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At Airport Security, TSA Now Searching Between Your Legs Until It 'Meets Resistance'

By Bruce Carton

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, has an interesting account of his recent journey through a security check point last week at Baltimore-Washington International. Goldberg learned first-hand that the Transportation Security Administration has mandated new pat-down techniques for people who opt out of the "back-scatter body imaging device, which allows the agency's security officers to, in essence, see under your clothing." Goldberg writes that when he told the officer that he preferred a pat-down, a number of TSA officers began laughing. One officer told him that he would not like the new procedure, which was to be launched the next day and would involve "searching your crotchal area": "What am I not going to like?" I asked. "We have to search up your thighs and between your legs until we meet resistance," he explained. "Resistance?" I asked. "Your testicles," he explained. Goldberg astutely pointed out that the crotchal area of 50 percent of humans would present no such "resistance." What then? "If there's no resistance, then there's nothing there," he was told. The TSA officers seemed quite confident that once travelers learned the new procedures in store for them if they dared to opt-out of the backscatter body...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on November 01, 2010 (boomark / email).