TSA chief warns against boycott of airport scans

ATLANTA -- The nation's airport security chief urged travelers not to boycott full-body scans Wednesday -- one of the busiest flying days of the year -- as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches with some Americans in a foul and rebellious mood.

Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole said Monday that such delaying actions would only "tie up people who want to go home and see their loved ones."

"We all wish we lived in a world where security procedures at airports weren't necessary," he said, "but that just isn't the case."

He noted the alleged attempt by a Nigerian with explosives in his underwear to bring down a plane over Detroit last Christmas.

There was little if any indication of a revolt Monday as passenger screening appeared to go smoothly at many major U.S. airports, with few people declining the X-ray scan that can peer through their clothes. Those who refuse are subject to a pat-down search that includes the crotch and chest.

A female traveler, front, receives instruction Monday from a Transportation Security Administration officer, center, on the correct position for a full-body scan at Boston's Logan International Airport. (Steven Senne ~ Associated Press)

Many travelers said the scans and the pat-down were not much of an inconvenience and that the stepped-up measures made them feel safer and were, in any case, unavoidable.

"Whatever keeps the country safe, I just don't have a problem with," Leah Martin, 50, of Houston, said as she waited to go through security at the Atlanta airport.

At Chicago's O'Hare Airport, Gehno Sanchez, a 38-year-old from San Francisco who works in marketing, said he doesn't mind the full-body scans.

"I mean, they may make you feel like a criminal for a minute, but I'd rather do that than someone touching me," he said.

A loosely organized Internet campaign is urging people to refuse the scans Wednesday in what is being called National Opt-Out Day. The extra time needed to pat down people could cause a cascade of delays at dozens of major airports, including those in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.

"Just one or two recalcitrant passengers at an airport is all it takes to cause huge delays," said Paul Ruden, a spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents, which has warned its more than 8,000 members about delays. "It doesn't take much to mess things up anyway."

At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said the government is "desperately" trying to balance security and privacy and will take the public's concerns and complaints into account as it evaluates the new, more stringent boarding checks.

The American Civil Liberties Union has received more than 600 complaints over three weeks from passengers who say they were subjected to humiliating pat-downs at U.S. airports, and the pace is accelerating, according to ACLU legislative counsel Christopher Calabrese.

"It really drives home how invasive it is and unhappy they are," he said.

Stories of alleged heavy-handed treatment by TSA agents captured people's imagination.

A bladder cancer survivor from Michigan who wears a bag that collects his urine said its contents spilled on his clothing after a security agent at a Detroit airport patted him down roughly.

Tom Sawyer, a 61-year-old retired special education teacher, said the Nov. 7 experience left him in tears.

"I was absolutely humiliated. I couldn't even speak," he said.

During an appearance on CBS, the TSA's Pistole expressed "great concern over anybody who feels like they have not been treated properly or had something embarrassing" happen.

A video showing a shirtless young boy resisting a pat-down at Salt Lake City's airport has become a YouTube sensation and led to demands for an investigation from Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, an outspoken critic of TSA screening methods. The video of the unidentified boy was shot Friday by a bystander with a cell phone.

The TSA said in a blog posting that nobody has to disrobe at an airport checkpoint apart from removing shoes and jackets. According to the TSA, the boy was being searched because he triggered an alarm inside a metal detector, and his father removed the youngster's shirt to speed up the screening.

"That's it. No complaints were filed and the father was standing by his son for the entire procedure," said the posting by "Blogger Bob" of the TSA Blog Team.

The boycott campaign was launched Nov. 8 by Brian Sodergren, who lives in Ashburn, Va., and works in the health care industry.

"I just don't think the government has the right to look under people's clothes with no reasonable cause, no suspicion other than purchasing a plane ticket," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

He said he has no idea how many passengers plan to opt out, but added: "I am absolutely amazed at the response and how people have taken to it. I never would have predicted it. I think it hit a nerve."

In the meantime, security lines appeared to move briskly at many airports.

Frank Bell, 71, of Norfolk, Conn., said he took off his shoes and passed through a scanner at New York's Kennedy Airport -- and wasn't even sure whether it was one of the full-body machines.

"It was absolutely nothing," he said. "If there was something that was supposed to tell what sex I was, I wasn't aware of it."