So I'm flying out of Newark and I opt out of the cancer box, and go for the border line rape pat down. The comes to me and grabs my property, brings me to the table and explains everything, I nod because I have been through this many times. Well the gets started and as he moves from behind me to in front of me I notice he has a visible erection and an extremely creepy look on his face, I look at him in disgust but he refuses to make eye contact, I demand a supervisor. The goon stops his fondling and calle over the supervisor. I explained to the supervisor (who by the way couldn't be older than 25) what had happened and how the goon had a visible erection, the supervisor at first said I must have been mistaken, than he started telling me its all part of the job. I had never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. Getting hard ons from patting passengers down is part of the job? Fucking ridisulous, I told the supervisor that I wanted someone else to finish the pat down, they called over some guy who was probably as old as my grandfather and dhe finished. As I was gathering my belongings I noticed there was a piece of paper in my pocket, I pulled it out and it was a phone number, this mother fucker slipped me his number. I still cannot believe this all went down and will seriously consider the train or bus next time I have to travel.

TL;DR. Tsa gropped me, got a hard on and slipped me his number, supervisor says "its all part of the job"

So, flying home from Tampa today, I decided to wear my Ron Paul Revolution T-shirt to the airport to see what would happen.

This story is a bit long, so skip to the TL;DR if you have a short attention span.

My mother, who drove me to the airport, asked why I was wearing the shirt (she's also a strong Ron Paul supporter, but knows the vitriol he draws from government types - particularly the TSA, who'd be out of a job if he were to become President). I replied simply: "I won't do anything differently than I would if I were just wearing a blank t-shirt. I just want to see if the shirt, by itself, causes me any difficulty."

Upon arriving at the airport, I got out and checked my bags like any other person. I didn't sense any different reaction from the folks working the curbside check-in. As I walked through the airport with my carry-on bag and my laptop bag slung over my shoulder, I started to feel more aware of people looking at me. Perhaps it was just me being paranoid due to expecting a response, and perhaps some of it was real. That said, I look at people all the time at airports, and just played it off as basic paranoia.

The only real reaction that I saw that was definitely because of my shirt was when I looked in the direction of a rather attractive woman, we made eye contact, she smiled, and then her eyes glanced down at my shirt. She then looked me in the eye again with a grimace of disgust on her face. She was obviously not a fan. Oh well. No biggie.

As I got closer to the entrance to the tram to the pier, I had to pull out my ID to present, along with my boarding pass. Instead of my driver's license, I chose to use my State of Maryland Department of Criminal Justice Service (DCJS) Security Technician Certification card (still a photo ID, and one that I'm required to carry while on the job). That ID only provided my name and a photo, but not my address or date of birth.

No ID issues through the initial checkpoint, and again no issues through the TSA ID scan before screening. The TSA agent checking IDs did look a little confused at first upon seeing my DCJS card, but I suppose she either didn't care or actually saw the small type stating "State of Maryland" and the watermarked State Seal. After a short pause she ushered me through.

The next challenge was the checkpoint itself. In every lane the TSA goons were ushering people through the porno scanners. My usual tactic of getting in the line using the metal detectors wasn't going to work this time.

Not wanting to be confrontational (after all, this whole experiment was about wearing the Ron Paul shirt and seeing if that, by itself, would cause any issues), I did my sheeply duties and removed my shoes, belt, and all items from my pockets, along with removing my laptop from its case, yadda yadda - you all know the drill. Then I approached the metal detector (even after seeing that the porno scanner was being preferred).

The guy in front of me uttered a few small words that I heard loud and clear, "I'm going to opt out."

Smiling, I approached the agent blocking the magnetometer. She directed me into the porno-scanner. I stated the same sentence as the gentleman before me: "I'm going to opt out."

I was directed to the side of the lane, so as to not block the sheep that don't care about the 4th Amendment. I stood directly behind the other gentleman that opted out. He smiled at me as I walked over. I greeted him with "You're a good man." We smiled at each other. He got groped, and then I got groped (I just wish I had remembered to say "The narwhal bacons" - I think the guy might likely have been another redditor - and if you are the guy and reading this, hi! Pleased to meet you). Two other people behind me also opted out, one female, and then another male. TSA staff was getting rather frustrated by all of the opt-outs. I was rather amused.

When I finally got to the gate rape point, still with the Ron Paul Revolution shirt on (and instead of trying to cover it with crossed arms, I was trying to show it off with my hands in my pockets, and my arms holding the sides so the front was stretched wrinkle free across my torso - the TSA reaction had been greatly underwhelming at that point), I was asked the basic questions: "Is everything out of your pockets?" "Have you removed your belt?" etc. I was never asked why I opted out (though I had an answer prepared, after seeing some of the recent opt-out experiences posted here).

The pat down was a whole lot less than I had anticipated. The only part I took objection to was when the male TSA goon was inspecting inside the waistband of the back of my pants. Without the belt, the jeans I was wearing are pretty loose. The asshole had them halfway down my ass as a result. I exclaimed, "Search them, don't take them off!" My exclamation was loud enough for other passengers in the checkpoint to notice and look my way. Still, as I was being gate raped, two more people opted out. I think the look on my face at that point must have been a combination of disgust and smugness - disgusted by the groping, but smug because of the number of people opting out.

Another thing... and I must backpedal for a moment - when I was standing behind the guy that opted out ahead of me, we were both standing about five feet from the nudie scanner. I mentioned, "I'm apprehensive about even being this close to the machine." He agreed.

Anyway, on to the groping itself...

As I mentioned, the groping was a lot less than I expected. I suppose that the TSA goon that fondled me wasn't attracted to me (probably straight and living in an obscenely anti-gay part of Florida), as when he came to my crotch, he made two quick strokes on either side of my groin, never touching my dick. It was enough to disturb pubic hair, but not enough to even give a brief sensation of touch to my penis. He basically glossed over it, with a quick streak down either side of my junk with the backs of his hands, never actually touching my dick.

I was disappointed, since I had a ton of responses prepared for the assault on my genitalia, a region that has never been touched by any males besides myself.

Oh well. That was about it. After the search, he asked me to wait until he swabbed his gloves for explosives (he actually said, "wait here until I check my gloves - the machine he checked his gloves with was an explosives sniffer - something I know intimately from my days working in airport security). After he got the results, I was free to go.

As as side note, while I was detained before the groping, I was asked to point out my possessions on the x-ray belt. I indicated that the last carry-on and the next two trays were mine. The TSA goon that was tasked with bringing my belongings to me tossed my pocket possessions tray on top of my laptop, and then slapped my laptop bag and carry-on bag on top of that, and brought it over, not caring about what she might have busted.

After all of that bullshit, I managed to catch my flight on time.

TL;DR: Wore a Ron Paul t-shirt to an airport - wasn't assaulted any worse than I expected - and all with no real delays - still an interesting story

I'm obviously not suggesting they implement this - but I would love to hear some peoples thoughts on this. It's an interesting idea, IMO.

With the patriotic/anti-hijacking mentality of U.S. citizens, wouldn't giving every passenger a way to defend themselves essentially get rid of any hijacking threat?

This is a repost from reddit.com. However, instead of reposting the article's link, I'm reposting the orignal post (so please give the credit/karma to brtfly). I am really interested in what all of you think about this, and the first post didn't get much attention. I hope this helps it get more.

I just ask because it seems like the people who protest the TSA are coming from both sides... and blaming the other sides.

Not trying to spark a political debate, but I lean toward the left (although not a die-hard liberal) and have always seen the TSA as remnant of Bush-Era. The ACLU strongly opposes the TSA, and they're known for pissing off conservative talk show hosts all the time.

That said, I'm well aware that the enhanced pat-downs came in under Obama's presidency. When Matt Drudge went apeshit over the TSA initially (and started linking to sites like Prisonplanet.com), of course all of the comment on the sites he directed traffic to said things like "Yep, that's Obama's America for you."

I signed Rand Paul's petition to end the TSA's procedures, and I was getting spammed with "End the TSA, and end Obamacare, and take back our freedoms!" I was like "Huh? I like Obamacare. How about work on giving back women the freedom to choose what they want to do with their bodies and not make fun of the freedom of same sex marriages?"

Again, not trying to spark any sort of political debates, but these were the thoughts that went through my liberal mind.

So where do you guys lean? Is this an issue that crosses the boundries of "left or right" that the media loves to exploit so much?

And boy are my arms tired! hahahaha

But seriously the TSA are dicks.

At a small airport and no tsa