I've traveled frequently in my life, due to being a child of divorced parents, and being shuttled from one parent in a distant city to another parent in a distant city. I have a cochlear implant, and I don't go through the metal scanners. I usually get wanded or patted down. The kind of pat-down procedure that I'm used to was nothing like the new one that's being described. It basically was a short frisk, beginning along the shoulders, down the sides, slightly around the breast area, and down to my feet without touching the genital area at all. Then the wand would get waved over my feet, and I'd be off to go.

I wouldn't go through those full body scanners if you paid me. I was diagnosed with a precancerous cyst a year ago, and had that removed. I have a family history of breast cancer, and I don't want to expose myself to unneeded radiation. So I would have to go through the invasive pat-down procedure if I flew this year over the holidays. Here's how one woman described the invasive patdown:

Judithbriles in FlyerTalk (Nov. 14, 2010 ): What I am is a frequent traveler with double titanium knee implants. And, I'm mad as hell. Sounding the security alarm after removing shoes, computers and passing through the sensors with less than five items on me, Im told to stand on the pad and spread my feet. I'm asked if I want a private room, they do ask that most of us frequent flyers just want to get through the damn line and to our boarding gate & declining, here's what happened & Told to assume the position, two feet are placed on the mat, spread eagle and the TSA agent of same gender gives you her verbiage drill that she will feel and no longer pat & blah, blah, blah. Arms out, palms up. Beginning at my neck, she feels all around my collar and under it & mind you I have no visible jewelry but small earrings and a wrist watch. I am not asked if there is anything that lurks hidden. I always say that I have double knee implants and bolts in my right shoulder as a courtesy to them. She then proceeds along my arms, running both her hands along them from my armpits to the wrists. She then moves to my back and does a full feel over it & now moving her hands fully across my butt, moving them inside my waist band and then circles to my front side, readying for the frontal assault. Jeeze. Beginning with her hand flat on my chest under my chin, she begins her downward stroke between my breasts, and running her hand under each. I want to swat her away. She says, If you want, you can have a private screening& I'm thinking, Yeah, to feel me up more hey, hey TSA, how many boobs have your felt today & I tell her, Just get it over with & Hmmm, the procedure doesn't move more swiftly. She then moves her hands, both of them, to my waist and belly. Hands move sideways across my belly, lifting my shirt, and feeling inside my waistband. I'm getting pissed & I don't like strangers in my pants. The legs are next. Beginning at the ankle of each inner leg, she firmly moves the palm side of her hand up, all the way to my crotch, not once, but twice. Now, I'm really pissed & and feel incredibly violated. I want a shower & I want to get home & I don't want to fly anymore

And another story from a woman in Florida who was traveling:

Beverly Ferguson in News West 9 (Nov. 5, 2010 ): That's the same day Beverly Ferguson says she was trying to fly to Florida. She didn't even know of the new screening procedure, until she was trying to get through security. That's when she says, her privacy was invaded. "I was violated. I was violated, I have never felt so humiliated in all of my life," Ferguson said. The same day the new guidelines went into effect, Ferguson says she was screened by a TSA agent who touched her chest and bottom. "What got me was, she came back around to the front and told me to put my arms out and spread my legs out," Ferguson said. She says the agent felt under her dress. The TSA agent was performing what's called an "enhanced pat down screening." Using the palm of their hands, agents can slide them up and down a passenger's body. They can even move inside your legs, and have the authority to touch breasts and genital areas, with the over-the-clothes pat down.

A story from a parent traveling from Boston to BWI with his teenage daughter:

SpatialID in FlyerTalk (Oct. 25, 2010 ): Today when flying from Boston Logan to BWI my 17 year old daughter had quite an unpleasant experience due to the new scanner malfunctioning. There was some confusion of whether there was a scan or not. She was told that she needed to submit to a full pat down after being told "it did not scan" . She was told she would need a pat down. Being 17 she had no idea what that meant and how intense a full detailed full body pat down can be. Even when she began to cry, the TSA agent continued the pat down. My daughter felt molested and humiliated and as a parent I was helpless to stop this violation. Also, the gentleman behind her had a full body pat down which leads me to believe the machine was not working for anyone. However his pat down was not as intense as my daughters. My daughter who is a seasoned traveler and even visited Israel this summer has never experienced such extreme searches If they were to have asked her the reason for her visit, as they do in other countries, they would have learned she was no threat and was merely on a college visit to MIT. As a parent, I have serious concerns that such a search would be done on a 17 year old minor. The searches cross the line, she was molested for no reason.

Imagine the worry and the fear that sex abuse victims feel when they'll have to go through this invasive pat-down when flying. Here are the concerns of one abuse victim here:

For women and men who have already been sexually assaulted, the new screening rules—or just the threat of these rules—present a very real danger. They can be triggering events, setting off a posttraumatic-stress reaction. "I started crying. It was so intimate, so horrible. I feel like I was being raped," an anonymous rape survivor recounted on a Minnesota blog. Melissa Gibbs, a spokeswoman for We Won’t Fly, a group protesting the new regulations, says that a rape survivor she spoke to had a panic attack as an agent began touching her leg. ... The pat-down itself is not the only thing that could cause a reaction, say counselors who work with people who have experienced sexual assault. "We’ve had a number of survivors who have had their pictures taken and put online," as part of a sexual assault, says Lambert. "So for them, even though [the TSA photo is] deleted, even if the person is in the other room, the idea that the photo’s being taken can be difficult to handle." Lambert also notes that for adults who were assaulted as children, watching their children go through either invasive photographs or excessive pat-downs can be traumatic as well. (Kimball says that the machines automatically delete photos before moving on to the next passenger, and that the screeners, who work in a separate room, never see the passenger, while the agents working with the passenger never see the pictures.)

This website, WeWontFly, notes the cancer risks of the back-scatter x-rays:

Since the dosage of radiation from the backscatter X-ray machines is absorbed almost entirely by the skin and tissue directly under the skin, averaging the dose over the whole body gives an inaccurate picture of the actual harm. In their letter of concern, the UCSF faculty members notedthat "the dose to the skin could be dangerously high". The eyes are particularly susceptible to the effects of radiation, and as one study found allowing the eyes to be exposed to radiation can lead to an increased incidence of cataracts.

There are also concerns about privacy, theft of personal items since being in the scanner deprives one of the line-of-sight view of his or her property, and then there's this important fact---the body scanners may not even work that well in finding weapons according to the GAO:

While TSA officials stated that the laboratory and operational testing of the AIT included placing explosive material in different locations on the body,[Footnote 13] it remains unclear whether the AIT would have been able to detect the weapon Mr. Abdulmutallab used in his attempted attack based on the preliminary TSA information we have received. We are in the process of reviewing these operational tests to assess the

AIT's detection capabilities and to verify that TSA successfully

completed operational testing of the AIT.

You can take ACTION by following these steps below to protest the full body scanners and the invasive patdown procedures:

The National Opt-out Day is going to be on November 24th, and this hopefully will make the TSA reconsider their approach, although this quote from Pistole, the TSA chief, shows he's doubling down on this:

But despite mounting criticism, the TSA shows no sign of backing down. At a hearing in Washington yesterday, TSA Administrator John Pistole flatly declared, "I’m not going to change those policies."

He should. Let him know by taking action! And don't forget to contact the White House as well. Sometimes a word from the boss on above can change things for the better.