How to stand up to the TSA and say “no”

by Sommer Gentry on November 21, 2011

I was ejected from a Dulles airport checkpoint this week for refusing all of the following: an X-ray radiation dose, a short stint as a TSA porn star, and unwelcome sexual contact with a stranger.

Since November 2010, I’ve been rearranging all of my travel to avoid the TSA’s body scanners and enhanced patdowns. I always check the website tsastatus.net to be sure that I only use airports and checkpoints that do not have the dreaded blue boxes. Otherwise, I take Amtrak or drive, or else I cancel my trip.

Somehow my wires got crossed and I wound up facing two completely unacceptable options at the TSA checkpoint.

There are two important messages for travelers in what happened next: I walked away and then I flew to my destination from another airport.

Every traveler has a right to refuse TSA searches

If the TSA tries to do something to you that you find offensive, you should say no. Although the TSA has threatened travelers with fines and tried to argue that walking away isn’t permitted, in practice the TSA has no power other than the power to deny you access to the boarding gates. The police do have the power to detain you, but that requires individualized suspicion, something that you do not exhibit merely by purchasing an airline ticket.

Since the TSA has steadfastly refused to describe exactly what anyone might be subjected to at a checkpoint, many travelers will find themselves pressured to bow to unpredictable and unreasonable demands. For instance, a handful of flyers report being physically strip searched in private rooms, and some women were coerced to bare their breasts to male screeners in a stairwell – would you comply?

Protecting yourself from invasive searches requires only willingness to abandon your travel plans and make new ones. United Airlines was wonderful and rebooked me for a later flight the same day from Reagan Airport, where there are no scanners in Terminal A. The United employee who helped me even agreed with my stance, telling me that he thought the scanners were “not decent. They shouldn’t do that to people, it’s just not decent.”

The TSA’s body scanners have never deterred or prevented an act of terrorism

They are transparently avoidable. A Congressional report released the day before my Dulles ordeal noted the same thing, saying “TSA deployed the AIT devices in a haphazard and easily thwarted manner. … passengers are easily able to bypass this technology by choosing a screening lane without these AIT machines in use”.

Millions of people fly every day without passing through a body scanner. Airplanes flying from Reagan’s scanner-free checkpoint are just as secure as those flying from Dulles’ blue box gauntlet – actually, the Reagan passengers are safer because they avoid unnecessary doses of ionizing radiation.

Depending on the circumstances, body scanners might well prevent a conservative grandmother from ever being able to meet her grandchildren, they might cause a TSA screener to be harassed and tormented by his co-workers’ comments about his genitalia, they might cause an Alaska state senator and childhood abuse survivor to have to take a four-day ferry trip home, but the one thing they absolutely can not do is present even the slightest obstacle to someone who wants to attack an airplane.

TSA’s imagined evildoers would exploit the weakest links in aviation security, and passenger searches, even without offensive body scans and sexually humiliating patdowns, are far from the weakest links in this chain. Only some overseas cargo is screened, background checks for hundreds of thousands of airport workers are shoddy, there is no screening of supplies for post-security businesses, airport perimeters are not secured, no defenses are planned for shoulder-fired missiles, and the list goes on and on.

Possibly the weakest links are the screeners themselves, hundreds of whom have been dismissed or prosecuted for stealing from passengers. A dishonest screener who can take valuables out of your bags is a dishonest screener who can be bribed to put dangerous items into your bags. The changes you’ve noticed at airport checkpoints over the last year are security theatrics: massively expensive and dramatically intrusive, yet entirely worthless as defenses against terrorism.

The TSA has been ordering innocent Americans to do a lot of degrading things lately, and not a single one of these affronts has ever made anyone safer.

When you decide you’ve had enough, stand up to the TSA and say “no.”

(Photo: K Ideas/Flickr)

Tagged as: Opt Out, Screening, TSA

http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/11/five-words.html Lisa Simeone

Brava, Sommer!

I still refuse to fly. I’m grateful that I’ve already traveled so much in my life, have been all over the world. I’ll just have to make do with great memories.
Brian Kaczynski

Nice work, Sommer! The TSA thugs are yet another reason I’m glad that my wife and I live in Europe, although we do have to deal with them every time we depart the USA after visiting. The last time through we opted for the pat-down rather than getting X-rayed. The female thug led my wife so far away that I could barely recognize her face from where I was standing for my pat-down. That actually made me much more uncomfortable than the pat-down itself. Most people don’t have an alternative, they’ve got to get through that gate and catch their plane. Last time I checked trans-Atlantic ships still take about a week minimum to reach the Old World!
http://profiles.google.com/leeannewrites LeeAnne Clark

One of the BEST articles I’ve seen about the TSA and their utter stupidity and worthlessness. THANK YOU Sommer – I applaud you!
http://www.facebook.com/sommer.gentry Sommer Gentry

When I told my story at a gala dinner event once I finally reached my destination, the man seated right beside me told me that his wife feels the same way I do about the disgusting intrusiveness of airport security, and that she has stopped flying entirely because of it. He told me that she’s a dynamic woman who travelled the world with him over many years, but now she absolutely refuses to allow airport security to manhandle her. I’m proud of her for protecting herself, but what a sickeningly sad statement it makes about the brutes in charge of “security”, that they make us all feel so terribly unsafe.
http://www.facebook.com/susan.j.barretta Susan J. Barretta

Some very good points raised in this article.

Honestly, I can’t believe there are people walking the globe who think that confiscating your bottle of shampoo is going to protect you from another Timothy McVeigh. Or an anti-aircraft missile.

How do these people get themselves dressed in the morning?!?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DZ5Y6GUUTGNFUOHCJR5HHVXDJQ Wendy

Excellent, Sommer!! This country needs more like you.
LibertyRainbow

“”"I no longer fly, but my last few flights were conflicted by excessive & abusive & singular negative treatment durin’ screenin’…while I was set aside for heavy handed inspection of my carry on & person…I watched many suit & tie guys cruise thru with barely a glance by screeners that were saddled down with laptops & multiple electronic items…I inquired of the discrimation of it & was actually told that if I cleaned up my act & dressed right, I wouldn’t look so suspicious & be searched beyond the metal detector. I’m clean, but I do sport hair & beard & wear colourful clothes…they got it ack basswards, they have more to fear from a suit with a briefcase than this Birkenstock Brat.

http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/11/five-words.html Lisa Simeone

LibertyRainbow, they told you that simply because they make stuff up on the spot. There is no logic to what they do. Whether they grope you, confiscate your money and ID, paw through your luggage, or in whatever other way bully and harass you, it’s all done at whim. They do it because they can.
roman

Lisa is absolutely right. I used to fly for my work, I no longer do, and I ALWAYS wore a suit and generally a tie. I am clean cut and generally look the epitome of the business traveler. I am an expert traveler and am always prepared when I get in line, shoes untied ready to pull off, belt already shoved in my laptop case, all metal removed, laptop out of the bag etc, and I have been singled out for backscatter, and subsequently patted down when I “opted out” every single time I have flown since this scanner debacle began.

I essentially was let go from that position because I opted to drive 19 hours to a meeting rather than have my Constitutional Rights repeatedly violated.

It really doesn’t make the TSA guys happy when you are reciting the 4th Amendment to them and quoting Franklin and Adams to them while they are patting you down.

I quit flying 6 months ago and refuse to do it until I can do it in dignified liberty.

Daisymae

What a disgrace that you were forced to lose your job rather than be sexually molested by government thugs! The entire US government is a disgrace for the abuse and misery this shameful agency is inflicting on American citizens. I am deeply sorry that this happened to you.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1316250656 Kathleen Escalera

I am an american living abroad too – and so far have put off any trips back to the states. Soon I will fly, but there really is no option to the miami airport and it would not help to miss my flight altho I have decided I will opt for the pat downs rather than the xrays

http://DontScan.us Wimpie

Good news (kinda)
MIA has only the L3 MMW machines with ATD. No X-Rays.
No naked images. No goons in the backroom. No cancerous death.

You still have to do the perp position, but this is better than a patdown.

http://twitter.com/Brookelorren Brooke Lorren

I won’t fly any more… even though that meant that I was unable to help my friend drive across the US when she asked me to. A couple of years ago, before security got really bad, I reported a TSA agent because he was cursing at people because they didn’t hear the instructions that he gave to people that were well ahead of them in line.

I used to teach anti-terrorism classes. I remember learning about the subject, and the instructor was talking about ways to avoid terrorist attacks – they were very time consuming. I remember thinking to myself “I’d rather take the chances with the terrorists!” That’s the way I feel about the TSA.
DLT56

Yes, now they should have psychiatrist counseling on board the aircraft so all the passengers can deal with their feelings of molestation after getting past the gate.
Drakulisz

Bravo Sommer. I also stopped flying altogether even though I was taking a dozen of flights a year within the States and overseas. Well, in may case SKYPE is the answer and webinar providers are happy to oblige too. sa instead of speaking to audiences in Europe or SE Asia with a jet lag, I just do it from my office. I live again. I am attaching an answer to a number of patient questions re safety of radiation at the airports. So here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FzaJ2-x5xs
Patrick Nightrane

I could care less

Horacemanoor

If you could care less, why did you post? — if you could care less, why don’t you care less? — does it mean you care a certain amount, but if you chose, you could ratchet your caring down to a smaller amount? — or are you just illiterate?

Leann

Amtrak and I have become great friends on my trips to and from Connecticut and D.C.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RKUBOBSWRXXQE3CSGC5CHH4GHE Prosperous Dude

Anyone who did not vote for Ron Paul in the past elections absolutely voted for these scanners to go in. Anyone who does not vote for Ron Paul in the coming elections is begging the military industrial complex to continue to erode our rights and freedoms and privacy. Wake up people, get behind Ron Paul. Either that or stop complaining.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_G7ZZCYBIVKFR4LQEVUNPRZ6NTY Suzanne.

Anyone who votes for Ron Paul in any election is begging Ahmadinejad to come bomb the cr-p out of you. He’s promised he will do it, whether or not we play the Ron Paul appeasement card.

TSA is already on the chopping block as we speak, and Ron Paul is only one of many voices on this issue, both Rep & Dem:
http://tsanewsblog.com/52/news/as-tsa-turns-10-agency-critics-call-for-reform-and-more/

http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/11/five-words.html Lisa Simeone

Oh, come on. Now Ahmadinejad is the big scary bogeyman. We’ve had Fidel Castro, Salvador Allende, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, and god knows how many others — I can’t keep track. The U.S anoints somebody somewhere the Most Evil Person in the World, and off we go on another monstrous war. Give me a break.

Mbdds

Ive gone from 10-15 roundtrips a year to one each in 2010-2011. I insisted on patdowns both times-no idiotic xrays for me-and asked if my airline transport certificate might be an indication that their efforts are unwarranted. I risk temper versus TSA every time. I havent stopped flying though. I bought my own airplane and just bypass all the TSA BS. Longest trip this year san antonio to phoenix and return, stopping in el paso both ways. We’re still free to fly on our own…..at least for awhile

http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/11/five-words.html Lisa Simeone

Mbdds, congrats to you for being able to buy and fly your own airplane. The overwhelming majority of us, however, obviously can’t afford to do that.

Mccat852

I think that the TSA is the most irritating group of people ever to have descended on the american public. They are only out done by the SS and Storm troopers not to mention the Gestapo. Unfortuntely, I have not traveled since they started their intrusive searches. They treat the common american taxpayer as though we are criminals and entering prison. The next step is a command to bend over and spread em. Most sheeple will most probably comply.
Tim

I was Exec Plat on AA and have cut back flying dramatically due to TSA abuses. AA has lost ten of thousands of dollars directly by my flying only when absolutely necessary. TSA and this ridiculous security theater must be abolished.

Daisymae

If you have not already informed AA why you have stopped flying, please do so. The airlines need to realize how much this is costing them. They have the clout to change things. We do not.

My husband and I have also stopped flying rather than face sexual humiliation at the hands of these thugs.

Chasmosaur

I read this post with a bit of grim amusement. Partially because Dr. Gentry didn’t really say “no” to the TSA – she simply found a terminal with lesser security. But mostly I was amused because it must be nice to be in a position where you can so quickly rearrange your travel (air or otherwise) to accommodate yourself.

Dr. Gentry perhaps needs to understand that those who don’t live on the East coast can’t simply hop on Amtrak or get into their car on a whim. Some of us have one major hub airport at our disposal (not the convenient 3 of the Washington-Baltimore Metropolitan area), and we fly because it would otherwise be too expensive in time or money to drive. (Amtrak is barely an option – my nearest station is over 100 miles away; getting a room where you can lie flat to sleep frequently requires pre-booking by at least 6 months.)

Now let’s be clear – I am not a fan of the TSA. The way it is operated makes no sense whatsoever – TSO’s are not trained LEO’s, they are not actually trained to spot psychological irregularities, there is irregular training and implementation of policy, and the background screening process for employees is an obvious, utter failure. Not to mention if a terrorist has made it to the airport, then the intelligence agencies of the USA have failed us greatly – minimum wage workers (who are recruited through ads on pizza boxes – http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/07/tsa_using_pizza_boxes_to_recru.html ) are not going to keep a well-prepared terrorist agency away from our transportation grid. There are so many holes in the system it’s not even a tiny bit funny. Succinctly put, the TSA is a boondoggle of historical proportions.

But as someone who travels on a regular basis, the concept that I could reach an airport, and march out the door because I refused “an X-ray radiation dose, a short stint as a TSA porn star, and unwelcome sexual contact with a stranger” is laughable to me. My only other flying alternative is to connect through a smaller regional airport (which requires a 2 hour drive in a different direction) that doubles or triples the cost of my fare. And that’s *if* a seat was actually available on one of the limited flights with tiny prop planes or jets with seats numbering under 20. I would also only be able to connect through one particular hub and would either have a 30 minute connection time (entirely too tight) or in one recent case for me, an incredibly long 6-hour layover to the next available flight. (Reductions in service have made traveling in and out of the Midwest a bit of a logistical hassle.) And it’s a miracle if the flight actually arrives at the large hub on time, which doesn’t always happen. I suppose I could drive to that large hub airport – but the 6+ hour drive is a bit off-putting.

If I want to drive the entire way, then I have to be prepared to drive for two or three days to get to any East coast destination that is so easily reached by Dr. Gentry; by the time I add up gas, food and hotel stays (plus the loss of productive time), it isn’t cheaper than flying. Not to mention with the increased presence of VIPR on the highway system, it’s not even a guarantee of missing out on TSA.

So here’s the thing: I frequently have to let TSA do their thing. Yes I opt out…every time. And I do mean “every time” because it’s rare when I’m NOT chosen for AIT. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t “randomly” pulled out of the metal detector line. I don’t like it, but the option is to not travel at all (which isn’t always an option when there’s a family emergency), or to drive yourself everywhere. While that’s always an option, you don’t really get how big this country is until you start driving across the big, flat parts of it.

Also, I wonder where Dr. Gentry – and so many others who have been up in arms for the past year or so – have been since 9/11. These searches are nothing new to me – I’ve had to go through them for almost a decade now. Because even though I am an American – the most recent immigrant in our family is of early Ellis Island vintage, many came before – I am of Mediterranean descent. I can count the times I *wasn’t* chosen for “random extra security screening” in the early 2000′s rather than the times I was. These screenings sometimes included pat-downs that were performed with the palms – not the back – of hands, and occasionally a complete emptying of my carry-on luggage, down to unzipping the lining.

No one was outraged then – I was told that it was being done for the safety of the flight, and I needed to tolerate it. For the safety. No one cared that an innocent and law-abiding 30-something was being patted down and treated like a criminal then – after all, I looked so much like the female suicide bombers running through the Middle East then, could “they” be blamed if they thought I looked suspect?

Yes. They could. But no one did.

TSA has been inching up to this line for years. But now that people who look far more stereotypically like girls-next-door or corn-fed-farm-boys are now getting patted down and menaced? Well *NOW* it’s a problem. While I agree it’s a problem, it’s been a problem for quite some time and it’s going to be difficult to uproot. So allow me to say: welcome to my world. And please – keep complaining and writing letters. Because while it’s going to be difficult to uproot the TSA, many hands make light work.

http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/11/five-words.html Lisa Simeone

Chasmosaur, I, too, “am of Mediterranean descent.” I can only tell you that when I used to fly — a lot — I didn’t get bullied, harassed, or abused by the TSA, even as I recognized (and ridiculed) their security theater. I was harassed once, last year, just before I stopped flying completely, but it was before the reign of molestation was implemented.

Many of us have been up in arms about the Patriot Act from the beginning. Many of us have been screaming bloody murder — to news outlets, to our Congressional reps, to both war-mongering presidents, at blogs, at various public sites. All our fighting has come to nought. The creeping fascism of this country, as exemplified by the entire security apparatus, of which TSA is only a part, continues apace — with the truly frightening NDAA the latest example.

We don’t run the country. Our elected representatives don’t listen to us. Fighting the TSA is one place, however, where we DO have power. All those who can choose not to fly — and I don’t include people like you in this category — I don’t include those who are forced to fly for work or for medical emergencies — those people have my sympathy — but if all those of us who can choose not to fly would do so, we could bring the airlines to their knees. Four to six months max. Then things would change.

Economic boycotts works. The civil rights movement wouldn’t have succeeded with marches and protests alone.

But most people are too wedded to their precious lifestyles. To their “convenience.” Most people aren’t willing to put their money where their mouths are. Most people don’t have the courage of their professed convictions.

It’s a sacrifice for me to give up air travel (though nothing compared to the sacrifices other people have had to make to fight injustice throughout history). But it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. So far, most of my compatriots aren’t. And so the abuse will continue.

As Frederick Douglass said, “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Chasmosaur

You may have well been lucky to not been bullied, harassed or abused. I was not. I am an experienced traveler, I don’t have my hackles up (never did – I’ve been flying since I was 4 years old and have flown internationally so it’s not novel or frightening to me), yet I am still chosen. I don’t know if it’s bad luck at this point or not – I do know I am so so so very tired of it. I’m starting to think maybe if I come in and look teary and scared instead of well prepared, maybe they’ll pass me by and I can get into the metal detector

And I agree with you – an an economic boycott is what will make the difference. (I don’t just write to elected representatives, but to airport authorities – hasn’t made one lick of difference, but it makes me fell better.) But I’d like to point out: you didn’t make an economic boycott in your example above.

You didn’t choose *not* to fly, but to change your flight to DCA’s A Terminal from Dulles. Which probably racked up a change fee so it was pretty much the opposite of a economic boycott

So on one hand, you’re suggesting people abandon or change their flight plans, but on the other hand, you seem to still be flying, just only from terminals where no AIT is in place. How is that an economic boycott?

(I’m not trying to be argumentative, but I’m trying to understand. I used to live in that area, and I was a huge fan of driving or Amtrak – it was easier about 9 times out of 10, and I love Union Station )

Your original post just makes it sound as if everyone has a choice. Not everyone does. Companies still choose to send business travelers on flights – without your airport options, they face losing their jobs if they don’t travel. Families still have emergencies, or just trips to Disneyworld. Flying is a part of the US travel infrastructure, for better or for worse, and government policies seem to endorse that.

While I’ve always loved Bruce Schneier’s term “Security Theater”, I’ve come to term the very vocal explanation of one’s rights at the airport “Checkpoint Theater”.

TSA doesn’t keep us safe – that’s pure Security Theater.

Getting yourself ejected from a TSA checkpoint doesn’t really impact TSA other to annoy them and generate paperwork – that’s Checkpoint Theater.

Do you really think an agency that so blatantly engaged in the cronyism of buying from Chertoff for the AIT really cares what we think? It’s only when they are nailed with video or photo evidence that the outrage gets loud enough that Congress can’t ignore it.

Economic pressure is the only way to make the change. Which means if you have an option – and living where you do, you have plenty – your arguments mean you shouldn’t even attempt to fly when driving or Amtrak is an option. (I miss Amtrak deeply. It wasn’t perfect, but it was my favorite way to get around the NE corridor when I still lived in the DC area.) Yet you still seem to fly. So I wonder how you reconcile that.

(Again, not trying to be argumentative – honestly curious. You have strong feelings, so if you loathe TSA that much, why do you fly, other than the convenience?)

http://www.facebook.com/sommer.gentry Sommer Gentry

Why do I fly? I don’t fly if I can find an alternative. It’s true that I often have alternatives: recently I took the train to Boston, Richmond, Miami, Chicago, Georgia, and I drove to Asheville, Montreal, Rochester, and Pittsburgh. I couldn’t find alternative ways to get to China, India, Germany, and overnight trains were sold out to Vancouver, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. No train service to Phoenix and Vegas.

Chasmosaur

Oh wait – you’re Lisa, not Sommer.

http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/11/five-words.html Lisa Simeone

Yep, I was just going to write saying that. And to repeat what I said earlier — I sympathize with people who are forced to fly for work. Millions of us aren’t. We’re the ones who have to step up and stop flying.

I don’t fly anymore. I stopped flying last year, when the gropes were instituted. I’ve taken no end of sh*t from family and friends for this.

But that’s okay. We have a saying at Travel Underground: “One grope at a time. One grope at a time.”

To say that I have a powerful reserve of schadenfreude stored up is an understatement.

http://www.facebook.com/sommer.gentry Sommer Gentry

It’s not true that no one was outraged then. I was outraged then. I can send you copies of dozens of letters I sent over the past decade, decrying the amateur breast exams that male screeners at BOS kept trying to force upon me, the security theater, the shoeless march of idiots. I wrote letters to the newspapers, Congress, TSA, DOT, my airlines, everyone, long before the TSA’s latest foray into all of our pants.

An economic boycott is one approach that might work, and I am 100% supportive of and grateful for anyone who can stop flying entirely. I’m a very frequent traveler and I have upended my life at great personal and professional cost to reduce my flying, but eliminating flying entirely would impose more pain than I’m willing to bear. Either way, the government is stealing my rights: taking away my right to decide who looks at and touches my sex organs, or taking away my right to travel freely around the world. It sucks, sucks that they have done this to all of us. We all need to fight back in any way that we can find.

My letter is mostly addressed to people who had never imagined that the TSA might do something horrific to them – because waiting until after you’re victimized to complain is too late. What if the women at JFK had just flat refused, in no uncertain terms, to allow the strip searches? Yes, it would possibly have imposed a huge financial or logistical burden on them to change their travel, but at the end of the day they wouldn’t have to live with the memories of strangers having ripped their clothing off of their bodies. I felt like a victor, telling those TSA people in no uncertain terms that their searches were sexually abusive and that they were responsible, that what they were doing was morally indefensible and traumatizes innocent people. Anyone who does need to go to the American gulag that airports have become needs to decide in advance exactly what they will and will not allow a complete stranger to do to them, and needs to know that saying NO is an option.

Here’s what the Ninth Circuit Court said about airport searches: “In sum, airport screening searches of the persons and immediate possessions of potential passengers for weapons and explosives are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment provided each prospective boarder retains the right to leave rather than submit to the search.” I wrote this to remind people that whatever lies the TSA tells, settled law holds that you can walk away if what they want to do is unacceptable. Since the TSA won’t tell us what it plans to do to us, we can’t know whether or not we will allow it, but we must be prepared to defend ourselves by prioritizing our safety over that day’s travel.

Chasmosaur

Okay, I agree with all that. It’s just that I see these statements – by you, by Lisa, by a lot of people – that sound so absolute. Absolute statements – not truthful, but absolute – are what got us here. We don’t have to tend to every nuance, but there are some pretty prominent shades of gray.

I guess I’m just tired of hyperbole. Like, say “an X-ray radiation dose, a short stint as a TSA porn star, and unwelcome sexual contact with a stranger.” In this day and age of Tweets and soundbites, that’s something the appropriate spin doctor can use to make you sound like a malcontent, not an intelligent professional who is thinking critically. (Then again, that whole higher education thing makes us suspect and socialists, so maybe whatever we say, we’re screwed.)

Walking away is always an option, and more people should know that. Because there are plenty of stories of people walking away, waiting an hour, and trying a different checkpoint in the same airport with greater success. Because the TSA is just so uniform and efficient in its practices. *snort*

But sometimes, saying “no” to TSA isn’t always an option – and as I noted in my reply to Lisa (when I thought it was you – had paint fumes bouncing around my head yesterday), you didn’t actually say “no” to TSA yourself. You just changed terminals to a less severe security checkpoint. It’s not like there were no TSA staff at Terminal A – you said “yes” to DCA Terminal A TSA. So you didn’t really say “no” to TSA – you said “not here” to TSA.

So what do we do when you must travel and flying is the option you are left with? When you can’t have your travel agent book you to another nearby airport that has nice green marks on tsastatus.net?

It’s great that saying “no” made you feel victorious. But I guess I’m looking to win the war, not a battle. Because for every one of us that says “no”, there’s a business traveler who doesn’t care (sadly, my husband, who doesn’t understand why I opt out, then again, he’s somehow managed to not be patted down once yet, lucky monster), or a neophyte traveler who is too scared to say it, even if they know they can.

Maybe we should make a video with cute kittens going through TSA to raise awareness or something. That seems to be the only thing that gets the attention of most people these days.

http://www.facebook.com/sommer.gentry Sommer Gentry

Well, I certainly am a malcontent where the ineffective and abusive TSA is concerned.

I *did* say no to the TSA, in the sense that I waited in line, got told by the man at the front to walk through the blue boxes, told him in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t going to do that and I wasn’t going to let any strangers lay their hands on my body either. I cried, I yelled, I testified to the assembled masses, I was surrounded by TSA employees in suits and police officers, I argued with them for an hour, I made a big horrendous scene. I really said NO to an hour-long barrage of repeated attempts by the TSA to get me to agree to something I found unacceptable. And in the end, I won. I walked away untouched. I did really say no, you can not treat me this way, and I did not allow them to treat me that way.

I’d love to win the war. That’s what we’re all here for. The end goal is to get the TSA out of our pants. Keep the faith! People are waking up to realize this has gone way, way too far.
http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/11/five-words.html Lisa Simeone

Chasmosaur, I stuck strictly to empirical evidence for a long time. And I will never abandon it. I will always rely on facts, risk assessment, statistical analysis, logic, and security expertise. But I can tell you, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter how many historical facts and statistics I trot out as “an intelligent professional who is thinking critically.” The naysayers won’t have it. They won’t be swayed. They don’t care.

I’ve had journalists, no less — people whose job is supposedly to be skeptical of those in power — tell me outright that they don’t care what the statistics are, they don’t care what the facts are, they still believe the government’s line and they still think the TSA is fine and dandy. I have this in writing. Including from some big, nationally known names.

Unfortunately, research (oops, more empirical evidence) backs me up:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

We have to use everything in our arsenal. Not every technique works with every person. Some people have to be metaphorically slapped in the face. It’s only in the past few months — after fighting this battle for years — that I’ve started, for instance, to use derisive terms such as “thugs,” “goons,” “smurfs.” I used to use only neutral terms such as “agents” or “employees.” But I’m tired of according respect to people who, if they don’t actively assault and abuse others, aid and abet that assault and abuse.

Bottom line: there are millions of people who won’t get it until “it” happens to them. That’s why we say at Travel Underground, “one grope at a time; one grope at a time.”

Bajajoes

I curse the tsa……daily!
Bajajoes

Tsa is in preparation for the war with Iran to come in 2012
to get Obama re-elected!
“we the people” does not mean much anymore and unless there is a revolution
in the Country it will be a real Police State in 2012 when Iran is attacked.
ALL for Isreal. We are its bitch!
Marlee

A ‘conservative’ grandmother?
What about a ‘liberal’ grandmother?
That was a wierd comment in this blog.

Daisymae

He’s not talking about politics. It has nothing to do with whether the grandmother’s political views lean left or right.

He’s talking about a grandmother who is conservative in her dress and conservative with her body.

I am one of the conservative grandmothers he is talking about. Like many women my age, I grew up in a much more conservative time. I have always reserved lingerie and underwear for the bedroom. I’ve never worn a two piece bathing suit and always use a cover up walking to and from the beach.

I am not ashamed of my body, but it is private. It is mine. I decide who sees it and touches it, not the government. I prefer to allow only my husband to see and touch my body…not strangers in an airport.

Because of this, my husband and I are denied spending Christmas with our grandchildren. We live in New Jersey and they live in South Carolina. We are not physically able to drive that far and Amtrak does not go near their area.

Therefore, TSA is preventing a conservative grandmother from visiting her grandchildren. The fact that this conservative grandmother happens to lean slightly left of center in her political views is immaterial to the situation.

Daisymae

Sorry I said “he” I meant to say “she” since Sommer wrote the original article.

http://www.facebook.com/sommer.gentry Sommer Gentry

I meant “conservative” in terms of dress and modesty, because that might describe someone who objects to the nude images from body scanners. But heck, I’m not a particularly prudish person and I object vehemently; this is about control and choice versus force and fear.

I really find this issue to be about as non-partisan as it gets because I sincerely can’t figure out which party dominates among TSA opponents, it looks to be a pretty even split. All of our Congressional representatives in both major parties seem perfectly happy to let TSA go on invading the pants of innocent travelers and creating naked images of children, with the singular exception of Ron Paul.

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