Justin Tam
Staff Writer
In the midst of the winter traveling season, a new measure of security has been noted by travelers nationwide. Since November, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has adopted a new procedural pat-down that is invasive, embarrassing, and insensitive with regards to passengers with disabilities that require prosthetics and should be ceased immediately until a more refined method can be found.
The new procedure is intended for travelers who will either not submit to the full body scan (which uses an X-ray to generate a virtually nude image of a traveler to potentially detect suspicious objects hidden on his/her person) or who garner suspicion from other measures of security, like the walk-through metal detectors. The pat-down now allows for the use of the fingers and palms around sensitive areas, like the breast and groin. Prior to the new procedure, TSA agents brushed along these sensitive body parts with the back of their hands to search for hidden objects.
The TSA has advised travelers to avoid the new procedure by emptying their pockets and self of all items, especially metallic ones, before going through screening. This is impossible for those who rely on prosthetics and other internal devices who must then submit to the full-body scan or the pat-down. This means that those with prosthetics will trigger alarms and will be subject to either of these very intrusive and potentially humiliating security measures every time they travel by air.
The full body scan is intrusive enough, as well as potentially harmful due to the nature of X-rays, but this more assertive pat-down is a direct affront to an American’s civil liberties and cannot be tolerated, especially taking into account its negligible boon to national security.
The pat-down consists of a traveler holding his hands above his/her head and standing bow-legged in front of a TSA agent who then enacts the procedural pat-down. This new procedure is unnecessary and completely disrespectful towards travelers, treating each person subjected to the pat-downs as if they were fugitives or criminals.
Many who have encountered this new security measure have been delayed and forced to wait extended periods of time or separated from their personal belongings, one case reporting that a woman was separated from her infant during a pat-down. Others have reported that TSA agents often do not state their rights to have the pat-down be conducted in a private room. Both of these are gross breaches of American civil liberties and must be either resolved or the new pat-down ceased until ably refined.
The TSA affirms that very few people will be subjected to the body-scans and pat-downs, only those who trigger alarms or are suspicious to TSA agents; however, the ACLU has encountered many cases in which travelers were seemingly picked at random or picked for expressing discontent with the screening procedures.
The TSA then goes on to protect the new methods by describing them as necessary to help detect potential threats to the United States in light of the alleged attempt by a Nigerian man to hide explosives in his undergarments on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas of 2009.
The new security procedures being implemented by the TSA are both intrusive and humiliating and must be dealt with until a minimally invasive procedure can be found. There is no evidence that using the inner-side of the hands near sensitive body parts during a pat-down is, in any way, beneficial towards the safety of travelers and it is infinitely more embarrassing for those who are subject to it. There is no excuse for the TSA, or any United States government organization for that matter, to be able to breach an American’s privacy, even in the name of national security.
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