Yesterday, I was touched — in my opinion, inappropriately — by a TSA agent at LAX.
I'm not going to talk about it in detail until I can speak with an attorney, but I've spent much of the last 24 hours replaying it over and over in my mind, and though some of the initial outrage has faded, I still feel sick and angry when I think about it.
What I want to say today is this: I believe that the choice we are currently given by the American government when we need to fly is morally wrong, unconstitutional, and does nothing to enhance passenger safety.
I further believe that when I choose to fly, I should not be forced to choose between submitting myself to a virtually-nude scan (and exposing myself to uncertain health risks due to radiation exposure)1, or enduring an aggressive, invasive patdown where a stranger puts his hands in my pants, and makes any contact at all with my genitals.
When I left the security screening yesterday, I didn't feel safe. I felt violated, humiliated, assaulted, and angry. I felt like I never wanted to fly again. I was so furious and upset, my hands shook for quite some time after the ordeal was over. I felt sick to my stomach for hours.
This is wrong. Nobody should have to feel this way, just so we can get on an airplane. We have fundamental human and constitutional rights in America, and among those rights is a reasonable expectation of personal privacy, and freedom from unreasonable searches. I can not believe that the TSA and its supporters believe that what they are doing is reasonable and appropriate. Nobody should have to choose between a virtually-nude body scan or an aggressive, invasive patdown where a stranger puts his or her hands inside your pants and makes any contact at all with your genitals or breasts as a condition of flying.
I do not have the luxury of simply refusing to fly unless and until this policy changes. I have to travel dozens of times a year for work, and it simply isn't practical to travel any other way. Airlines know that I am not unique in this regard, so they have no incentive to take a stand on their customers' behalf. Our government also knows this, so our Congressmen and Congresswomen have no incentive to stand up for the rights and freedoms of their constituencies against powerful and politically-connected lobbyists like the former head of the TSA. This is also wrong.
I have to travel back into the USA next week, and I'll be back and forth between Los Angeles and Vancouver for much of the next several months. When I think about all this travel, I feel helpless, disempowered, and victimized by the airlines and the TSA … and I'm one of the lucky passengers who has never been sexually assaulted. I can't imagine what it must feel like for someone who has been the victim of sexual violence to know that they are faced with the same two equally-unacceptable choices that I faced yesterday, and will likely face whenever I fly in the future.
It's fundamentally wrong that any government can force its citizens to submit to totally unreasonable searches so we have the "freedom" to travel. It is fundamentally wrong that the voices of these same citizens are routinely ignored, our feelings marginalized, and our concerns mocked.
I don't know what we can do to change this, but we must do something. I'm writing letters to all of my congressional representatives, contacting an attorney, and reaching out to the ACLU when I get home. I am not optimistic that anything will change, because I feel like the system is institutionally biased against individuals like me … but maybe if tens of thousands of travelers express our outrage at this treatment, someone will be forced to listen.
Edit to add one more thing: I don't believe that all TSA officersare automatically bad people (though we've seen that at least some are.) For example, I recently flew out of Seattle, opted-out, and got a non-invasive, professional, polite patdown. It was still annoying, but at least my genitals weren't touched in any way, which was decidedly not the case yesterday. I realize that most TSA officers are doing the best they can in a job that requires them to interact with people who automatically dislike them and what they represent. It isn't the individual officer who is the problem; it's the policies he or she is instructed to carry out that need to change.
1. The TSA recently admitted that the amount of radiation passengers are exposed to in backscatter scanners was 10 times more than they originally claimed. The TSA claims that the scanners are still safe, but what else would we expect them to claim?
Did I ital all the following posts? fail
Ital off dammit!
As someone who has dealt with sexual assault (not even rape in my case, just molestation – I can only imagine how much worse it is for rape victims), I can say that I am NOT flying if I can avoid it at all, until this insanity is put to a stop. I started shaking, breaking down crying, reliving all the unpleasant emotions even READING some of those stories, I certainly don’t want to deal with it firsthand.
Unfortunately, too many people are indeed left with no choice but to fly as part of their jobs, thanks to that there will always be just enough people that a simple boycott won’t be enough, I suspect. Maybe some sort of mass action where everyone getting ready to board a flight agrees to refuse the scans all at once, and try to get a massive group of people together who will stand there and say “you can’t touch me.” How one would organize that, I don’t know, but then people organize protests of various sorts all the time. Trick would be to avoid getting in the way of those who are in a hurry and don’t want to waste a ticket, while making enough of a fuss that people take notice.
United we stand, after all. If the people don’t find a way to remind the government that they work for us, we’re not doing our jobs as citizens.
Quote: “There are no nude scans being taken. An embossed image of you is not a nude picture. Your features and details are not identifiable.”
Now you’re just talking nonsense. I have seen some of these very scans, and while some of them do not show much detail, others do. It depends on a lot of factors, not all of which are easily controllable when doing large numbers of scans.
I daresay it isn’t Wil being a twit here. Get your facts straight. Or at least look up some of the pictures yourself, and see what they actually look like. I have.
Also, you have neglected 2 important factors: the radiation from backscatter scans, unlike X-rays, only penetrate a small fraction of an inch. Therefore all the radiation that is not reflected is being absorbed by a very small volume of skin. This likely makes it much worse than an X-ray for the same amount of radiation. Further, no adequate studies were done even of the amount of radiation they first claimed these devices expose you to… much less the actual figure that turns out to be more than 10 times that amount.
Until they do proper studies, they have no place using these machines. Period.
That is the strangest argument for voting for McCain I have ever heard.
“You live in a world where misandry runs rampant and hardly anyone cares…”
I am honestly surprised that more people do not mention this. I have noticed it and spoken up about it myself. But when I have, people have looked at me as though I were crazy.
It’s a strange world we are in. Definitely not one I would have designed, given the opportunity.
If the issue is truly safety, truly about preventing someone from taking over the plane and using the plane as a weapon, then do something to prevent the passengers from ever being able to get into the cockpit.
How about redesigning planes so that there are two entrances: one for passengers, one for pilots – with absolutely no way to get between the two while in the air. If you’re worried that the poor pilots will go hungry, die of thirst or bust their bladders, build the flight deck with their own galley and lavatory. Just make it an impossibly thick wall between the cockpit and the passenger space.
If you can’t get onto the flight deck, you can’t fly the plane where it’s not supposed to go. If you remove that possibility, then you remove the need for the invasive searches.
I am so sorry.
I had a similar hideous experience in January. I’m a woman so the female TSA agent patted me down…and stuck her hand not jus in my pants but in my underwear. I peed my pants, which was in the top 5 of humiliating experiences and SO what I needed first thing in the morning. My therapist is going to write me a note for the next time I fly, let’s see if that does anything.
De-lurking to say that I sincerely hope that you sue the living daylights out of the TSA and that particular security screener. There is doing one’s job, no matter how distasteful, and then there is taking the opportunity to pull someone out of another line so that you can grope them inappropriately under the guise of a ‘security screening’.
Thankfully, I don’t fly much and don’t plan on flying in future unless it is a bona fide, time sensitive emergency situation. If I need to go across the country or out of the country, I’ll make the seven hour drive up to Vancouver, Canada, and fly from there.
“Until there’s a better way, we have to sacrifice some freedoms on some occasions.”
To answer that quote, I will give you this one:
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” — Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
You wrote: I believe that the choice we are currently given by the American government when we need to fly is morally wrong, unconstitutional, and does nothing to enhance passenger safety.
I further believe that when I choose to fly, I should not be forced to choose between submitting myself to a virtually-nude scan (and exposing myself to uncertain health risks due to radiation exposure)1, or enduring an aggressive, invasive patdown where a stranger puts his hands in my pants, and makes any contact at all with my genitals.
I agree with every word, a thousand and one percent.
I encourage you to submit your story to Christopher Elliott, a travel expert who frequently posts stories like yours, and like this one here:
http://www.elliott.org/blog/patting-down-toddlers-security-failure-and-whistleblowers-its-been-another-interesting-week-for-the-tsa/
Also, I forgot to say that I am traveling to Vancouver, B.C. later this year from the Southwest and am taking the train there, in part because I do not want to participate in this madness.
I’m flying home, though, and I’m rather dreading it because I don’t want to have to go through what you just went through. I hope I am not forced to make that choice.
Seems to me the whole point of war on terror was to STOP people having to live in fear.
If we are too scared to fly because of the potential physical assault we have to endure from “the good guys” then I would say that the bad guys have won and we ARE still living in terror, in fact more so as we now have two things to fear.
Incidentally, I wonder how much publicity this would have gotten if it had been a female celebrity who had tweeted about being violated? Such double standards that because you are male you shouldn’t feel the same violation.
I’m fortunate to not have to deal with this, but the excess security since 9/11 has always struck me as useless. If the terrorists wanted to attack again, they’d just say ‘Airports are watching too closely for us, lets use the buses, subways, trains, and taxis.’ not trying to give anyone ideas or anything, but airlines have to realize that the terrorists wouldn’t take their ball and go home just because airplanes are closed to them.
The logic of this tells me that there aren’t constant threats. If there were, you’d have other public access vehicles blowing up all the time.
Another way to look at it is to compare it to DRM. Punishing and inconveniencing all their paying customers in a feeble attempt to hinder the pirates who will just sidestep the effort and get what they want anyways.
For those who want to avoid air travel but think the train is too slow: Keep in mind that we have slow trains because we didn’t invest as a country in high-speed rail, choosing instead to stick with planes. If hundreds of thousands of us suddenly stop flying and pick up Amtrak tickets instead, we’ll be providing the much-needed capital that the transportation companies need to start laying that high-speed rail. In a few years, with more of us avoiding the TSA and the ridiculous costs of flying, we should have some pretty significant building plans for high-speed land travel… but it takes some brave (and patient!) consumers to front the money first!
Buy a train ticket, if you can afford the extra few hours/days to travel by land and not by air. Flip off the TSA from the safety of your comfy train car, and write your representatives asking for high-speed rail funding!
No one should be submitting themselves to these full-body privacy invasions in the name of “Safety”! If you can NOT avoid flying, make the biggest stink you feel comfortable making. Yes, these TSA agents are “just doing their jobs”, but when that job is unconstitutional, we don’t have to make it easy for them!
Your absolutely right, as long as the TSA is a part of the government, the 4th amendment applies to them. I for one would like to see some data on the TSA, but my guess would be that the only people to stop any terrorist threats have been the passengers themselves. If this is such a necessary process, why then do we not have the US Marshall service (or some similar police force) assigned to secure the airports? Why don’t we have bomb dogs going up and down the lines? A bomb dog smelling something would meet the standard of probable cause after all. Until we actually start trying to profile and identify the people that are threats rather than the items, nothing is really going to change. I’m sure the next up will be full body cavity searches, after all that’s the only place left to hide something.
This is a subject that I feel very strongly about, as my wife is a victim of abuse and has refused to fly since she found out about the new security screenings. It seems that the only way to affect policy change is to hit the descicion makers in the wallet. Why not an old school, fone phreaker DOS attack styled protest. If a week was set aside where each day enough people called 1 major airline’s reservation number to complain, culminating in the last day of the protest where everyone called The DHS switchboard number (I’ve heard the TSA complaint number is an endless loop of menus) Maybe someone will notice. Another option is to call 911 after one of these searches and report an assault naming the TSA agent as the perpetrator, I’m not sure but I don’t believe the TSA agents are sworn officers like border agents, cops or FBI agents, therefore them not having the authority to legally conduct these searches, a police department does not have any authority to grant a non sworn officer those police duties and I believe the same is true for federal law enforcement.. According to payscale.com the pay range for TSA agents is 12-15 dollars an hour by the way. The kind of searches they are performing at a bare minimum should require a sworn officer, held to higher standards. I might feel slightly better about these searches if they were performed by a police officer or a sworn federal agent, not a “mall cop”. Sorry about the rambling, but this subject upsets me to the point my typing can’t keep up with my thoughts.
I think he was going by this quote:
“It would appear that the emissions are 10 times higher. We understand it as a calculation error,” TSA spokesman Sarah Horowitz said in a telephone interview.
It sounds like she may have meant to say “the emmissions on the form” but Wil interpreted it as “the emissions from the machine.” I almost thought the same myself until I re-read the part that says “would imply energy outputs that are unachievable by the Secure 1000 Single Pose.”
I’m sorry to say this, but your therapist’s note probably won’t help. They’ve taken peoples’ false limbs off to search for contraband and bombs. I don’t think a doctor’s note will excuse you from screening; if it did the pundits would be all over it, claiming that it’s easy to get a forged note that terrorists could use to get past the screeners (as if you’d need to forge a note to slip something past them!).
I’m with you; your summary of the situation is right on the money, and action – political plus civil disobedience – is necessary.
I have withdrawn my support of Barack Obama’s re-election campaign on the basis that – in his words – he “fully supports” these procedures. If he “fully supports” these procedures, despite their devastating effect on the promises of liberty and dignity – and in light of the fact that he will never have to endure them – then the man is no longer fit to lead.
</i>
There. Fixed it for ya.
Whoops. No it didn’t. I’ll try a few more.
Because the “right-wing” is SO much better. How about you quit making generalized political attacks, call up your representative and voice your concerns, take to the streets with signs, start your own campaign for a local political seat.. you know… do something to restore sanity instead of attacking a B-list celebrity?
This left-right infighting has gone on TOO LONG and I am SICK of seeing it everywhere I turn. I don’t give a shit what side of the fence you’re leaning on; if the fence ain’t fixed it’s gonna break and we’ll all end up in the mud. So pull up your pants and start working, and hope to god the neighbors on the other side are sensible people because the terrorists have more than won, at this point. We’re fighting amongst ourselves so badly that Osama bin Laden himself could come in and take over and we’d just keep blaming each other for it rather than bother to kick him out of office!
Actually I wanted to reply to this because, somehow, I just found this derping around on the internet, from, of all places, the xkcd blag:
http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/
This is actually a comparison in various units of various types of radiation. Using that, and the chart linked on the link in the article, with comparison, one may be able to determine the amount of radiation you’re supposedly receiving.
Also, in reply to Luke M: I agree, that would work if we modeled our system on the Israelis full system, instead of modeling it on their “we think you’re a terrorist because you said bomb and allah while we asked you about your plans” system.
In reply to Sqlrob: That’s quite a different question indeed, and one that should be more deeply looked into.
Wil, I’m pretty sure the flawed test results were flawed toward the direction of safety. That is, the reported measurement was 10 times higher than the actual radiation emitted. The testers were supposed to divide by 10 and failed to do so in some instances.
I find the article very confusing, but I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re saying.
Nevertheless, I completely agree that the procedures in place today are wholly ineffective, and serve only to enrich a few technology makers, and give the appearance of action by government.
Wil, first, thank you for posting this. Everyone (well, everyone who isn’t a twit) is behind you on this. This groping “patdown” nonsense is most certainly unreasonable search and seizure, though the second isn’t exactly in the sense that the Founders were anticipating. I mean, what would George Washington do if some TSA agent tried to manhandle Martha’s Special Friend? I’d imagine it would be the ass-kicking heard ’round the world.
I’m not sure whether the Congress or the President can be persuaded to take action unless and until enough passengers simply refuse to cooperate. We have to take our personal freedoms into our own hands, or they’ll end up in the TSA’s hands.
TSA, I say to you what George Takei so eloquently said to William Shatner: “Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on!”
Damn Wil, that sort of treatment is beyond wrong in so many ways. It’s about time someone stands up to them and their draconian laws designed to “protect us”. Sadly it will probably take a boycott of the TSA on an epic scale to get anything accomplished.
I say give them hell!
My take on it was that there were the original claims, showing levels of X, then some tests apparently showed levels of ten times X, but these tests may have been flawed; the actual amount hasn’t really changed from the originally claimed radiation levels.
So basically that article was purely a report on problems testing the machines, rather than anything intrinsically wrong with the machines themselves. The article addressing health concerns is http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/scanners-part2/
As a turbaned Sikh man, born in Toledo, OH, I can’t begin to tell you the “issues” I’ve experienced with the TSA. I’ve even been asked by flight attendants to not wear earbuds because they made other passengers nervous… You know… Wires and all.
However, I do believe there IS a reasonable solution — a legitimate, public,”Trusted Traveller” program. I would gladly PAY to undergo scrutiny from various agencies to get a ‘card’ that says “he’s not a risk.” Our elected officials currently enjoy this perk.
It would also reduce congestion at TSA checkpoints and let agents focus on “riskier” travelers.
There's a fundamental difference when we go to the doctor, too. We ask the doctor to help us, and we have a trust-based relationship with our doctor. There is absolutely no valid comparison between seeking medical attention from a doctor and enduring unwanted groping or viewing from a stranger.
Israel, one of the most hated countries in the world, protects its airports from all sorts of extremist attacks, and yet does not utilize any of the “high tech” methods that the US uses.
What do they do? They profile. From the moment you pull into the driveway of the airport, you are asked non-assuming, non-confrontational questions designed to register a response in someone who is up to no good. And it works.
Thanks for helping with my HTML lameness. #clownsweater
Sent from my iPhone
If you ever do decide to do the body scanner, there are undershirts, underwear, etc. with the 4th amendment written in metallic ink, so it’ll show up in the scan:
http://4thamendment.myshopify.com/
There’s also radiation-blocking underwear that also hides your bits:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20023616-1.html
It’s not much, but at least it could help with modesty and to demonstrate your displeasure with the whole thing.
It’s not that we feel what we do is “reasonable” or “appropriate.” It’s just that we don’t care.
The radiation in the air is also spread out over time, and not administered at once as the x-ray machines are. From a physiological stand point, the same amount of radiation, spread out over time (as in the air) is far safer than that same amount of radiation over the course of a few seconds.
It is said that they amount of radiation is comparable to what you get while at the dentists office. At my dentist visits, they cover the rest of my body with a lead apron. Sounds pretty serious to me.
I’m in total agreement with you and most of the people on this blog.
Why were the agent’s hands inside your underwear?
I’d like Obama to go undercover, all incognito-like, and be subjected to a body search of his own.
Wil, you have the right to opt out of these invasive scans and searches. You may be interested in this link: https://www.optoutalliance.com/rightscard
Topher
Why did the chicken cross the road? -To get to the other side.
Why did the chicken cross the playground? -To get to the other slide.
juuuust breaking the tension a tad – this post has no relevance – because I have read almost every post here and I needed to lighten my mood!
Wil, I am in tears. Thank you from the depths of my soul for sharing this. I was sexually assaulted in college and your reaction describes perfectly how I felt after the assault. Right now, I am in a position where we have been traveling, we can drive. I have not flown to the West Coast or Hawai`i to visit family and friends simply for this reason. Do I expose myself to radiation (which I knew would be much worse than they originally claimed) or subject myself to another potential assault and heightening PTSD. I’ve had anxiety over this because at some point I HAVE to fly. There is no way to get to the middle of the Pacific to see my family in a reasonable amount of time. NO WAY. My cousin is getting married in November and they originally planned on Vegas, which I figured we could at least take a train. Nope. They are now getting married in Hilo. I am going to have to fly and live with this anxiety until the return leg of our trip begins.
I encourage you to keep speaking up. You feel you may not be heard, but with many other voices, we can pray that we will all be heard.
Thank you, again.
~Debi
Oh, and I agree with you…
I’m glad you brought your own experience out into public view. It will take a lot of high-profile exposure for the situation to change, and I hope other travelers will spread their stories via social media. Unfortunately, I’ve heard enough sickening stories about the TSA that I’m starting to grow numb to it. It takes a story from somebody I know to wake me up again. But it’s like waking up to a slowly-unfolding nightmare.
It doesn’t take any sort of genius to see ways that the TSA’s security theatre might be circumvented by a determined terrorist. And right there in collusion with the terrorist is the military-industrial complex, making a fast buck on our fears and uncertainty.
I would encourage people to report their checkpoint experiences to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), on their Bodyscanner/checkpoint incident report page, here:
http://epic.org/bodyscanner/incident_report/
@Jeffymac Airports are NOT required to have the TSA there. They can opt out, but usually choose not to. Several sites here to back up what I am saying: http://www.networkworld.com/community/airport+opt-out+TSA+hire+private+screeners
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2010/11/amid-airport-anger-gop-takes-aim-screening
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Airports-Without-TSA-Scanners/209786485705590?sk=wall
These are but a few pages talking about airports that DON’T have the TSA groping you. This is a disgusting practice the TSA is doing, and almost seems to invite pedophiles, and sexual predators to apply. This is another example of how the government is slowly taking away OUR rights, leading up to a tyrannical government. If they do it a little at a time, people will give in, and eventually we will end up under a tyrannical regime, however, if they tried to take away all of our rights overnight, there would be riots in the streets. Think of all the rights that we as Americans had, that have been slowly picked away at. If that doesn’t light a fire under your butt to stand up for your rights, and the rights of all Americans, then nothing will, and we all deserve what is coming.
Except that the underwear bomber was flying INTO this country, not out of it, so he wouldn’t have gone through any TSA procedures at all. He was caught through an investigation and ongoing monitoring by professionals in multiple countries. He was caught because they already suspected him of being a potential terrorist. Would the TSA have caught him if he’d been flying OUT of Detroit? I honestly don’t think so.
There are so many problems with the current system, I don’t even know where to start. The cost of the scanning machines is ridiculous, the health concerns are more than troubling, and the people performing the pat-downs are basically minimum wage workers with little training.
Kaelri, you say we need security measures that would protect us. I agree, and I think TSA is way off the mark.
The right to travel freely includes the right to assume risks in doing so. We most certainly do NOT need security measures to “protect” us from every conceivable movie-threat plot any random idiot can come up with. If anything, we need security measures to protect us from implementing any more security measures.
Too much “security” costs lives. The net value of our security restrictions was negative even before the underwear bomber and has gotten more so with every new rule. The time and cost of security lines makes people drive instead of flying, which is much less safe and causes far more deaths. The economic cost of the time wasted in airports cumulatively puts us much further away from our eventual Star Trek future…and there really is no benefit at all in terms of safety because even *if* one could thereby significantly deter bombs in planes, the next-best attack vector isn’t going to be significantly less scary or less deadly.
In short, some risks just aren’t worth the cost of “protecting” against.
I’m sorry you’ve had this horrible experience, Wil.
Sometimes I think about running for Congress with a really simple platform like “Dismantle the TSA”. I don’t expect I would win, but if I could get a significant number of votes the main parties will shift their own platform towards mine.
“They” aren’t trying to get onto the plane to cause damage, they are trying to get onto the plane to cause terror. The answer to that is to not be terrorized. When some moron uselessly fails to blow themselves up while posing no actual threat to the plane, the proper response is to make fun of him on late night comedy shows and otherwise go about our business. If you instead use it as an excuse to inflict pointless suffering on millions of american fliers, that lets the terrorists win.
First I totally support what you say Wil and thank you for speaking out on it.
It is also worth noting that Adam Curry and Jon C Dvorak have been tooting this horn for months about the TSA and its violations.
I would encourage you Wil and your readers to have a listen to what they have to say on their show…http://www.noagendashow.com/
More specific to your plight as well
http://noagendashots.blogspot.com/2011/03/138-nas-how-safe-are-nude-scanners.html
http://noagendashots.blogspot.com/2010/12/tsa-agents-will-carry-guns.html
The government for years told us it didn’t damage film to send your camera through the x-ray; this turned out to be a lie.
Even if it could be demonstrated that this machine when functioning correctly after being properly calibrated by an operator who knows what he’s doing doesn’t produce a harmful level of radiation, that says nothing for a machine being used by a bunch of TSA goons. All you can say is that it *might* not be *too* harmful.
I’m not risking it. The TSA collectively seems like a bunch of corrupt incompetents; I’m not trusting my health to them. So given the option, I have to settle for the grope.
Neither you, nor anyone else should have to submit to this invasion. Jesse Ventura is in the process of suing the federal government over his similar treatment and loss of 4th amendment rights.
One of the saddest parts of this farce is that these rules do not apply to those who fly corporate jets. That includes those that use corporate jet limo services. For them, you pay your $5,000 to $10,000, get on the jet and don’t have to submit to any of this coercion. And a corporate jet makes as good a missile as a 737.
It’s just security theater to make the average person feel like they are safe and Ms. Napalitano has admitted as much.
“I don’t feel safe. I feel violated, humiliated, and angry.”
You shouldn’t. You should, should and should.
I could not believe it when I heard that this was happening. I am a Canadian school teacher and told all my classes what was going on. There was NO student out of 114 students who thought it was an appropriate situation. Most said it should be illegal. Several were shocked and concerned about visiting the US (living so close to Seattle, many of them do – Cali and Hawaii being fairly common vacations).
Unfortunately I have recently been told that at least some flights to the US, out of VYR (Vancouver’s Int’l airport), are subject to random selection for the scanner/invasive patdown “choice,” as my friend’s family recently flew to Hawaii and his wife was thusly selected and chose to be scanned.
This is going to take a massive movement to make the change, and I hope that you guys can get it done. For what it’s worth, you have my complete support (and the support of my 114 students).