Don’t be shy… Search me thoroughly ;-)

You missed a spot. :-)

Mmmm. Thank you.

Look at what the TSA has done: In 2008, the plan was to buy 150 body scanners for secondary screening at large airports. In early 2010, the plan changed to buying 450 body scanners for PRIMARY screening at all major airports. The current TSA plan is to buy more than ONE THOUSAND body scanners for primary screening at all airports. That’s a two hundred million dollar hardware investment. Do you think the TSA will do a 180-degree turn and decide that body scanning is unneeded? I don’t?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2H-ZNfhxbs

I understand your feeling, and if you simply can’t stomach the thought of it, then you shouldn’t do it. There are a lot of people brought up in this debate (sexual assault victims, etc) that certainly can’t stomach the enhanced pat-down. Frankly, I know how I feel, but I’m not sure I’d feel the same about my children going through it — I can see it as a potential teaching experience, but can also see it as something weird and creepy that could have negative effects, so I’m not sold either way.

I suppose my post was written more for people like myself, who CAN stomach it but still think it’s utter bullshit. For those people, my recommendation is to suck it up and opt-out, because that’s your best way to make an impact on the system.

I do agree with both you and Stephen regarding pushing back against TSA personnel. Physical violence is going to bite you in the ass AND be counterproductive. Calling them derogatory names probably won’t get you arrested, but probably won’t help the situation and you are demeaning an actual human being. But I’m toying with the idea of calmly and rationally asking the screener giving me a pat-down something along the lines of “Do you like having to do this for your job? How many more weeks of this policy will it take before you simply quit and find other work?” It’s a way of making the screener realize that you think what they’re doing is bullshit, and that the onus is on them to either speak up to their management or find other employment. Berating a screener won’t get you very far, but making them actually question their mandate might.

The headline is intentionally sensational. The TSA “winning” is when they get more funding and more headcount and further entrench themselves at the federal teat. As federal bureaucracies go, they’re actually young and don’t have the advanced union entrenchment than other Feds have. But they’re on their way.

In fact, you stopping flying, or you continuing to fly, isn’t a win or loss for the TSA. They frankly don’t care. My point is that to cease flying over this is a loss to you.

As to your second point, I think a more effective protest of the scanners is the opt-out method, largely because it takes longer, requires more staff, and the screeners themselves hate it. You and I agree that we, as travelers, have very little political clout. The internal TSA employees, however, have considerably more clout, and this is KILLING their morale. I think we’re more likely to see a change to policy by gumming up the screenings than by avoiding air travel. I may be wrong on this point, but that’s my gut feeling.

I managed to convince myself to suck it up when they took my pocket knife from me, and when they made me take off my shoes, but this is a death of a thousand cuts. Its a frog being slowly boiled.

I’ve reached my stopping point. This far and no further.

And I am acutely aware of the cost, but that doesn’t make me feel like I’m doing something wrong, it makes me angry at the people who are doing this to me. Emphasis on the “to me” part.

And make no mistake: it is both insult and assault, which is why Stephen is wrong about not pushing back against TSA personnel.

That’s an illogical statement. It’s like saying that if you avoid a mugger-filled park at night, the criminals win. No, by avoiding the park, I keep my wallet and my life. By avoiding flying, I keep my dignity. I also hurt the airlines. This is useful, because President Obama and top TSA officials have indicated that they will continue the nudies scans and sexual molestation “pat downs” regardless of the wishes of the public. But, if the airlines start losing money, they will exert pressure on the government to stop driving passengers away with their less-than-worthless security procedures. The airlines have much more political and economic clout than I do, and they may help us return to reasonable pre-flight security.

I will agree that the airlines have more lobbying pull, and that they definitely would push for change if it made a big change to their bottom line. Sadly, though, it looks like “National Opt-Out Day” was enough of a flop that I think the proportion of people that don’t fly at all is probably a small enough number to be lost in the noise. At the very least, opting out is a direct and visible inconvenience to the organization that is trying to be as inconvenient as possible to us travelers.

I still stand by my assertion that for most of us, choosing to avoid air travel entirely hurts US a lot more than it hurts the TSA. I’m opposed to government roads, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a driver’s license. I think taxes are theft, but that doesn’t mean I’m taking a 10K/year job as an under-the-table day laborer to avoid paying them. At the end of the day, I’ll do what I can to advocate the end of policies I hate, and when possible (such as an opt-out, or non-compliance with the census, etc) to throw sand in the gears. But I won’t let the stupidity of government stand in the way of living my life.

You have to ask yourself what you’re missing out on in life by not flying? If the answer is “not much”, then there’s minimal cost to you and the airlines & TSA to your protest. If the answer is “quite a bit”, as is the answer for many of us, then the cost to YOU is high, but the cost is still minimal to the airlines and TSA. When your protest means effectively nothing to them, why are you going to engage in it at high expense to your happiness?

Of course, hurting the airlines doesn’t do anything direct to fix the problem, but they at least have some lobbing swing—which civil libertarian groups are perpetually a bit short on.

Also I worry that a high profile government agency like the TSA won’t feel any budget pressure: they will simple demand money for more screeners and get it.

In any case, I am unwilling to do any discretionary flying on these terms. It simple isn’t going to happen.

As usual, your analysis is right on point – particularly point #3. I was reading this article just yesterday about the TSA union is trying to get the TSA to change some of these policies due to complaints from TSA workers of verbal and/or even physical abuse by travelers (which I do not support; always remember to follow the initiation of force principle). If enough of these employees quit or refuse to implement these procedures, the procedures will change.