I agree about TSA agents probably not wanting to do “enhanced” pat downs any more than anyone wants to receive them. Still not sure about how much safer they make the flying public. As I mentioned in the post, the powder explosive substance used in the attempted Christmas Day bombing wouldn’t have set off metal detectors, and none of the demo photos show the full body scanners picking up non-metal substances. As for the extra thorough screenings, I’m not convinced that TSA agents are suddenly so well versed in anatomy that they’d be able to tell the difference between genitalia and a convincingly sewn package (no pun intended) of explosive powder. For countries where drug smuggling is a problem, people have been known to shove the drugs into various body parts. What if the next wannabe terrorist decides to go that route? The type of search that would catch that is normally reserved for prisoners, and the type of medical grade x-ray that would detect it wouldn’t be practical at a mass level.

Again, the best security really is to be aware. If someone around you is acting suspiciously, seems nervous, is acting strange – keeping an eye on them, reporting the problem and in some cases being ready to intervene has done more to stop attempted attacks (shoe bomber, Times Square, Christmas Day) than any airport screening.

Flying on a plane is not a RIGHT enumerated in the Constitution. If one wants to fly, they must submit to searches which are NOT unreasonable. TSA employees are not ogling scans or giving out hand jobs in the screening line. They are trying to keep us safe. Shame on anyone who can’t embrace that idea.