Well, I woke up practicing what I would say to the pat down agent, just like ny biker suggested, and I feel better about it today.

It just occurred to me that I have no trouble getting naked for my sports therapy massages. Those aren't invasive, though, and my perception of these pat downs is that they're invasive. So I need to change my perception.

This woman is just doing a job. That's all it is. Although, Pax, some of the YouTube videos I watched seemed a little excessive on the rubbing.

Knot, thank you for the suggestion of telling the ID checker about my history of skin cancer. I can for sure do that. And I will check with my doctor about the valium. I've taken it before for dental work. I get wiggy in that chair, too.

Jess, congrats on getting through the machine without setting them off. Is that part of the therapy, getting stronger so the metal rods and such aren't as detectable?

pll, I'm going to ask the agent to change her gloves, too.

What do you guys think about the violation of our Fourth Amendment Rights to no unreasonable searches of our persons? I've been doing a lot of reading the last couple of days online and there's a lot of outrage about it, but it doesn't seem like anyone can do anything about it. I've written one real-mail letter to Barbara Boxer (my Senator), one email to the White House comment line, and one phone call to a sympathetic but unmoving TSA agent through their national contact line.

What has to happen for these machines and enhanced pat downs to go away? Is our collective ego so big that we can't take a lesson on security from Israel?

Is this really what the Nazis did to the German people before they started carting off whole neighborhoods to the internment camps? I read that somewhere. I can't remember where.

Someone on the boards here said something about our own government terrorizing us more than Al Queda ever dreamed. There's a lot of truth in that.

Roxy