ARE YOU TIRED OF THE TSA’S INVASIVE PATDOWNS?

If you fly a lot and have enjoyed using the TSA passenger pre-check program, where you no longer have to take off your jacket and shoes, take your computer out of the case, or remove your toiletry bag from your carry-on, you would be upset to suddenly have to revert to the indignity of the TSA’s enhanced patdown.

Whether you are subjected to this personally invasive procedure in public, or request a private screening, it is demeaning.

But why should you be concerned? If you participate in sports regularly, even at a young age, you may suffer an injury that can only be helped by a surgically implanted metal piece in your leg, knee, hip, shoulder or arm.

As fitness and athletic programs become a bigger part of people’s lives, so do bone injuries that are reconstructed with titanium parts. Unfortunately, the metal parts trigger the TSA security alarms and the subsequent invasive patdown.

You might ask, “Aren’t the new body scanner machines supposed to solve this problem by viewing your entire body and passing you through without an issue with metal implants?” Yes, that is the working concept but these machines are usually only positioned at the regular, long security lines that frequent flyers want to avoid.

At this time, the only choice for the frequent flyer is the invasive hand patdown in the pre-check line or the inconvenient long wait in the regular security line.

So, how could TSA screening be handled for the growing number of bionic frequent flyers without discriminating against them and their personal rights or downgrading them to a long, slow security line with a full body machine scanner?

Security officers in this country used to employ hand wands that would buzz if they passed near metal on your body. But, they never had to touch you. Other major security conscious countries still use the wands instead of the invasive patdowns. It is much faster and not personally objectionable. If the wand buzzes when it passes your knee, only your knee requires a second look, not your entire body.

Being one of the newly bionic, who used to zip through the pre-check lines and now has to suffer the invasive patdowns, I frequently ask why the wands cannot be used again in this country to make TSA security more palatable for frequent flyers. The answer I am always given is that there are to plans to alter the present procedures.

Are you a frequent flyer who must undergo constant patdowns? How would you like to see this security procedure improved?