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Comment by Bostonian | Hacker News Reader

TSA procedures seem random to me. I flew on a Friday and was groped over my clothes at the checkpoint (hands feeling my crotch). I flew back on Monday morning, with the same clothes and same carry-on with the same contents and was not patted down at all. (I am male FWIW.) Facial recognition in return for not being groped would be ok with me.

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The downside is that you then normalize pervasive and invasive monitoring... Soon people will be accustomed to it and expect it when they walk down the street... Not the world I'm looking for.

Personally I'll take the grope. In fact I MAKE them grope me by opting out of their silly scanners. (I also wear a kilt often, which used to be fun before they all got training on how to deal with that...) If everyone did this it would bring the TSA to its knees and make a strong statement about just how much security theater we're actually willing to tolerate.

The grope is good, it trains you to be calm while having your privacy violated. I recommend opting out of the mmwave to get the grope each time you travel.

You may find yourself living in an authoritarian dictatorship in the future and be thankful for all the practice.

Beautiful comment. The Grope is Good would make a great band name or campaign slogan, or maybe both.

Ill never forget asking a TSA guy if he was sure mmwave was really just sound. "Yes! Its just sound waves, completely harmless," he assured me. "Less than your phone makes in your pocket!"

I've only ever been groped when I've gone through the mmwave, going through metal detectors they've never laid a finger on me.

If you refuse the mmwave you always get groped. You can often line-pick or time things to get the metal detector instead, though these days you often can't.

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