Everyone has their own attitudes. I find the current TSA controversies underwhelming.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

It is sad to me that we have accepted all manner of intrusions into our privacy, all manner of indignities, all manner of totalitarian gestalt, yet he breaking point is about, of all things, sexual modesty.

WTF? Are we really this primitive?

Yes. Yes we are.

We are ordered to show up hours early then herded about like animals in corrals. We have to show our papers. The slightest candid observation about the process will, if vocalized, cause us to miss our flight (even if not refundable) and be disapeared into a holding cell.

But the idea of someone "touching our junk" through clothing is the breaking point.

It speaks to our priorities.

If you made it through knowing that every phone call you make is potentially monitored by the NSA it seems weird to then strain at the gnat of a pat-down.

[ixion]

1. I agree. While I'm glad to see some outrage expressed, I've found the TSA

intolerable from day one. They are distinctly un-American, in my opinion.

[wtmusic]

2. If someone did it on the street, it would be sexual assault

but millions of instances of SA daily are ok if it has been deemed (erroneously) it will save lives.

How many times has a bomb been discovered at the TSA gate? Exactly, quantifiably zero (a box cutter was discovered on 9/11, but allowed through anyway).

Hard to hide a junk-grope, but the NSA has done a fairly successful job at portraying phone monitoring as a liberal conspiracy fantasy.

[Ferret Annica]

3. My father was a commercial pilot, my mom a pilot at 16

and I was a helicopter crew chief in the U.S. Army, and now I won't fly commercial because the security protocol is invasive and demeaning. What is wrong with this picture?

We need to balance security with human dignity. I am not letting some security guard inspect my body physically or with a see all scanner. I will drive or take the train instead.

[HubertHeaver]

4. Who knew that over-reaching by the TSA would literally

be reaching for the gonads?

Yes indeedy, they actually have us by the short hairs.

[LibDemAlways]

5. I've hated the tsa from the get-go. I agree that

people have already put up with way too much intrusion with too little outrage. (I personally take great pride in my 2003 altercation with the goons. I stood my ground and the agent actually backed off. Don't know if I was lucky not to have been arrested, but have to admit I didn't care. I was not going to stand around meekly and have my rights violated.)

However, most people are terrified of authority and the power of the state. No one wants trouble. That's why the tsa has gotten away with it for so long. As long as people felt they could show their papers, be wanded, and the worst that could happen was a relatively innocuous patdown, they would endure it in the name of "security" and because they felt they had no other choice. However, sexual violation is another matter entirely. We rightly teach our kids that their bodies belong to them. We have laws against sexual harrassment and unwanted sexual advances, and people rightly feel that the tsa has simply gone too far. When your choice is radiation or groping, that's no choice at all.

Yes it speaks to our priorities. But it also speaks to something very primal. My late father's number one saying was "Leave me the hell alone."I think that's finally - at long last - becoming the voice of the masses. If it took touching our collective junk to make it happen, that's fine by me. I'm just glad the breaking point has been reached.

[enlightenment]

6. I don't see it as sexual modesty,

I see it as an extreme affront to personal privacy. If you flip your argument, you're saying that we shouldn't have an issue with strangers touching our bodies in a deliberate fashion (trying to leave out loaded words in this).

Most humans come equipped with that natural - if ill-defined - sense of 'personal space'. We feel uncomfortable when someone 'invades' that space. It is not an 80s catch-phrase; it's a very real response. Some of it is culturally dictated, obviously, but there is an in-born, natural component. When we travel on an overly crowded public transport, what is the standard procedure? We may be cheek and jowl with strangers, but we try not to make eye-contact beyond the initial "damn, so sorry about being so close to you" glance. We definitely do not deliberately touch the people we are jammed up against.

That's not sexual nor is it modesty. It is a recognition that there is a level of physical contact that we do not wish to occur until we know someone. Many people do not like being touched by strangers at all - others are willing to accept a very brief and casual touch to arm or shoulder or upper back. Some don't mind being hugged by someone they don't know or even kissed in a non-sexual fashion - but I don't know of too many people who would happily accept having a stranger rub his/her hands across their breasts and genitals.

I don't mind being touched by strangers, for the most part, as long as the touching is casual and benign - I haven't even minded the level of contact involved in back of the hand pat-downs - though I do object to the concept that underlies that search. The idea of someone actually using the palms of their hands to examine my breasts and genitals is alarming, however. Not because I am modest, but because that's where I draw the line in terms of my control over my body.

Your points about why people should be up in arms about the ever-increasing levels of scrutiny and totalitarian control over our movements is completely valid and I absolutely agree - but I do not agree that the reason people are up-in-arms about this move is because they are sexually modest or Puritanical.

I think that most people recognize, even if they don't articulate it clearly, that this is an issue that goes to who controls their person - their body. The TSA and HS is suggesting that the government owns them, right down to their 'junk' - and they can do whatever they like with their bodies. People disagree.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. Isn't the grope an alternative to the porno-scanner?

The full body imaging thing is definitely primarily a modesty issue. (Radiation concerns aside)

There is an indignity to being handled, no doubt. And an added discomfort in being handed intimately.

But since something can be hidden in your crotch as easily as anywhere else any pat-down that is not indecent isn't much of a pat down at all.

I've had my junk handled by bouncers at inner city clubs and by police because it wouldn't be a real frisk without it.

I am not suggesting that the TSA stuff is effective, but if it were effective, hypothetically, it is hard to see how it wouldn't be used.

Efficacy is a whole 'nother discussion.

[enlightenment]

11. I agree that the scanner is mostly a modesty issue -

again, though, I don't consider it sexual modesty as much as a cultural and natural aversion to 'giving' strangers access to our bodies. If you're comfortable with public nudity, I suspect it isn't an issue at all. Most people are not comfortable with casual public nudity - or have limits to how much they are comfortable exposing.

Obviously, your life is more interesting than many people, including mine - I've never been frisked by a bouncer or the police and frankly, if a bouncer in a nightclub touched my genitals without my permission he'd be examining his own junk through the back of his eyeballs, because that's where I'd kick them. Jeeze, Kurt, where do you hang out, anyway!? :)

The core of the argument is effectiveness, of course. Nothing except not allowing someone on a plane is going to be 100% effective - but how far do we allow the intrusiveness to go in an attempt to reach 'effective'?

[enlightenment]

12. sorry - duplicate post. Something squirrelly with DU this morning!

[LibDemAlways]

10. People's personal space is a very big deal. Thanks for

a thoughtful and well reasoned post.

An illustration of how far some people will go to protect that space was illustrated to me one time in a restaurant when the server accidentally placed a plate intended for another diner in front of me. I didn't touch it. It was for a woman at the next table who could see I didn't touch it. Nevertheless she made a huge deal out of it. Told the waiter I might have breathed on it and she wanted another dinner. It was embarrassing for me to sit there and listen to that but she clearly felt I had somehow invaded her space and her control over her body and she was having none of it. I can only imagine how ballistic she'd go if someone attempted to touch her private parts at the airport.

[darkstar3]

7. While I agree with you,

and have been ranting to friends and co-workers about the kinds of abuses you mention and allude to, I'm hoping that this new outrage will cause a necessary backlash.

I say we pour gas on this privacy fire and hope it burns its way all the way back to before the PATRIOT act.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gin]

13. I think we have reached critical mass on this issue....the shoes

and papers seemed silly and we all were irritated...this is very personal...and I am happy to see an issue we all get together on for a change...

who knows...we may just find another one we can agree on...but our tolerance level is very high.