Fascinating naked picture machine experiences x2
These two reports from the naked picture machines were particularly interesting, especially in the context of one another, and a red flag that was raised about a potential TSA training issue of interest to most of you as well.
Report from Persephone last time we traveled:
I was not selected to go through the machine, but Persephone was. She says that this was the first time she’s felt genuinely and persistently uncomfortable during an opt-out pat-down. It started out normally, but then the TSA asked her to lift up her shirt for the waist inspection (lift it up to just above her waist), and she thought, “If I were a victim of previous sexual abuse, I would be feeling pretty uncomfortable about that.” Then the waist, hip, and crotch area of the pat-down started, and she began to feel uncomfortable period. She said it was a LOT more intimate than previous pat-downs she’d experienced had been, and she felt VERY uncomfortable (and feels that given how uncomfortable she felt, a sexual assault survivor would have totally flipped out). She was so disconcerted that she left her carryon in the security area. The TSA agent didn’t notice that she’d left without it, and P didn’t notice for another 20 minutes. Luckily, it was still there when she went back for it. The whole experience left a bitter taste in our mouths, though, because we’ve been patted down enough times to know it doesn’t have to be upsetting.
Report from me this time:
Today’s opt-out went fairly well, but brought up some very interesting points that I am eager to report during the pat-down itself. Keep in mind, this is at the exact same airport, DFW, where I have had most of my previous experiences.
(1) Nobody discouraged me from opting out, and nobody shouted about it either. They were all very nice and in fact perhaps supervised me a little less than I might have supervised me (I specifically asked where to stand and wait when I wasn’t immediately told). The TSA agent at the screening point had a list where he kept track of how many people opted out at each time of day, and he marked a tick down for me. (If you’re wondering, I couldn’t quite see what the time dividers were, so I didn’t get a particularly good sense of the frequency, sorry.) This was the first time I’d seen the list, so I don’t know if it’s new or if it just didn’t used to be posted on the wall in the open like that before.
(2) The agent called for a “female assist” and not an “opt-out,” so the agent had to ask me whether I was an opt-out or not. From my previous experiences you’ll have noticed there seems to be some sort of rule about this, but obviously either the rule keeps changing or nobody agrees on what exactly the rule is (or perhaps they don’t agree with the rule itself). In contrast to at least one time when this has happened in the past, the female agent who came to do my pat-down was Zen with this and did not appear to think it was abnormal or upsetting.
(3) The agent explained exactly what the rules were and what she was doing beforehand at all times, which I appreciated. Before she recited the list of questions she’s supposed to ask, she expressed that this was good practice for her because “we all get tested on this.” So I told her I appreciated that and thanked her for asking me if I had any medical implants or attached devices, because I believe at least one person has failed to ask me that in the past. And I told her that I actually always opt-out so that I can report my experiences to others, and that everybody did it a little differently. She expressed surprise about this and insisted that they should all do it the same, because they received the same training and took the same tests.
(4) Because she seemed interested in and surprised by what I had to say and I could already tell she wasn’t going to do anything to make me physically uncomfortable--and I was right--I continued to talk to her during the pat-down itself and as I was doing up my bags afterward. I told her that I wanted to be able to tell others who might travel less frequently than me what the experience was like and what to possibly expect. She said that she blamed the media telling all those extreme and “crazy” stories and making people feel more afraid than they had to. (She later revealed that she listens to talk radio, which I don’t, so I can’t fully evaluate that.) She talked a little about the machines, and I said I thought some people were actually more apprehensive about the pat-downs than the machines, so I was currently focusing on that. I tried to approach all of this from a “let’s have some dialogue” standpoint and avoided expressing my opinions about any of the laws/policies/etc. involved. I didn’t directly speak to her opinions about the media whipping up fear, but what I did say was that even without those types of extreme stories, some people are concerned about how these enhanced pat-downs will affect survivors of sexual assault, molestation, etc., because depending on what happened during the pat-down, it could be triggering for them. And that I felt that was a reasonable concern. She said, “That’s a good point; I’d never thought about that before.” So what I got from this, other than an impression of my TSA agent as a grounded, moral person open to new ideas when they were expressed in a non-confrontational way, is the larger point that apparently the TSA does not explicitly address the concerns of sexual assault survivors in its pat-down training. Not across the board at all locations, at least. That has implications that should be addressed on a large scale.
(5) I told her about what made Persephone uncomfortable about the shirt-lifting and waist pat-down from before, though I told the story as if it had happened to me. She looked surprised about what had happened (remember that she feels that everyone else must be running their pat-downs the same way she does, because they received the same training). But then she thought about it and realized that if she were patting down someone whose shirt was tucked into her pants or who hadn’t taken her belt off for whatever reason before going through security, she would probably ask the person to lift their shirt as well, and it would result in her changing her approach to that part of the pat-down too. But she stressed that there should never, ever be contact with the person’s bare skin in that region of the body. To me this has two practical individual-person implications: (a) One way to somewhat lessen your chances of an uncomfortably intimate pat-down may be to wear your shirt untucked (and, I assume, wear a shirt that is not overly long), as well as make sure that you take off your belt and put it through the x-ray machine in your tray. (b) If any agent ever makes contact with your bare skin anywhere near your waist or crotch, this is NOT supposed to happen and this is a time when you should report your experience to the authorities.
My big take-away from this is that seishonagon, your dad needs to be told about the gap in training regarding sexual assault survivors if he has not been made aware already. Almost all of the agents who have done my pat-downs (which remember only covers female agents) have been polite and professional, but if they have never been made aware that some travelers they pat down may bring a lot of negative sexual experiences with them, there is a crucial gap in the way the TSA is training them. I do not think it’s acceptable training if I could pass that training with flying colors without ever once even having conscious awareness of this as a potential issue. Beyond the obvious reasons this is not okay, I also feel it does an enormous disservice to the TSA agents themselves. Let’s say a person starts having flashbacks during a pat-down and loses it. Maybe the reaction isn’t huge: maybe they just start shaking, or mentally withdraw. Say something happens--what does the agent do about it? Will the agent be appropriately trained in how to react? Will the set of assumptions they make about WHY it’s happening be reasonably accurate? I don’t know. I might be overestimating the danger here, but I think it’s probably more dangerous to overestimate it than underestimate it in this case. And maybe it’s not likely to happen on any given day, but it’s likely to happen at least once over the course of a career, I would think.
Lots of food for thought this time.
And I do hope that if nothing else, bringing it up with this TSA officer will plant a seed and start a little conversation somewhere about it.
Report from Persephone last time we traveled:
I was not selected to go through the machine, but Persephone was. She says that this was the first time she’s felt genuinely and persistently uncomfortable during an opt-out pat-down. It started out normally, but then the TSA asked her to lift up her shirt for the waist inspection (lift it up to just above her waist), and she thought, “If I were a victim of previous sexual abuse, I would be feeling pretty uncomfortable about that.” Then the waist, hip, and crotch area of the pat-down started, and she began to feel uncomfortable period. She said it was a LOT more intimate than previous pat-downs she’d experienced had been, and she felt VERY uncomfortable (and feels that given how uncomfortable she felt, a sexual assault survivor would have totally flipped out). She was so disconcerted that she left her carryon in the security area. The TSA agent didn’t notice that she’d left without it, and P didn’t notice for another 20 minutes. Luckily, it was still there when she went back for it. The whole experience left a bitter taste in our mouths, though, because we’ve been patted down enough times to know it doesn’t have to be upsetting.
Report from me this time:
Today’s opt-out went fairly well, but brought up some very interesting points that I am eager to report during the pat-down itself. Keep in mind, this is at the exact same airport, DFW, where I have had most of my previous experiences.
(1) Nobody discouraged me from opting out, and nobody shouted about it either. They were all very nice and in fact perhaps supervised me a little less than I might have supervised me (I specifically asked where to stand and wait when I wasn’t immediately told). The TSA agent at the screening point had a list where he kept track of how many people opted out at each time of day, and he marked a tick down for me. (If you’re wondering, I couldn’t quite see what the time dividers were, so I didn’t get a particularly good sense of the frequency, sorry.) This was the first time I’d seen the list, so I don’t know if it’s new or if it just didn’t used to be posted on the wall in the open like that before.
(2) The agent called for a “female assist” and not an “opt-out,” so the agent had to ask me whether I was an opt-out or not. From my previous experiences you’ll have noticed there seems to be some sort of rule about this, but obviously either the rule keeps changing or nobody agrees on what exactly the rule is (or perhaps they don’t agree with the rule itself). In contrast to at least one time when this has happened in the past, the female agent who came to do my pat-down was Zen with this and did not appear to think it was abnormal or upsetting.
(3) The agent explained exactly what the rules were and what she was doing beforehand at all times, which I appreciated. Before she recited the list of questions she’s supposed to ask, she expressed that this was good practice for her because “we all get tested on this.” So I told her I appreciated that and thanked her for asking me if I had any medical implants or attached devices, because I believe at least one person has failed to ask me that in the past. And I told her that I actually always opt-out so that I can report my experiences to others, and that everybody did it a little differently. She expressed surprise about this and insisted that they should all do it the same, because they received the same training and took the same tests.
(4) Because she seemed interested in and surprised by what I had to say and I could already tell she wasn’t going to do anything to make me physically uncomfortable--and I was right--I continued to talk to her during the pat-down itself and as I was doing up my bags afterward. I told her that I wanted to be able to tell others who might travel less frequently than me what the experience was like and what to possibly expect. She said that she blamed the media telling all those extreme and “crazy” stories and making people feel more afraid than they had to. (She later revealed that she listens to talk radio, which I don’t, so I can’t fully evaluate that.) She talked a little about the machines, and I said I thought some people were actually more apprehensive about the pat-downs than the machines, so I was currently focusing on that. I tried to approach all of this from a “let’s have some dialogue” standpoint and avoided expressing my opinions about any of the laws/policies/etc. involved. I didn’t directly speak to her opinions about the media whipping up fear, but what I did say was that even without those types of extreme stories, some people are concerned about how these enhanced pat-downs will affect survivors of sexual assault, molestation, etc., because depending on what happened during the pat-down, it could be triggering for them. And that I felt that was a reasonable concern. She said, “That’s a good point; I’d never thought about that before.” So what I got from this, other than an impression of my TSA agent as a grounded, moral person open to new ideas when they were expressed in a non-confrontational way, is the larger point that apparently the TSA does not explicitly address the concerns of sexual assault survivors in its pat-down training. Not across the board at all locations, at least. That has implications that should be addressed on a large scale.
(5) I told her about what made Persephone uncomfortable about the shirt-lifting and waist pat-down from before, though I told the story as if it had happened to me. She looked surprised about what had happened (remember that she feels that everyone else must be running their pat-downs the same way she does, because they received the same training). But then she thought about it and realized that if she were patting down someone whose shirt was tucked into her pants or who hadn’t taken her belt off for whatever reason before going through security, she would probably ask the person to lift their shirt as well, and it would result in her changing her approach to that part of the pat-down too. But she stressed that there should never, ever be contact with the person’s bare skin in that region of the body. To me this has two practical individual-person implications: (a) One way to somewhat lessen your chances of an uncomfortably intimate pat-down may be to wear your shirt untucked (and, I assume, wear a shirt that is not overly long), as well as make sure that you take off your belt and put it through the x-ray machine in your tray. (b) If any agent ever makes contact with your bare skin anywhere near your waist or crotch, this is NOT supposed to happen and this is a time when you should report your experience to the authorities.
My big take-away from this is that seishonagon, your dad needs to be told about the gap in training regarding sexual assault survivors if he has not been made aware already. Almost all of the agents who have done my pat-downs (which remember only covers female agents) have been polite and professional, but if they have never been made aware that some travelers they pat down may bring a lot of negative sexual experiences with them, there is a crucial gap in the way the TSA is training them. I do not think it’s acceptable training if I could pass that training with flying colors without ever once even having conscious awareness of this as a potential issue. Beyond the obvious reasons this is not okay, I also feel it does an enormous disservice to the TSA agents themselves. Let’s say a person starts having flashbacks during a pat-down and loses it. Maybe the reaction isn’t huge: maybe they just start shaking, or mentally withdraw. Say something happens--what does the agent do about it? Will the agent be appropriately trained in how to react? Will the set of assumptions they make about WHY it’s happening be reasonably accurate? I don’t know. I might be overestimating the danger here, but I think it’s probably more dangerous to overestimate it than underestimate it in this case. And maybe it’s not likely to happen on any given day, but it’s likely to happen at least once over the course of a career, I would think.
Lots of food for thought this time.
And I do hope that if nothing else, bringing it up with this TSA officer will plant a seed and start a little conversation somewhere about it.