrak over flying anyways. Call me nostalgic, but it’s a lot more gentile then flying. I’ll fly when absolutely required. It’s not just the security measures, but everything about flying. It’s not fun or comfortable. Dollar for dollar the train, inmho, is a better way to go.
I’m an Army wife living in the Republic of Korea (South Korea). We’ve been here for 2 years.
Korea is squared away and they don’t do this invasive, unacceptable crap. You go through the proper searches but you will NOT be screened naked or fondled.
And their air service on Korean Air is so much better than American airlines. The good old USA which I love very much could learn a thing or two about service from Korea.
Generals searches in airport security but search the folks who look suspicious closer. Its’ that simple.
In response to the comment about flying and how it’s not an advantage in time anymore, I can’t agree more strongly. These days you have to get to the airport two hours early, get through the rediculous line at the ticket counter to make sure you have everything and check in your bags, then report to the line for your daily groping and fondling from your friendly TSA perve, then wait at the gate while your flight is delayed because the groping on the other end of the line took longer than expected. Meanwhile it cost you an arm and a leg to get something to eat while you are waiting for your delayed flight and you can’t find a comfortable chair in the whole terminal. Last year, I dropped my sister off in upstate New York for her flight back to orlando while our family drove back to Atlanta. We arrived in Atlanta at the same time my sister arrived home in Orlando. It doesn’t pay to fly anymore, it’s not worth the hassle and it’s not any faster these days.
Georgia law (U.C.G.A. 16-6-22.1) follows. There is, to the best of my knowledge, any exemption for TSA (or anyone else). I suspect that other states have similar statutes and I believe that the states should prosecute TSA agents for violations. This would set the stage for some clarity on whether and to what extent the Feds can violate state protection of individual citizens.
§ 16-6-22.1. Sexual battery
(a) For the purposes of this Code section, the term “intimate parts” means the primary genital area, anus, groin, inner thighs, or buttocks of a male or female and the breasts of a female.
(b) A person commits the offense of sexual battery when he or she intentionally makes physical contact with the intimate parts of the body of another person without the consent of that person.
(c) Except as otherwise provided in this Code section, a person convicted of the offense of sexual battery shall be punished as for a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature.
(d) A person convicted of the offense of sexual battery against any child under the age of 16 years shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than five years.
(e) Upon a second or subsequent conviction under subsection (b) of this Code section, a person shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned for not less than one nor more than five years and, in addition, shall be subject to the sentencing and punishment provisions of Code Section 17-10-6.2.
I submitted to the backscatter on a business trip last month. It was humiliating, and I wish I hadn’t done it. I will NEVER do it again.
I went out of town again two weeks ago. It was a seven-hour drive or 1.5 hour flight, and I chose to drive. I’ve instructed my staff that any and all meetings more than eight hours away will be done by videoconference from now on.
With TSA running effectively Burning the contitution and trampling the Bill Of Rights, we have become Nazi Germany (if you have nothing to hide, then why do you resist the government), or the Soviet Union (only people who are enemies of the state would oppose or question the government)… or maybe a the worst of both.
The TSA is a completely un-necessary government agency (started by George W. Bush out of fear, and funded by liberal Democrats in Congress who love expensive but useless new government agencies and projects).
TSA has not caught one terrorist in over 8 years (they jsut make up news stories from time to time claiming that they stopped some un-named person who was thinking about some terrorist action from flying).
The purpose of all the TSA screenings, pat-downs, etc., is to establish that the United States has decisively LOST the “War On Terror” — the phantom menace of terrorism has caused the U.S.A. to abandon liberty and trade it for some imaginary sense of security — and we have ended up with neither (as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas jeffereson, Thomas Paine, etc. warned we would).
This is just the beginning. Govt, under liberals who believe the Constitution is an “evolving” document, will continue to erode away at our rights. This in the name of going after people who hate our way of life. This is getting close to needing to place the liberals in our Govt on the terrorist watch list.
Being subjected to radiation and/or invasive body searches will not keep us safe. We need to put a stop to this now. Travel by train is much more pleasant, with more room anyway, and is cheaper. If you must fly, always elect to opt out of the scanners. TSA is trying to force people to go through the scanners by making the alternative as unpleasant as possible. How do they think sexual abuse survivors will react to these procedures?
I am writing to all the airlines I fly with and informing them that I will not be using them as long as these measures are in place. The airline business is already in financial trouble. If they see they are losing more business because of this, they will put pressure on the TSA and the government to drop these ridiculous measures. This is all just theater. It does nothing to keep us safe.
May I suggest a fitting reply to TSA… please go file pedophile charges against TSA in a court of law.
I’m selling my place in Florida at a loss(of course). The wife and I thought we could spend the winters there in a thirty year old trailer, as a respite from Maine winters.
How wrong we where. Taxes here are murder, the cost of air travel and the hassle of TSA,and the cost of gas for the
drive back and forth make it unsupportable. I do not think our case is unique. I’ll bet there are many more like us.
We will never fly commercial airlines again in this life.
I said yes t o the poll, but my position is not quite so specific. It’s not just the TSA that turns me off to flying. Each new charge, delay, inconvenience or indignity adds to the distance I am willing to drive instead flying. Unfortunately, there is a distance beyond which there is no reasonable alternative.
As a member of the flying industry, let me say first that the screenings are largely a show put on to allay the fears of the flying public. At times, 40% of weapons they are supposed to stop, aren’t. The doses of radiation for the frequent flyer ARE cumulatively, dangerous. And just who are we supposed to be finding? American citizens? We would certainly be less of a threat to ourselves if OUR BORDERS WERE SECURE so terrorists couldn’t enter so freely and then move about the country. The body scanners and the advanced pat downs are embarrassing and intrusive. Passengers are treated as the enemy. I for one, don’t feel any more secure, after being subjected to the TSA screenings. I can’t stop flying but this isn’t the way to successfully protect America. When the time comes for terrorists to strike next, none of these methods currently employed, will have the slightest affect in stopping them.
Oh, I guess those expensive puffer/sniffer booths at the airports proved to be not too effective, eh? Just a lot of taxpayer money.
Sure looks like the bastards have won, doesn’t it?
There is a very simply solution to this nonsense. Just have EVERY one of us simply refuse to comply with it. That would stop it immediately. They cannot arrest everyone!
I will submit to pat downs or xray screening when The President, every member of Congress, the Supreme Court and all others who fly in this country are required to each time they fly as well. NO EXCEPTIONS!!!!
I’m for security – to a point!!! After a recent pat down, it was very close to a sexual assualt. What will it take to – bringing sexual assualt charges against the individual TSA officer, airport officials and airlines execs??? I’m not going to fly for a long time!!!!! YOu airlines, just lost my business as well as the other 10 people I’ll talk with.
It’s time we as americans start sending a message to our representatives and to the airlines industry. Get this changed – in the meantime, we will be spending our dollars elsewhere!!
I have written to President Obama,the TSA, as well as several domestic airlines who will certainly be losing business as myself and any other sane person will choose alternate means of travel whenever possible as a result of this COMPLETE violation of our constitutional right to not be sexually assaulted and/or viewed naked. Please join me in raising hell to any and all people that make the policies and those airlines that will be losing a ton of business! To Freddi, who thinks the only problem is that people can opt out, please move to China where you can live under a microscope and give up all freedoms to the government. Do your research and see that none of the enhanced security measures have done anything to make you safer. Those who would give up Essential Liberty
to purchase a little Temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Ben Franklin
Your poll offers bogus choices. No, I am not less likely to fly because of stepped-up security procedures; however, it’s not because I think they are “necessary to ensure terror plots are thwarted.”
Why can’t you suffice with “yes,” “no” and “undecided” without characterizing those responses.
I had plans to visit friends in both PA & NC before the holidays. Changed my mind and will travel after January IF I don’t think security will be a violation of my person. Agree we need strong security but lets look at what El Al does and try these things.
Well, I’m not a big fan of the security scanners, but I suppose the pat down will have to do. I just wish they had a booth or curtain to do the search, that would make it less or a hot topic, for me at least.
I have already ceased flying into or out of the US. I travel by motor vehicle when close enough to my destination or by train when not. Otherwise I simply do business electronically rather than in person. My vacations are taken closer to home, no more flights to the sun during winter. Now I embrace the seasons and go to the snow close by in winter and to the seashore also close by in summer.
I sent this to US Airways today…no chance they will do the right thing, but here’s hoping.
Dear US Airways – I booked this flight from Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) as, at the time of booking, Dulles was the only local airport that did not have the cancer causing body scanner technology used for security screenings. I have now learned that Dulles has implemented this technology in the past few weeks, which I understand may be opted out of, and an alternative method of literal groping of the groin area, used in lieu of the scanner. I have 3 small children (under 5 years old) travelling with me, whom I will not allow to be irradiated by these machines or fondled by TSA. As a parent, I teach my children about sexual harassment and improper touching, and this method of search undermines my ability to guard my children from the present and future dangers. What’s more, how do I tell my children that its OK to be groped by a person in uniform? As a result, I am going to cancel my flight with US Airways, and given the circumstances, DEMAND MY FARE BE REFUNDED IN ITS ENTIRETY. I am in contact with various media outlets and maintaining an online blog regarding my experience thus far with US Airways (I called your customer service today, spoke with Myra, and was told that I could not speak to anyone further regarding this issue,and that my only communication with US Airways regarding this policy and potential refund would have to be through this online complaint portal). I expect US Airways to respond favorably given the public outcry regarding these scanners and the groping methods used by TSA. Should US Airways refuse this request, I will also pursue legal action, as the above methods of scanning and groping were not in place at the time of booking. I will NEVER fly US Airways again, nor any carrier for that matter, until this issue is resolved. It is also worth nothing that Johns Hopkins University has come out with data suggesting that these machines are indeed cancer causing, and many, many victims rights organizations have come out against the new pat down procedures. And, US Airways’ own pilots association has now urged their pilots to refuse the scanner. Please respond to this request, again, I will be widely distributing via any and all available media, my experience and your response as a company. From a business perspective, I would hope that US Airways finds it possible to do the right thing. Sincerely – one of your many anti-irradiation, anti-molestation customers – KK from VA
I couldn’t care less if someone wants to pat me down for hidden weapons.
I’m perhaps a little less keen on being X-rayed, but I can live with that too.
However I refuse to be treated like a criminal by a cretin with an attitude, who thinks that wearing a mobile-phone earpiece improves his pitiful IQ.
I am uncomfortable just driving by an airport in the USA, and I haven’t entered one since shortly after 9/11. I’m sure that there is a difference between a US airport and a Nazi concentration camp, but I haven’t been able to figure out what it s yet.
I stopped flying 7 years ago when screening was less than this most recent craziness.
Do *not* fly commercial airlines unless in-person presence is essential *and* quickly, and let it be known *why* you are doing so. Don’t just grumble about the scanners and probers while continuing to fly when you do *not* absolutely have to do so. And when taking a trip by air *is* necessary, do not submit meekly to scanning and/or probing. Strongly consider making your objection to the entire “security theater” process verbally known to all within earshot. Accept the least objectionable (to you) method available, but make it loudly clear that it is *only* because you *must* be at your destination in a short period of time – otherwise you’d drive, walk, sail, swim, etc.
It seems incredible to me that not ALL persons are undergoing these searches. NO ONE should be exempt for any reason. What is good for one is good for all. Faces must also be shown completely during the scan and prior to boarding at security check in with a picture ID.
You cannot have any safety, if any are exempted from the search.
Having new knees, when traveling, I (a 65 year old female), always have to go through extra screening. When flying out of Denver recently, I was told I would be patted down. I have never been so shocked and humiliated…..the woman hit my vagina hard twice and then felt my breasts. I was late for my plane and in such shock, I did not say anything. This is an outrage. It is going way too far to have a gov. agency in the name of “homeland security” feel my private parts.
I am not a protester, but will become one if this continues. The next time I went through an airport the same thing was told me…..I told them they could not touch me in my private parts. The poor woman was compassionate and told me they had too or would be fired. She said “they told us to go up hard in the private parts….the demonstrator was very hard on the volunteers.” She then asked me if I had any sore places and I said “yes, my vagina”. She did not touch me. There is NO reason to touch a private part …..if I were going to hide something…it would be inside and what about the rectum???? I am very outraged as you can tell. Why can’t we use the wand?
Susan H. Bowman San Rafael CA
Sick, depraved and perverted.
U.S. government message to Americans and visiting tourists:
We own your bodies; and as the owners of your bodies, we have the right to expose your naked bodies; give you massive amounts of radiation, give you cancers and destroy your health. If you refuse our humiliating, degrading, health destroying body scanners, we will sexually assault you.
This has NOTHING to do with security. It’s all about power and control and destroying our health, basic human rights and our freedom. Ruling elites know the body scanners are useless:
“Full-body scanners are waste of money, Israeli expert says
A leading Israeli airport security expert says the Canadian government has wasted millions of dollars to install “useless” imaging machines at airports across the country.
“I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747,” Rafi Sela told parliamentarians probing the state of aviation safety in Canada.”
http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Full+ body+scanners+waste+money+Israeli+expert +says/2941610/story.html
sorry to the airlines. TSA and Fatherland WIN! This final act of abuse to the American public will keep me off of commercial flights. Clowns.
Obama has shutdown oil drilling, he is spending this country into debt, and now he wants to kill air travel. Do you see a pattern? He is right on plan!
Do any of the decision-makers on security own any stock at full-body scan manufacturers or any other manufacturer of security equipment?
We have stopped flying when all of this intrusive security went into place after 9/11. The cost, the intrusion, for the benefit – two people have been caught on the plane making it through the security measures – leads me to believe that all of these measures are way too costly for the benefit we have received. With these new policies, I will never fly – unless I am forced to for business or a family emergency – never!
Any one who says yes is kidding themselves. We are a nation of lazy forgetful people. You will all fly again. Look, we just had 8 years of horrible republican policy that led to a HUGE oil spill, taxes being cut ONLY for the rich, a depression, two wars and let’s not leave out 9/11 and people STILL voted for republicans with no plan for the future. If you forgot about all of that so quickly, this scanner thingy should be over in a few days.
Of course TSA does not care that we object due to moral and religious ground. NAZIs never cared. This is more than FASCISM it is Nazism/Satanic.
Well I have news for them GOD is watching and we are already starting to pray. Let me remind everybody several months ago there were 33 miners in a Chilean mine 700 meters (not feet but meters) a rescue like that was unique never done before. Well a lot of people in Chile and around the world started to pray and they came out all alive. The head of the operations André Sougarret was interviewed after the rescue and he did mentioned how the drilling equipment took and unexplainable turn that made it hit the mine tunnel right in the middle.
Evil forces always start making their move around special dates like Thanksgivings and Christmas. They are so predictable. They usually target old and disable people, women and children. I saw in the internet people in wheelchair getting pad-downed, I saw in the internet a lady with a prosthetic leg asking her to remove her leg. The scan machines are not suitable for disable people, they do not meet the standard (one more reason to make them illegal, I think they target disable people because they probably have a special place in havens and they are envious of them.
The Chilean rescuers did not just pray they took action and work day and night until they got them all out, with a little help redirecting the drill; we need to do the same. We are lucky, my wife has a titanium hip she will be a perfect target and we will not travel to see our daughter and grandson, but they decided to drive down and stay with us for a week. We are lucky.
But if you read this comment and you see an old couple that will be lonely during thanksgivings invite them over that day, you can always add some extra plates at the family table.
God Bless us all during this attack to our values.
Statistics show an alarming number of women have been victims of abuse or assault. TSA does not have the right to touch anyone this way. But, I am especially concerned about TSA taking naked pictures of/groping survivors of sexual violence and children. What kind of message does it send to kids if a parent stands by while they are assaulted? Or when a parent intervenes and ends up in airport jail? How does a sexual violence survivor enjoy a vacation after being re-traumatized during a government endorsed assault. Any TSA agent who touches a passenger’s junk should be put on the sex offenders registry.
Wow people are using this poll as proof that people are against scanners and the TSA. All this poll does is let the people who are opposed to it say that this is proof of their case (They post it on sites and tell people to vote yes). And depending on the polling method its easy to setup a bot to auto poll a result you want. What happened to unbiased journalism?
Do a Real Poll not some web poll, there is nothing scientific and reliable about this poll.
I saw the earlier TSA poll that suggested 4/5 of people were okay with the new scanners and was surprised by those results. This poll fits my expectations a bit better, but just to play devil’s advocate, even if 4/5 of people really were okay with the new screening measures, 20% of the traveling population is still a HUGE number. You can’t just dismiss 20% of the population’s preferences like it’s no big deal. I mean, how the airline executives would feel about a 20% decrease in revenue this thanksgiving? When people start to make a statement with their wallets, I’m pretty sure the TSA will be forced to listen.