By Andrea Scarpino
We should get a couple of things on the table right away. I believe in airport security. I think that many people are totally nuts and an airplane is an effective way to make a very big point. Even though I think the threat of shoes is minor, I happily take mine off in the security line and make sure all my liquids come in travel-approved sizes. And I think metal detectors are fine things.
What I find problematic are full body imaging scanners that peek-a-boo under your clothes by exposing you to radiation—especially now that it’s become known some of these images have been saved by government agencies. And I’m clearly not the only one worried: pilots, people with disabilities, and the ACLU have all taken issue with these machines, and a growing number of people are refusing to go through them.
And now, I’m one of them. I’ve flown through several airports with body imaging scanners, but always managed to get around them by carefully choosing my security line. Flying out of St. Louis recently, however, I was selected for a random search and told I had to go through the imaging scanner.
“I’m happy to go through the metal detector,” I told the TSA worker who randomly selected me, “but I’m not going through the body scanner.” She sighed, rolled her eyes. “That means you’ll have to get a full body pat-down which is very invasive and will take a lot longer since we have to find a female security officer,” she said. I nodded, “I understand.”
Again, she sighed, and walked me over to another line. A second TSA officer informed me of the invasiveness of the pat-down, and I nodded again, said, “I understand.” In just a few minutes, a female security officer was found, and she led me to the other side of the security line.
“This is an invasive pat-down,” she explained. “I will use the front and back of my hands to touch your body.” Again I said, “I understand.” I declined a private screening room and she began, running her hands down my back, my arms, up and down each leg, down my chest. I had to pull up my shirt twice so she could check the waistband of my jeans. All of which was fine, in all honesty; I’ve had numerous medical procedures I’d consider more invasive than the pat-down I received (and another woman being pat-down complimented me afterwards on my stomach tattoo).
But here’s the thing: I think my pat-down wasn’t nearly as effective as sending me through the metal detector—I very clearly could have had dangerous objects hidden in areas she didn’t touch. And my overwhelming feeling during it was guilt—that in taking an incredibly minor stand against full body scanners—which I don’t think have been proven safe and raise serious privacy concerns—I made another woman search my body while probably being paid minimum wage. I doubt being a TSA officer is her dream job, and searching between passenger legs probably wasn’t in her initial job description.
So there I was, trying to make a point about body scanning machines, and instead, I worried about how humiliating it was for the TSA officer to do her job. I worried about her pay, what she thought about her job, how much more difficult passengers like me make everything. The body scanning machines clearly aren’t her fault; the big wigs who insist on scanning our bodies for our own safety certainly aren’t the ones patting us down when we refuse. There are so many power implications at play, it’s hard to keep them all straight.
The bottom line for me, I guess, is that I don’t think exposing people to humiliation makes us any safer. That’s why torture doesn’t work, part of the reason why child abuse and homelessness are so dangerous. Maybe a body imaging device would find a plastic gun strapped to a passenger, but at what cost? And what’s the cost of the pat-downs when we refuse to walk through those machines? I wanted to ask my pat-down officer, who was kind, looked me in the eye and clearly took me seriously, what she feels at the end of the day. Of course, that’s not the kind of question you’re supposed to ask when going through airport security. But it’s the question that keeps resonating with me. Did I cause more harm by refusing the imaging machine? And if so, what do I do next time?
Poet and essayist Andrea Scarpino is a frequent contributor to POTB. You can visit her at: http://www.andreascarpino.com
Planet of the Blind 