The continuing flight saga: I get goosed AGAIN

February 21, 2016 • 9:30 am

Once again the TSA (Transportation Security Agency) can’t keep its hands of my tuchus.  Going through the see-you-naked machine, having carefully removed everything from my pockets, the detector image nevertheless showed a small yellow patch on my right hand and a very large yellow patch on my right buttock. And you know what that means. The TSA agent asked if I had a wallet in my back pocket, and I did not.

I didn’t even listen after that; I just nodded as the guy went through the can-I-grope-your-buttocks-with-the-back-of-my-hand litany. I was soundly goosed, had my hands swabbed and tested with the Sniffer Machine, and then proceeded onward.

What is WRONG with these machines? I had nothing in my pockets and yet my buttock was still flagged in yellow. I have no metal implants in my rump, nor anything else to set off the machine. Yet in planned tests, agents regularly get dangerous stuff past the machines and agents. (Read this site for a lot of posts about the abysmal failures of the TSA.)

Perhaps I’ve just been flagged in the “AB” class (Attractive Buttocks). Regardless, this has happened to me the last three or four times I’ve flown—except out of Heathrow. If this happened in the workplace, it would count as sexual harassment.

tsa2691

tsa-groping2

6355-3

We’ll see if Canada treats me any better!

54 thoughts on “The continuing flight saga: I get goosed AGAIN”

  1. I suspect that people who have always wanted to goose Dr. Coyne have been applying for jobs with the TSA.

    2. Which Dr Coyne? PCC(E), or the Jesuit astronomer-priest and boss of the Vatican observatory?

  2. The see-you-naked machine inevitably shows me to have a big yellow who-knows-what in my left front pocket, despite the pocket always being empty. I’m convinced, despite denials by the TSA people, that it is picking up my metal replacement hip… a left-side feature of my maturing years. It never triggers the right side, where nature allows me to continue using the original bony hinge.

    But they insist that the machine doesn’t make such distinctions. I do not believe them.

    1. The big yellow thing in all the TSA photos is a banana. 10% of men carry a banana in their pocket. The rest are just happy to see you.

    2. I do believe them (at least in that regard).

      Since these machines usually pick up Terahertz radiation it is highly unlikely that they will react to implants which are buried deep under the skin.

      They are however known to be sensitive to wrinkles in clothing and I could imagine that they might be sensitive to large scars.

  5. I always get groped in Heathrow, Jerry. My boobs and your bottom are fair game. I love the thought of the bullet point in a TSA job description: “to consistently goose Jerry Coyne.” They probably have targets and financial incentives for meeting them!

  6. Travelers’ Warning: if you put valuables in your checked luggage, the TSA is not responsible for items, such as artwork protected in mailing tubes, that TSA employees damage or destroy when opening during baggage inspections.

    2. The dear doctor has already posted a photo of himself in the buff, climbing up a hill, in his heyday. I can attest that his tuchus is mighty fine indeed. 🙂

        1. Hmmm… I wonder if other prominent atheists get more than their share of gropings?

          3 out of 4 is really bad odds. I’ve only been groped once in dozens of flights.

  9. The machines consistently flagged my lower back on my recent vacation flights, with an additional few false positives on my right shoulder and left ankle.

    Having a Nexus card I assumed I’d get the TSA Pre-Check line and avoid that malarkey, but apparently the TSA doesn’t know about Nexus cards unless you specify you have one at flight booking. Customs and Border Protection know though, and waved me through with nary a word.

    And people without Nexus cards got Pre-Check privileges…

  11. I understand the TSA has a new special training center and program they are sending all employees through, kind of like Burger King University or McDonald’s. Then they should be able to give you a proper going over. Probably put you down on a flat grill, I mean table, and flip you over until done.

  12. Oh dear. Maybe you should change your name on your passport to Jerry “yellow buttocks” Coyne as might suffice as to an explanation. 😉

    I don’t think you’ll fair much better in Canada since Canada has to comply with all the stupid rules the US has in order to transport people and goods between the two countries.

    You’ll like Nova Scotia though. The people there are why Canadians have the reputation of being friendly and polite. Ontario ruins it for the rest of Canada (I say this as someone born and raised in Ontario). 😀

    1. There are people in Nova Scotia?

      Years ago I drove all over the place and could have sworn it was uninhabited. Just about the only people we saw the whole trip were at fish joint we stopped at to eat not far from the Joggins Fossil Cliffs.

  13. … showed a small yellow patch on my right hand and a very large yellow patch on my right buttock …

    Not sure about your hand, but I think there’s a cream you can get for the patch on your ass.

    Damn, Jerry, you must be on somebody’s “watch grope list.”

  14. around 2002 or 03 It happened like clockwork to me. I noticed, though, that every time I went to the counter to get my boarding passes, the agent would be ready to process, then would see something, go “oh”, then try to hide an emotion or two, reach for a red pen & make a checkmark on my boarding pass.

    After catching this exact same procedure on about 7-10 consecutive trips, I risked getting detained in a white room somewhere by sweetly remarking to the next ticket agent that made the red mark: “hmmmm, I wonder why I get red checks on my boarding passes EVERY SINGLE time I fly? And then I’m ALWAYS singled out for special attention later by security. Awfully strange that it happens EVERY SINGLE TIME.”

    The red checkmarks and special searches stopped abruptly after that.

    1. I had a similar history at that time. Every time I checked in I would be pulled aside and a special inquiry occurred. It seemed that my name was on the watch list. After a delay, they would let me proceed with the check-in.

      Then, for reasons that were never explained, it suddenly stopped happening.

  15. I got thoroughly and intimately groped by a TSA agent whilst passing through Seattle in December. And I mean the kind of close contact that’s normally restricted to my doctor or my wife. No explanation, other than the See-You-Naked Machine showing a yellow region of terror around my lower abdomen. I blame the in-flight meal that I was served on the flight over from London.

    The TSA always opens my wife’s suitcase and inspects the jars of home-made plum jam that her sister has given her. We joke that my sister-in-law is the Chief Jam-Maker for Al-Qaeda. But not within earshot of any TSA agents, for obvious reasons.

  16. I’ll be the odd-man-out and say that I have a bit of sympathy for TSA employees. I’m pretty sure that groping strangers all day can’t be a fun thing to do.

    1. This is why I’m polite, though very abrupt, to unsolicited sales telephone calls. It must be a shitty job cold-calling people.

      Their employers, now, if I could get hold of them in a dark alley with a length of rubber hose…

      cr

      1. This is also why I just hang up on those fraudulent computer help calls that were big a while ago. I don’t blame poor saps in India or whatever who want a little money to live on. But I do blame the people who encourage such fraud.

  18. I think a Kickstarter campaign to raise the $85 required for one of those cards would be subscribed in an hour @ $1/per, with the prize a randomly selected contributor getting an autographed copy of the fine book of their choice, with a drawing of an honorary c*t inside.

  19. One answer from the internet:

    What causes false positives in body scanners?

    (answer by) Anderson Moorer, Former paramedic

    Sweat, oils or some skin cremes can cause false positives, as can folds in clothing, small objects like buttons, and even certain quirks of otherwise normal anatomy which results in a particular portion of a persons body being consistently flagged. But perspiration is the major culprit, it seems.

    Both millimeter wavelength and even backscatter scanners have pretty high rates of reported false positives, supposedly ranging from 12-53%.

    To avoid it you might try wearing a different clothing type (like a tshirt or sweater instead of a button up cotton shirt), positioning yourself slightly differently, relaxing your muscles more, making sure your skin is dry, or even shaving the fine hair on that portion of your body.

    Or, simply refuse the body scanner and get a patdown, if this is an option.

    Written 24 Mar 2014

        1. Do you mean remotely, such that people waylaid by positive results from these products could avoid the pat-down?

          1. Well, I was just wondering if people using these and other products could cause a false reading on the scans. I think this could be tested, so that if necessary the scans could be improved to do a better job. People shouldn’t be subjected to unnecessary pat downs.

    2. So sweat causes false positives in the scanner, huh?

      Can’t blame Jerry for schvitzing at the sight of a magnetometer, what with how he gets felt-up like a prom queen every trip through TSA.

  20. When I fly in the US my suit-case, which is old and battered and covered with lots of faded airline stickers, invariably gets opened and, on arrival at my destination, I find a polite notice from the TSA inside it explaining that this has happened. Colleagues on the same flight with new suit-cases never seem to experience this. I don’t particularly mind my suit-case being opened and checked but I find it a bit worrying that the criteria for selecting which cases to open seem a rather odd. Does the TSA really believe that a terrorist would only ever use an old and battered suit-case?

    1. That seems bizarre! I’d have thought brand new shiny luggage would be more suspicious!

      I’ve gotten quite a few of those notes, too, but the last time I got one the clothes were in my suitcase were damp! WTH? Eeuwww!

  21. Maybe the solution is to not feel like a victim and just fight back! I’d suggest snorting a dozen or so ground up Viagra just before you get your ticket.

Comments are closed.