Hack the TSA

As I write this message, I sit at the gate at the Burbank airport waiting for my flight back to Oakland. I just had the displeasure of being asked to go through the TSA's new full body scanner (I declined), followed by a troubling exchange with a TSA agent. It went like this:

"Hi, I'd like to register a complaint about the new screening device" - me

"Why is that?" - TSA

"Well, only one line is being asked to use it, so it seems ineffective to allow people to choose to use it or not, and I find it invasive."
"Well, you can't choose to use it or not, when the other lane is closed, everyone has to go through it."

"But the other lane isn't closed, those people don't have to use it, and I just had to be patted down because I didn't want to use it. I could have just chosen the other lane and not been patted down."

"Well this is a pilot program, and we're trying it. You'd better get used to it though, it's the future."

"How can it be the future if it is just a pilot program? Doesn't the word 'pilot' mean test?"

"Well you have to realize the current metal detectors were developed pre 9/11."

"That doesn't mean they don't work. Can I borrow this pen to fill this out?"

This has to stop. For all of the bitching those on the lunatic right do about nationalized health care, this is the single biggest threat to our freedom: the power of fear and power. I have decided today that every time I fly, if I have the time, I will opt out of the new screening, and fill out a complaint. I urge everyone to do the same. The point of a pilot program is to solicit feedback, so lets give them feedback. This is all a bunch of security theater: making old ladies get patted down, taking your liquids because they are "dangerous", then throwing them away 5 feet from you.

Common sense needs to prevail here. We're no safer now than we have ever been. We're just more annoyed.