Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Has it come to this?
Are concerns for the nation’s security so critical that air travelers, especially women, must now be subjected to the possibility of humiliating physical pat-downs?
As reported recently across the land, new security policies on body searches were put into practice in mid-September after a terrorist attack in Russia. It’s believed two Chechen women carried nonmetallic explosives onto the two ill-fated passenger planes.
So, now, as a reaction to that distant event, female travelers in this nation stand a good chance of having airport screeners subject them to breast pat-downs and the like, just to make sure they aren’t carrying explosives. It’s understandable that a growing number of women, indeed victims of this extreme policy, are voicing their disgust.
KSL joins the chorus.
It should be noted that men, too, face physical pat-downs. Some, reportedly, have also complained about the groping nature of the searches. But as one well-traveled female executive who has been subjected to several pat-downs noted, “Men don’t know how offensive it is to be touched by anyone when you don’t want to be touched.”
We realize that extreme times require extreme measures. In KSL’s view, though, subjecting air travelers to intrusive body searches, sometimes without the benefit of privacy, goes beyond extreme.
No, it shouldn’t come to this.
