One of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s daughters said she experienced an “absurdly invasive” pat-down Thursday at an airport security checkpoint and suggested her father would limit or eliminate the Transportation Security Administration if it was under his authority.
Evita Duffy-Alfonso said on the social platform X that she nearly missed her flight after opting out of a body scan because she said she is pregnant and concerned about radiation exposure. She said she waited 15 minutes for a pat-down and that TSA agents were “rude” and “tried to pressure” her into walking through the scanner.
Many people are unaware of the technology that goes into millimeter wave scanners, and although harmless physically, they are quite invasive in a privacy sense (by definition), and I don’t criticize her for refusing to use one, even if by faulty reasoning.
I’m thinking its also confusion about the backscatter X-ray machines that were used before the millimeter wave scanners replaced them in most places. I had heard some small airports still use the backscatter machines.
I still take the patdown instead of the millimeter wave scanners when I’m randomly selected for more scrutiny than the bog standard metal detector.