November 10, 2010 - As public anger grows over the TSA's body scanners and intrusive new airport pat-down procedure, a web site is urging travelers to opt out from the body scanners and instead choose to have a pat down in public view, so that people can "see for themselves how the government treats law-abiding citizens."
OptOutDay.com declares November 24 to be the day when air travelers should refuse to submit to a full body scan and choose the enhanced pat down - an option many travelers have described as little short of a molestation.
OptOutDay.com declares:
It's the day ordinary citizens stand up for their rights, stand up for liberty, and protest the federal government's desire to virtually strip us naked or submit to an "enhanced pat down" that touches people's breasts and genitals. You should never have to explain to your children, "Remember that no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it's a government employee, then it's OK."
The goal of National Opt Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change. No naked body scanners and no government-approved groping. We have a right to privacy and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we're guilty until proven innocent.
According to SmarterTravel.com, the web site is the brainchild of Brian Sodegren, who describes himself as "an ordinary citizen who is concerned about what is happening" and who "wanted to provide an educational platform and outlet to highlight what is going on."
Sodegren is by no means the only air traveler to be upset at the TSA's new procedures. But his recommendation that travelers instead choose the pat down may be too much for the faint of heart, given the allegations of sexual impropriety being leveled at some TSA agents who carry out the procedure.
Numerous first-person accounts have emerged of parents outraged at their children being groped by TSA employees, or individuals attempting to avoid irradiation instead being traumatized by a TSA pat down.
In one incident now becoming famous online, a woman at Miami International Airport had her ticket torn up and was confronted by 12 Miami police officers after questioning the new procedure.
The Atlantic's Jeffery Goldberg reported in late October that a TSA agent admitted to him that the point of the intrusive searches was to acclimate people to being body-scanned at airports.
I asked him if he was looking forward to conducting the full-on pat downs. "Nobody's going to do it," he said, "once they find out what we're going to do."
In other words, people, when faced with a choice, will inevitably choose the Dick-Measuring Device over molestation? "That's what we're hoping for. We're trying to get everyone into the machine." He called over a colleague. "Tell him what you call the back-scatter," he said. "The Dick-Measuring Device," I said. "That's the truth," the other officer responded.