Do you think Body Scanners and Enhanced Pat Downs will affect Holiday Travel?

This is really great information you posted, I went ahead and posted my complaint over there and hope someone gets back to me. I am not looking for any form of compensation what so ever. I just feel that they need to know what type of people they have working over there. We should not be treated like animals with the entire process. If I ever get feedback I will be sure to let you know.

Good for you. I too, would not think any compensation would come of it, and if you get any feedback, I would love to hear it. In the end, I think the results that the complaints can accomplish are what are most important.

I so agree with you - especially about treating people like garbage. I had read your comment earlier in the week about your experiences, and think it is ridiculous. Since i am unable to copy and paste yet, I am waiting for an article i wrote for Triond to publish so I can link to it, where I have countless examples of people who have been "manhandled" and treated less then professionally, especially for people with disabilities. In one instance I was reading about a bladder cancer survivor who repeatedly tried to warn the TSA officials about his urostomy bag. If you aren't familiar with these, they basically are a bag with a small adhesive cardboard opening that sticks to the skin, and a tube from the bladder (or intestine depending on the type) goes through an opening in the cardboard. In this man's case, he war pants 2 sizes too large to conceal the bag, along with an over-sized sweatshirt. Despite repeated attempts to inform the agents of his medical conditions, they mostly ignored him even after his pants fell down when they made him take off his belt. Ultimately, they ended up breaking the seal on the bag, and spilled urine all over his shirt and pants. Afterwards, he was rushed off, and they acted as if nothing had happened. IT wasn't until he was on the plane and int he air that he was able to get in the bathroom to clean himself up. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news This is appalling and unacceptable. It is humiliating enough for innocent people to endure this to begin with, but when they compound the problem with cold and heartless unprofessional ism, there needs to be something done.I have heard similar horror stories for passengers with prosthesis. There is talk that this soon might be challenged at local and state levels, as well as countless lawsuits. I hope they make some progress with this, as so far the scanning has done nothing to make the skies any safer. They have countlessly been shown to be ineffective methods of preventing terrorism.

Hilary Clinton also came out and said she would avoid the pat down option if she could, but didn't comment on the body scanners. She did say that she thought enhanced measures are required.

I can see where people may not like these measures. I can also see where they are necessary. So many people in the world now. I haven't travelled by plane in decades. So you don't have to have the pat down if you do the scan?

"So you don't have to have the pat down if you do the scan" That is correct - mostly. Just like driving across the border and randomly having your car searched, they still will randomly pull you out of the scan and do a full pat down. IT usually comes after the scan. The problem with the scan is there are serious questions about the health effects. The levels of radiation concentrated on your skin are higher then any other form of radiation the body is subjected to. Because most x-rays and medical imaging disperses the radiation through the entire thickness of your body, the levels they put out are highly "diluted". These "background scatter x-rays" focus the radiation on at skin level by not allowing it to penetrate the skin and thereby subjecting the skin to much higher levels then would eve be experienced by anything in nature or other medical procedures. AS such, there is really very little medical data on what effects this level of radiation has. There are very few medical procedures that require the need to look through clothes - they just ask you take them off.

Agreed, unfortunately, TSA and Homeland Security haven't provided any evidence that these scanners are helping to increase security. There are agencies around the world in UK, Israel and Italy that have come out and stated the scanners just don't work, and have removed them from their airports and other locales. I am 100% for security, I just want to make sure our efforts are headed in the right direction to make sure we are actually working towards safety and not just the illusion of it.