Letters to the Editor
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How gigantic ARE these wires, anyway?
I *always* wear an underwire bra and have NEVER set off either airport or courthouse metal detectors.
Oh, and I've walked through numerous detectors wearing a belt with a metal buckle, AND with change in my pocket.
So how is this happening?
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Nothing Better To Do In Idaho With Their Homeland Security Funds?
What a crock!
My underwires set off metal detectors now and then. They just wand you and maaaaaybe have a female guard pat you.
When I spent three weeks on a jury duty in New York City (you know, within spitting distance of what was the WTC) I asked the guards why it happens sometimes and not others -- they said it has to do with body temperature.
Guess the boys in Cour d'Alene have a lot more to fear than they do in NYC.
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The security droids just wanted a chance to maybe if they were really lucky...
... see a boobie. Probably haven't seen a live one in years, maybe not even since infancy.
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Security Theatre
I travel around a bit, and I've noticed that security tends to be tighter and more officious the smaller & sleepier the airport.
What gets me the most though, isn't the stupid security theatre, as much as the smirking pompous rent-a-cops empowered to screw you over. As in this case: they could have suggested her car to her, or given her directions to the nearby restaurant, or offered her a jacket or something.
I've often wondered what would happen if they offered optional secuity-lite flights, ie operated at pre 9/11 levels, or even no security at all: I bet they would sell out in a second.
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While they're looking at bra's, they're missing bombs
"Security screeners at two of the nation's busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY."
What are we gaining by taking off our bra's in public and nota being allowed to take water into airports? Security? I don't think that any terrorist believes that they can get away with taking over a plane and hitting a building, and they certainly won't be able to make a bomb while sitting in a plane (if it were that simple, it would be happening all the time - it's not that easy to make explosives). I'ts quite obvious that our airline security is tragically inefficient and designed to provide visible protection for the benefit of the public while not actually stopping terrorists. When there is another terrorist attack, which there will be, someday, it will not come through the front door, but the back, where we aren't looking.
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I Don't Know...
....it IS annoying to have the rent-a-cops flex their muscles, but one has to take it with a grain of salt sometimes. Is it the worst thing in the world to be embarassed? And isn't embarassment in the eye of the beholder?
I remember travelling with my male boss post-9/11, pre-TSA. We were in the Dominican Republic (I think) and they were doing security searches IN the check in line. My bag was searched, out in the open, and they were making no effort to hide my A cup bra OR my box of super tampons. Embarassing? Sure! Worth losing sleep over - no way! I may remember it to this day, but I'm sure my boss doesn't.
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re: How big are the wires
1. Settings can be adjusted to make the metal detectors more or less sensitive. I wear underwire bras all the time, and have never been wanded for that.
2. If you touch the sides of the gate (arch? gate? I don't know what they call the things), that will set it off, even if you aren't wearing metal. Brushing it with your clothes will do it. I got wanded for this--I didn't even realize I'd hit the thing, but the helpful TSA guy working the gate told me. I bet more people are accidentally brushing the gate than are being wanded for underwires--I'm sure it's easier to do the bigger you are (I'm a comparatively small person).
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re: security theater
I've often wondered what would happen if they offered optional secuity-lite flights, ie operated at pre 9/11 levels, or even no security at all: I bet they would sell out in a second.
Sign me up. I'll be there with three bottles of shampoo, a 53-function Swiss Army knife, and a gallon of water. And cupcakes! (Hey, why not.)
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don't feel bad ladies
If you were men you'd have some rubber glove pervert literally cup your balls, looking for contraband like you're ALREADY in prison. No joke it's happened to me, at gunpoint. When they finger check your cavities then come back to me complaining.
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@shazzer
You don't think there's any difference between a bra being exposed in your luggage during a security search, and having to take off your bra with no privacy while being ogled by male security guards?
If they're going to force people to remove clothing, especially undergarments, then they're going to have to provide a private area, one that is staffed by a guard of the same gender.
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Without giving in to paranoia for it's own sake...
...I'm pretty sympathetic to Lloyd's concerns.
I think you can make a fairly strong case for the intersection of modern security techniques and the so-called male gaze (which just amounts to a sexualized abuse of power, by a male or female, IMO). To my knowledge strip searches (and their tech-assisted approximations) are hallmarks of totalitarian milieus, from the fascist regimes of WWII to Abu Ghraib.
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Boycott the airlines
That's what I do now. Got tired of being herded, wanded, leered at, patted down, ordered to remove clothing, delayed, humiliated, etc. by barely literate misogynists with loaded weapons. Blecch. Who needs it? I have refused business trips for this reason as well, and so far have been supported in that by my employer. I know a few business women who are changing the ways they conduct long-distance business because traveling has become the new national nightmare for them. Seriously, wasn't this the point of flying the planes into the skyscrapers in the first place, to keep women in check? But still, this homie won't play that homeland security game. They can get their jollies from other people's mamas. There are those of us who will quietly change the rules on our own.