You’ll be hearing “the TSA touched my junk” more often under the agency’s recent rule changes.
The Transportation Safety Administration says they’ve completely revamped their passenger search technique. While they won’t give specific details as to what the changes actually are, they are telling passengers to gird their loins for more intrusive screenings—and alerting local law enforcement to prepare for a host of claims stemming from its new pat-down.
According to travelers who were the TSA’s guinea pigs during the policy’s development phase, airline passengers were told to expect a “more intense horizontal and vertical” pat down, and, indeed, one man described his experience, confusingly, as “most intriguing, intense and invasive” search he’d ever had (that almost sounds like he liked it).
The TSA also says that it has warned airport police departments to expect passengers reporting “abnormal frisking,”
“Passengers who have not previously experienced the now standardized pat-down screening may not realize that they did, in fact, receive the correct procedure, and may ask our partners, including law enforcement at the airport, about the procedure,” TSA spokesman Bruce Anderson told media in an emailed statement.
In other words, expect the TSA to really touch your junk. They’ll even use the “front of their hands,” the TSA says, to get deep into your crevices if mechanical screening devices alert to potential explosives hidden out of sight. Previously, agents were instructed to use only the backs of their hands.
The new technique, which the TSA began rolling out on Monday, is in response to weaknesses they claim they found in existing security screening protocols, and to reduce the “cognitive burden” on its agents, who previously had five separate pat-down options to choose from —four too many for them to handle, apparently.
There is no evidence yet that the more invasive pat downs will do much to dissuade terror threats. In a major study, undertaken by the agency itself in 2015, TSA agents missed 95% of the weapons, explosives, and contraband items placed into passenger luggage.