Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Pat Downs

Rich Galen

Wednesday November 17, 2010

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The business of body scans and pat-downs at airports have become the outrage du jour. We have plenty of things to be outraged about. Security procedures at an airport isn't one of them.

On the trip I just took to Kansas and back, I went through traditional magnetometers both ways. Both DCA in Washington and MCI in Kansas City have the new scanners, but I wasn't in the right line, or wasn't in the right line at the right time, to have to go through it.

A couple of weeks ago I did go through the scanner. I took everything (including paper) out of my pockets, walked into the device, stood with my hands over my head and said to the woman who was on duty, "You should have them keep this picture because I'm cute as a button."

She looked at me, unsmiling, and said, "Move along, sir."

You want to see if you've got a future as a stand-up comedian? Try out your best stuff on TSA agents.

I don't think I'm in danger of causing some guy sitting in a dark room looking at a monitor showing a ghostly image of my 63-year-old body to think naughty thoughts. Even for women, it is more likely that guy (or that woman) is looking for C-4 explosives and not 34-C bras.

There is a great deal of chatter about "national opt-out day" one week from now on the day before Thanksgiving which, we are told with great breathlessness each and every year by very cute news anchors, THE BUSIEST TRAVEL DAY OF THE YEAR!

A group, which includes the ACLU, wants everyone to do the following:

-- Get to your local airport at least two hours before your flight leaves.
-- Get into the security line with your kids, their strollers, the snacks, the toys, and the luggage along with all the other people with their kids and associated equipment.
-- After 20 or 30 minutes of inching along the line, dig out drivers' licenses and/or passports for everyone so the TSA officer at the podium with that strange x-ray flashlight can check you in.
-- Then take the coats, sweaters, shoes and hats off the kids, put all that plus the snacks and toys, your laptop and your iPad, into seven of those grey plastic bins.
-- While the kids are complaining about having to "tee-tee so bad," and your family's stuff disappears into the x-ray machine, you will inform the TSA agent at the scanner that you choose to "opt-out," thus putting your entire family into the holding pen while you wait for your enhanced pat down.

Hello? What part of this do you think that your wife will think is a good idea?

The reality is 80 percent of the blowhards in your office will say they're going to "opt-out" next Wednesday, but when they get to the airport and have the choice between some unknown, unseen person taking a peek at the family jewels for about 5 seconds, and having to wait in line to have a real person, standing right in front of them, actually touch said jewels over the course of a two or three minute pat-down � Well, maybe next Thanksgiving.

Most of the employees of the Department of Homeland Security who are going to visit their families for Thanksgiving will have to go through the same security procedures as you and I do. The exceptions are the people with guns who fill out a lot of forms and go a different way so as not to set the lights and sirens off like a jackpot winner at the $20 slots in Las Vegas.

I understand there are limits to what we should have to trade in return for security. The best way to avoid someone blowing up an airplane is to outlaw airplanes, but we're not likely to do that.

So, each of us gets to decide at what point the insult and intrusion becomes too much and we drive, take the train, or just stay home.

As for me, I've had cardiac by-pass surgery. People have looked at me from the inside out. I don't have much to hide.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the TSA scanner page, a discussion of Opt-Out Day, and a story about how pilots are reacting to the new scanners.

Also, a really nice Mullfoto from the Bob Dole Institute of Politics in Kansas the other day and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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