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What airport was this at? Did you report this incident to his supervisor? Did you complain when it took more than 2 minutes to get someone to do the pat down?

I've had about 20 pat downs in many different airports. I've never had to wait more than three minutes for someone and everyone has always been professional and courteous. As much as I hate the TSA and complain about them, the airport staff has been nice and helpful. In two or three cases they went out of their way to help me, beyond what I expected.

Edit: I should also add that I'm a middle class white male who looks "respectable". I'm not going to experience the discrimination some minorities may endure so take that for what it's worth.

Counterpoint: I have opted out over a dozen times at a variety of airports (RDU, SJC, SFO, BUR). I've never been treated with anything but professionalism, and I dare say, politeness. I was asked why I was opting out by the TSA officer performing my pat-down at BUR who seemed personally curious more than anything, but otherwise it's been perfunctory. I've never had to wait more than a minute or two at most.

That's been my experience, more or less. Worst I could say is that mostly they don't seem enthusiastic, and on one occasion one guy seemed annoyed that I did not understand some vague instruction about either staying put or not.

But each time they ask me if there are any sensitive areas, each time I tell them, "Yes, my nuts", and each time they been respectful of my junk.

They really could do better about keeping people with their stuff that's been passed through the X-ray machine, but overall they seem to appreciate that you want to keep an eye on it.

My experience as well. I travel a lot and never had an issue with the TSA.

When we think about statistics about support for the TSA, it's important to note that the majority of Americans don't travel by air at all in any given year.

What wasn't a surprise is that the poll appeared just before Congress has to decide TSA's budget for next year. I've seen a few other highly complimentary articles on TSA these past few days, too - all appearing all of the sudden. A little suspicious, isn't it?

I'm a bit confused: the poll was released in August. That said, the final budget negotiations for the first half of 2013 (which included the DoHS) weren't concluded until September. Is that what you mean?

Someone shoves you? That's assault. Did you think of reporting the incident or pressing charges? Serious question.

The problem with that is if you run into the wrong guy it might get you killed.

I think that seems a bit extreme. I've opted out of nearly every flight I've been on (unless crunched for time due to traffic of crazy lines or something) and I've never been treated like this, I'm not defending the TSA, I'm just saying this isn't "normal". Sometimes they'll make you stand around and wait, the shoving and the intimidation has never occurred. Making the jump to the idea that a TSA officer has a weapon, or can "issue a hit" is absurd.

edit: Also, the most shocking part of the whole ordeal is usually the looks from the OTHER people in line, like they think you're going to be killed or assaulted, or "why don't you just cooperate, it's easier". That's the part that really makes me sad.

Right. Complaining about a TSA agent (who isn't law enforcement) shoving you is going to get you killed. Hyperbole like this helps no one.

You should even be able to complain about being assaulted by people who are law enforcement without fear of fatal retribution.

I was talking about if it escalates to the police being called. Would you have us believe there have been no mysterious deaths of people after being taken into police custody? Note I am not saying you are likely to die, I am saying it can and has happened.

Really? A single Gallup poll is "evidence" now? [1,2,3]

[1]http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/gallup-v...

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/17/gallup-poll-race-ba...

[3] http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/10/rasmussen-an...

But what did the poll say? Liking an agency and thinking its effective are two different things.

It's like asking: is abstinence effective for preventing stds? And then inferring that people prefer abstinence to condoms.

Liking an agency and thinking its effective are two different things.

Efficacy isn't as useful as how an issue plays on the emotions of voters.

You say that 99% of the time it's fine. If you go through the back scatter thingy, I'd say that 99% is a hopeful assumption. They are likely unsafe, and some small subset of people scanned may end up quite sick.

Are you making this up, ill-informed or do you not understand physics and radiation? I do not mean this as offensively as it will ultimately be read, so apologies

These scanners exposé you to less than 1/200th the radiation dose of a standard plane flight, and between 1/200th and 1/400th of a standard chest X-ray.

Yes, ionising radiation can cause cancer. But your chance of getting cancer anyway is 1 in 2.4.

I have no love of excessive security measures, and I personally don't think that we should ever unnecessarily cause people to be exposed to radiation, especially when other methods can do the same job without radiation, and even moreso when the efficacy of the scanners is unproven.

But I have a particular dislike of the psychogenic claims that arise around technologies that posit to do this or that, when the action of the machine or technology in question is noninvasive and especially when the action is not substantively different from normal daily exposures that every human receives anyway

Refs:

standard CXR 2.4x background radiation

Backscatter Imaging 6-7% of a days background radiation (0.25 microsiverts per 'scan =1.5hrs @ background radiation or 2 minutes of an airplane at altitude)

Abdo CT: 2.7 years BG radiation

- http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/219970.php

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_X-ray

Would you take your same condescending tone against the 4 UCSF medical school professors who raised concerns about the backscatter x-rays? [1]

Their contention is that the argument that the backscatter x-rays are 1/200th of the dose you get from cosmic radiation on a flight is invalid, as the backscatter x-ray is specifically designed to direct the radiation to a very thin layer of surface tissue, whereas cosmic radiation is distributed throughout the entire body.

Yes, these professors were refuted by other UCSF radiology professors [2], but the science will not be settled until an independent study is conducted of the machines given the context of their potential for misuse and mis-calibration by individuals who are not radiology technicians.

So if you don't want your comment to come off as offensive, perhaps it would be wise to not start off with "Are you making this up, ill-informed or do you not understand physics and radiation?"

[1] http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ost...

[2] http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/11/tsa_scanner_cont...

Thanks for chiming in matey, I take it you're a contrarian?

You pretty much back up my point. People who don't know the science should not comment in alarmist tones about it.

Fearmongering generally does more harm than good. In this case it seems like everyone hates the TSA, hates the full body scanners, objects to being dosed with radiation, and so psychogenic illnesses are claimed to be caused by the machine.

So the claims are false, the machines work like they're supposed to, it's just no one wants them there so hurdles are placed in the way of their implementation. Hurdles that are false.

I don't disagree that we should look further into the use, especially as I say above because there are other methods that do not use ionising radiation that seem to be just as effective

So yes, I would take the same attitude to the 3 UCSF Med school professors, just as I have to the world-famous neurosurgeon who told me as we microwaved our food in between surgeries that I had to 'wait for 3 seconds after it finishes or else the rays escape and can increase your risk for cancer' or the former head of the AMA who said during a lecture that 'there is a study that shows that homeopathy is active against cancer' with no supporting evidence. Position and title generally only qualify a person to make comments in a specific domain, as those 3 professors discovered when they got smacked down by the radiologists.

If people want to believe weird and wacky things, that's fine. If those things contravene the known laws of physics, then either there must be some spectacular evidence, at which point I will believe anything, or it simply isn't true.

Yes, your tone is offensive. I work with radiation emitting equipment daily. I am forced by regulation to ensure the equipment is safe and operated safely. Checks and stops are in place. This is the way it should be, and I am pleased my industry behaves this way. Backscatter imaging safety is unproven and falls outside the ALARA principle. You you quoting dose figures misses the point, background radiation is a whole body dose, CT abdo, is an abdo dose (mostly), back scatter imaging is to the skin only. What's the difference? Who knows, no decent testing done.

I apologise for the offensive tone, I ran afoul of some variant of Poe's law. That is not an excuse, discourse should be more civil than that.

you make the claim They are likely unsafe, and some small subset of people scanned may end up quite sick.

But there is still no evidence from what you are saying. I felt, in another variation of Poe's law, that you were in fact making a claim re backscatter for people claiming sickness after moving through one. In the same manner that people claim that they can detect wifi signals and it makes them sick, or fluoride in the water is making them sick, or just why are there rainbows in our water these days?

Quoting figures I feel is even more relevant - if you are giving someone 1/200th of a CXR, you can't claim that the CXR is only penetrating the internal organs - some fraction, perhaps 1/200th (maybe less) is going to be absorbed by the skin too, because, as you would well know, that is how X-rays work.

The fact we have greater penetration at the higher energies used for a CXR or other diagnostic imaging does not rule out using the comparison to Backscatter X-rays. In fact, it can be used to validate it.

Please note again that I am not suggesting that these machines should be rolled out everywhere and that we should have to use them, because I think it's a stupid security measure.

Thanks for the response, and I agree with you by and large. Regarding the exact skin dosage (something the medical field goes to great lengths to minimise), the jury is out as far as i can tell, as testing of the equipment has been miminal. I wouldn't be that surprised if backscatter imaging did turn out to be safe, my problem with the technology is that it is basically untested and has not had its safety validated via independent large scale testing. With any health related screening test (especially one imposed on a massive population) there is a high bar set for causing minimal harm, as there should be. With backscatter screening there appears to be no decent safety checks, poorly qualified screeners, and worst of all, minimal/no evidence that the screening test catches any of the problems it's supposed to. I see it as a pointless radiation dose.

> When an approved agent was finally free, instead of cordially walking me over to the pat down area, he shoved and body checked me to get me to move. After the perfunctory patdown, he pointed to my luggage and said I could go get it. He then stepped in front of me as I started walking towards it and gave me one last shove, away from my luggage.

Sounds like you're describing the dystopian future we read about and see in movies.