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In mine and my husband's experience the terminals vary greatly in attitude regarding pat downs and harassment. The new terminal with Delta seems to have less agitated security guards than the old terminal, and I've noticed this multiple times since it has been built and we've flown through both at RDU. The security guards are downright pissed off in the old terminal - the one that bottlenecks at the top of the escalators.
It's less of a pat down at that terminal and more like a smack down.
In mine and my husband's experience the terminals vary greatly in attitude regarding pat downs and harassment. The new terminal with Delta seems to have less agitated security guards than the old terminal, and I've noticed this multiple times since it has been built and we've flown through both at RDU. The security guards are downright pissed off in the old terminal - the one that bottlenecks at the top of the escalators.
It's less of a pat down at that terminal and more like a smack down.
The only problem with my pat down and it was Delta was the person doing it. He was the only not friendly person I dealt with at the airport. I told him it was ok and do what he needed to do but I don't think he was comfortable in doing it.
The one good thing is that the scanners at RDU are the millimeter wave and not thebackscatter x-ray. At least the radiation from them is not a potential issue or at least no scientists have raised it with them like they have for the backscatter machines.
I don't know what is going on with these pat downs, but there is more going on here than pat downs. What do you think the motive is for these actions?
I think it's interesting the invasive patdown is triggered by refusing the naked x-ray machine. This leads me to believe a primary motive of the patdowns is: punishment and humiliation for opting out of the naked scanner.
I think it's interesting the invasive patdown is triggered by refusing the naked x-ray machine. This leads me to believe a primary motive of the patdowns is: punishment and humiliation for opting out of the naked scanner.
No it is to do a security check so the bad guys don't sneak through. I have an artificial knee that always sets off the traditional machine. So they offered me the body scan and because I had a belt on the needed to check my waist. I see it all as being thorough and attempting to avoid the elevated terrorist concern becoming a reality. RDU is like any airport and if we are not diligent the bad guys will try us as a weak link and that is not a circumstance I want to subject anyone to. Surveys show that 80% of Americans approve of scanning and it is a distinct but loud minority that doesn't. My wife suggested that you have airlines with different levels of security. One could be Blow Us Up Airlines and another might be We Will Be Safe Airlines. That way everyone has a clear choice.
I don't like where the TSA has gone and is going, not one bit. It's incredibly intrusive. For years, America was known (overseas) as the good ole boys of airport security. They were way too trusting, lax, and not up on the latest techniques. Now it's swung the other way. There has to be some middle ground. I feel like I'm walking into a Gulag everytime I go thru security. I don't know what I hate more than flying nowadays. It's totally put me off going overseas for mini trips, it's too much of a hassle. However, I'm going to the UK and mainland Europe in 2011 and am curious to see how they do things now compared to here.
Clearly we have to change what we've been doing so that we are more protected. But without cooperation from other countries and a sharing of techniques, info, us all being on the same page (good luck with that) we are still not protected from a threat on an incoming flight from overseas.
I think it's interesting the invasive patdown is triggered by refusing the naked x-ray machine. This leads me to believe a primary motive of the patdowns is: punishment and humiliation for opting out of the naked scanner.
While I wouldn't go so far as to say that punishment and humiliation are the primary motives, I absolutely agree that many individual TSA workers want to make the pat down as unpleasant as possible to discourage people from opting out of the scanner. And, of course, they're incentivized to discourage opt-outs -- imagine how bad the lines would get if even a quarter of the passengers opted out of the scanners.
In the meantime, we can continue to look forward to incidents like this. But as long as it makes 80% of the population feel safer...
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I just asked my ex
