I was traveling from New York to Los Angeles.  At the gate, after showing my boarding pass and photo ID, I was diverted to the area beside the door to the plane for another search.  Like the others similarly "randomly" selected, I complied, albeit unhappily.

       My carryon bags were unpacked and searched.  Then I was asked to remove my shoes.  (Thank you, Richard Reid.)  Until recently, canvas and leather sneakers could be "wanded" without being removed from the passenger's feet.  Not any more.  Now all shoes, no matter what their material of construction may be, must be removed and hand inspected.  Odor Eaters, anyone?

       So, I removed my shoes, watched them be inspected for 5 seconds, and put them back on again -- not an easy task for an out of shape, fifty-something guy to do standing up.  But the best was yet to come.

       The private security guy momentarily in control of my universe asked me to hold my arms out to my sides, while he passed the wand over my body and extremities.  All of this occurred, of course, while the other passengers observed the proceedings with a mixture of amusement and thank-God-it-is-not-me looks.

       The wand beeped as it passed over my belt buckle.  The guy said, "Unbuckle your belt."  I was startled, but did so.  Then it happened.  He took his non-wanded hand and stuck it down my pants!  I jerked back and issued an expletive which was not deleted.  A mild brouhaha ensued.  I ultimately complained to the private security company which will probably put me permanently on some "suspicious guy" or "troublemaker" list, and took my flight to LA.

       Once home, I related this incident to a friend of mine who is an official involved with airport security enforcement.  My friend was not bothered at all by the hand-down-the-pants maneuver.  So I asked, "Where is the line drawn for these people?  Can they grope your genitals if they wish?"  The answer is allegedly, apparently and amazingly "Yes."

       I have heard repeated stories from women whose breasts have been fondled and  groped because the underwire of their bra got the wand excited.  I was recently told by an airline gate agent about a passenger whose boarding pass had been marked for additional profiling (i.e., searching).  The airlines won't say what criteria they use to identify such people.  The problem with this particular passenger, however, was that he was a 6 year old unaccompanied minor.  That did not deter the gate nazis, however, from making the terrified kid remove his shoes, open his backpack and get patted and groped as the rest of us profiled adults have to endure

       The legal argument put forth by these obsessed overzealous security types is that since there is no constitutional right to travel by air, you can only exercise your constitutional right of personal privacy by choosing to not fly the US skies.  In other words, when you fly in the US, you implicitly surrender your constitutional right of privacy to the apparently unaccountable whims of belt unbucklers and breast gropers.  Put conversely, according to these folks, the only way to exercise your right of personal privacy is to avoid the airlines.

       This argument does not withstand rational scrutiny.  First, for the person required to travel for business, the college student going to school, the person trying to make it to a family funeral, the use of air travel is not a privilege - it is a necessity.  "Take the train" just doesn't cut it when the appointment or funeral is 12 hours off in a place 3,000 miles distant.  Air travel is the only way to make the trip possible.

       Further, it defies decency and common sense to assert a private security guard has an unfettered right to publicly fondle the most private parts of a passenger's body in the name of security.  Surely there are - or should be - limits to such invasions of the bodies and psyches of innocent people.

       It all comes down to a single question: At what price is airline security to be maintained?  I have long believed that what we have now in place now is the illusion of safety, not the fact.  Friends of mine in the airline industry and the FAA privately agree with me -- that is it an effort by the Bush Administration to provide the appearance of doing something, anything, but accomplishing very little.

        Benjamin Franklin once observed "When you surrender privacy for security, you lose both."  That quote should be hung on the walls of our airports, lest the terrorists of 9-11 accomplish their purpose by altering the quality of our lives in fear of what may happen.