[jnchapel]

I fly out of Boston, which has the machines, so opting out has become part of travel process for me. TSA agents were more aggressive with my last trip out (Sunday, October 31), not only with loudly announcing several times that they had an opt-out, but also in the pat down, which included pulling the clothes from my body and looking between the cloth and underthings. ("I have to clear your waistband," is how the TSA agent explained it.)

So, it's humiliating. But I'm not going to stop opting out. The difference between the pat down and the machine for me is this -- the pat down happens in the moment, between two people. There's no record. It exists only in the time it takes. It can't be stored, it can't be transmitted, it can't be tied to a flight record or anything else at some future date. It forces TSA to confront what they're doing, and it's one small way I can say at the airport, I am human, I'm not an abstraction. I have rights, respect them.