TSA Agents: You Think We Like Touching Your Junk?

Touching private parts, being called 'molester' is no fun
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 21, 2010 2:30 PM CST
TSA Agents: Hey, We Hate the Pat-Downs Too
A woman undergoes a pat-down during TSA security screening, Friday, Nov. 19, 2010, at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Seattle.   (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

If you think you’re not a fan of the TSA’s new “enhanced” pat-down procedures, think about how the TSA agents feel. In addition to the public backlash, there is quite a bit of “quiet resentment” within the agency, writes Boarding Area.com blogger and airline emerging media consultant Steven Frischling. Seventeen transportation security officers (TSOs) spoke to him anonymously, and all of them agreed they don’t want to touch your junk any more than you want them to touch your junk. Some of their comments:

  • “It is not comfortable to come to work knowing full well that my hands will be feeling another man’s private parts, their butt, their inner thigh.”

  • “Do you think I want to go to work and place my hands between women’s legs and touch their breasts for a few hours?”
  • “I am a professional doing my job, whether I agree with this current policy or not, I am doing my job. I do not want to be here all day touching penises.”
  • “I was asked by some guy if I got excited touching scrotums at the airport and if it gave me a power thrill. I felt like vomiting when he asked that.”
  • “Molester, pervert, disgusting, an embarrassment, creep. These are all words I have heard today at work describing me, said in my presence as I patted passengers down.”
  • “Do people know what a Nazi is? One can’t describe me as a Nazi because I am following a security procedure designed to find prohibited items on a passenger’s body.”
Click here for the full blog. For more on the controversy over the new airport scanners, click here. (More airport scanners stories.)

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