#871 getting felt up and down in Long Beach

A couple of weeks ago, in post #865, I wrote about a couple of guys I know who I consider to be "Doomsday Preppers" who have very strong opinions about the end of civilization and the state of the world in general and the USA in particular. One of the things they talked about that day was the fact that they absolutely will NOT go through the scanning machine at the airport. They talked about microwave rays and invasion of privacy and TSA agents being able to view your "junk".

Here's what I know: I'll take the scanner every time. For one thing, the scanner takes three seconds. I'm not worried about microwave rays or anything that going to cause bodily harm to me in those three seconds. I can't even get anything warm in a microwave in three seconds.  The second thing is that with the scanner,  nobody touches me. If there's a TSA agent in some hidden room that is looking at my boobs, good for them.  I'd rather have them checking me out somewhere away from me than having an up-close and very personal encounter with a TSA agent.

I speak from experience. I went through the Long Beach airport security today. Long Beach doesn't have the scanner; they just have the magnetometer. When I strolled through the device, the security alarm sounded because I have metal implants in my right knee. I had to be patted down in a full-body search, even though I explained I have a knee implant and I offered to show them the scar.

The pat-down lasted a LOT longer than three seconds and everyone in the security area gets to see the agent feeling you up and down. The agent was very professional and explained everything she was doing, but it was uncomfortable for me and I didn't like it AT ALL. I'm not a person who is touchy-feely and to have a stranger running the back of her hands underneath my boobs over there in the corner of the security area was not cool.

I'm all for security. I know it is absolutely necessary and I am willing to take off my shoes and put all my stuff on the conveyor and have it looked at. I'm willing to put my body in the scanner, perhaps subjecting myself to small amounts of radiation or whatever, but dang - I really didn't like that pat-down.