TSA screening is a humiliating experience for everyone. We strip down to
shirts and socks. Our bodies are bombarded by X-rays in full-body
scanners that are questionably medically safe. We wait in 45-minute
lines that we wouldn't even tolerate at Costco. But I had no idea TSA
agents could stoop so low, according to a KOMO-TV report about how a
dying woman was treated at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

A
woman with leukemia, who was making one of the last trips of her life
to Hawaii, was embarrassed by a TSA security pat-down at Sea-Tac
airport. Michelle Dunaj told KOMO TV in a Monday report that agents
refused to give her a private screening when she asked for one, asked
her to pull back bandages and forced her to open a saline bag, which
contaminated it.

TSA, which has not spoken to Dunaj, denies that
its agents asked Dunaj to open the saline pack or her bandages,
according to this report from the Associated Press. I mean, I suppose
it's possible Dunaj volunteered to pull bandages off her feeding tubes.
It's possible that a woman on one of the last vacations of her life
wanted to spend it taking phone calls from reporters. It's possible the
story was made up. It's possible, if we all got stoned, like my
colleague Bruce Ramsey.

There seems to be no end to the
degradation we face for the privilege of traveling by air. I realize
these screenings protect us from terrorists. I would prefer to wait in
line than to end up on a plane with someone wearing a bomb molded into
underwear. That's what I told myself as I waited in a 40-minute line on
Sunday at Reagan National Airport to fly out of Washington D.C. That was
followed by a 10-minute wait for a woman TSA agent to come do a
pat-down because I didn't want to go through the body scanner. To be
fair, she did ask me whether I had sore spots on my body from recent
medical procedures. She also asked whether I wanted a private screening.
Millions of air travelers and I endure the TSA security rules.

But
a dying woman deserves the same protection from unreasonable search and
seizure (see U.S. Constitution, 4th Amendment). The TSA owes Dunaj an
apology. And lifetime pre-check status. This woman should never have to
wait in a TSA line again.

http://seattletimes.com/html/edcetera/2019392291_leukemia-woman-tsa-pat-down....