By Diana Fairechild First Published 11-15-04 in the Jet Smart Newsletter

"Diana Fairechild is a natural born healer. She was put on Earth to help millions of people. I really truly feel that Diana's motivation is to educate us, the people who fly--who could die on airplanes." -Uri Geller, Author/Psychic

"Fairechild has a bag of carry-on health tricks larger than fits in the overhead compartment, all included in her book, Jet Smarter." -American Bar Association Journal

"Fairechild explains how recycled air on planes contributes to air rage and in spreading infectious diseases." -Art Bell, Coast to Coast AM

"Take the advice of Diana Fairechild." -Smart Money

"Diana Fairechild's book Jet Smart dropped a bomb in Washington and the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation changed policy." -Ed Randegger, Environ

"I would like to order 20 copies of Jet Smart which I will distribute to my frequent flying colleagues." -Noel Brown, MD, United Nations, Environment Director

"Nobody should get on a plane without Jet Smarter. There is no other information out there on how to travel and protect your health at the same time. It's not available, I've checked. You must protect yourself... it's very serious. This book is indispensable. Don't travel without it." -Layna Berman

"Fairechild says, 'In-flight dehydration is one of the most serious hazards long-distance fliers face.'" -Muscle Medi

"Fairechild's subject matter is how to combat the indignities and discomforts of air travel." -Sacramento Be

"Aviation health expert Diana Fairechild has some sophisticated suggestions for battling the rigors of air travel." -CIO

"Fairechild knows what she's talking about." -John Pope, The Times-Picayune

On 11-15-04, this piece was sent to Jet Smart Newsletter members, and posted on Flyana.com. Two security web sites, one a manufacturer of machines and the other for TSA workers, asked permission to post it and readers wrote about organizing a petition. On 11-23, Joe Sharkey of The New York Times picked up this issue with his piece, "Many women say airport pat-downs are a humiliation." On 12-23, the government revised its policy for breast searches and the nation's 45,000 screeners were told to pat only the perimeter of the chest and avoid touching breasts. Yea!

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DEAR DIANA

"What should I do if an airport security person insists on feeling my breasts. Is this is joke? Or do passengers actually have to go along with this intrusion? Thanks for your help."

Allison

DIANA RESPONDS

Dear Allison

Women's breasts are sensitive and women are sensitive about their breasts. And we certainly don't want our breasts examined at airports, and especially not out in the open giving male screeners and male passengers an opportunity to enjoy the show.

Last month, a female screener told a young mother: "I'm going to feel your breasts now." The mother begged, bawled, balked, and was finally denied boarding.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said its screener did nothing wrong and that touching breasts became a security priority in September 2004 after two Russian jetliners exploded, possibly from bombs smuggled in clothing of two women of Cechnya origin.

After she was denied boarding, Ava Kingsford stuck by her personal priciples and decided to drive a rental car from Denver Airport to her home in San Diego. It took 16 hours including too many stops with her little baby.

In addition, Ava's luggage (with diapers, clothes, etc.) had not been retrieved by the airline (against FAA regulations, by the way), though she had waited at the airport several hours for it.

In a phone interview, Ava told me that two female airport screeners had taken her to a back room to touch her breasts. To avoid being touched, Ava pulled down her tank top and bra-less said: "See, I'm not hiding anything."

But, incredibly, the screener replied: "That's it. You just flashed us and you're not boarding your plane."

This was obviously less about passengers terrorizing airplanes, and more about screeners intimidating passengers. For what it's worth, I believe TSA's boob groping policy is a ploy to intimidate passengers into accepting full-body-scan machines at all U.S. airports.

At Orlando Airport, a technician on a prototype body-scan machine can examine breast and genital size and shape of naked passengers; even penile implants and other prostheses, and colostomy devices.

Yikes! Of all places, one should expect privacy under their clothing.

Body scans also irradiate us.

I'd rather have a TSA screener touch my breasts than be irradiated. Some choice!

Ava told me she'd rather have the X-ray and "The way I was treated at Denver Airport was like a criminal."

In the U.S., passengers foot the bill for airport security with a $2.50 surcharge per flight, not to mention bailing out the airlines with our taxes. So why don't we get security screeners who are accountable to the flying public?

If the presence of airport security screeners is inevitable, and it appears to be, the demeaning of passengers does not have to be inevitable. And here are five things you can do to make a difference.

1) If you believe you have been treated in a discriminatory manner, don't bother reporting it to airport authorities -- report it to the media. The TSA's so-called "resolution line" (866-289-9673) is just a recording that sends you to a website.

2) Make sure your bags are always in your sight. If a screener wants to move you to a side area or a private room and separate you from your hand luggage, politely insist that your handcarries must go where you go. They will comply.

3) Be polite. No matter how a screener behaves, control yourself and do not raise your voice as this could send you straight to jail.

4) If you feel tense at security, say to the screener: I appreciate that you are checking all the passengers thoroughly because I am also very concerned with safety.

5) For updates on this ongoing campaign for dignity at airport security, see http://www.Flyana.com/newsletter.html.

Diana Fairechild

RELATED PAGES

Airport security
Negotiate security
Crew fatigue
Radio: security
Air rage
Poor security

FROM READERS

"As someone who conducted pat-down searches on many, many people over my 15 years in law enforcement, I think I can safely speak for airport screeners when I say that it is no more desirable for the person doing the patting than it is for the pattee. Probing the armpits, crotches and chest area of strangers is not something to write home about or something that professionals get giddy about, sharing stories in the bar after work like excited teenagers. " -Mark Arsenault