Viator

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Turn your head and cough: New TSA security procedures in effect today

It’s November 1, 2010, and the TSA’s Secure Flight rules are now fully in effect. But the requirement that you provide your gender, birthdate, and precise name on your ID is nowhere near as notable as the TSA’s increased insistance on getting intimately familiar with your private parts.

Jeffrey Goldberg gets the lowdown. And I mean low down.

In part because of the back-scatter imager’s invasiveness (a TSA employee in Miami was arrested recently after he physically assaulted a colleague who had mocked his modestly sized penis, which was fully apparent in a captured back-scatter image), the TSA is allowing passengers to opt-out of the back-scatter and choose instead a pat-down. I’ve complained about TSA pat-downs in the past, because they, too, were more security theater than anything else. They are, as I would learn, becoming more serious, as well.

“[...] starting tomorrow, we’re going to start searching your crotchal area” — this is the word he used, “crotchal” — and you’re not going to like it.”

“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.

Posted via email from Supreme Clientele Travel

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