FBI anti-terrorism expert: TSA is useless

[Matariki]

18. My "false positive" experience.

I opt out of the backscatter machine because they haven't been properly tested and because a friend of mine who worked for 35 years as a nuclear physicist explained to me how the type of radiation being used is much more harmful than an x-ray.

Anyway, I opt out and get the f*#ing pat-down. I don't like it, but usually the person doing it is polite and friendly, so at least I'm able to momentarily put aside all my rage at the shredding of our collective rights to privacy and dignity.

The last time I flew, the first screening triggered a false positive when they ran the sample that looks for explosives. I've heard since that this isn't really that uncommon. I was taken into a private room, something I did NOT want to do - I want them to do whatever they are going to do out in the open, with witnesses. The second woman who took me in there kept saying, repeatedly, "you failed the screening, now you've got me" like she was some kind of bad-ass threat or something.

When she began her creepy litany of "I'm going to touch you like this, here, with my hands like this" etc, etc. I told that, please, she really didn't need to explain, just get it over with. No she says - she *has* to tell me all that. Well I think it's fucking creepy and I told her so. It sounds like porn. Like molestation. Ugh.

I was so angry that after it was over I had to get a drink and I sat there with my partner and just shook with rage and tears. I used to LOVE flying. Now I literally get sick to my stomach before heading to the airport and after that last experience I really don't feel like flying for a long, long time. Sucks. Really sucks.