LAS VEGAS - In an effort to ease public concern about its new security measures, the Transportation Security Administration recently demonstrated its new enhanced pat downs on TSA workers.
A Denver Post photographer, however, snapped pictures of those same pat downs on ordinary travelers. The pictures show just how up close and personal the screeners are required to get.
Traveler Debra Peloffy didn't get a pat down during her recent trip but she has experienced them in previous flights.
"I asked them if they wanted me to take off anything else, and all I had left was a little T-shirt," she said. "I put my arms out, and they patted me down and patted down my leg. But, it was okay. It was a female. It's part of their jobs so I understand that. I mean, I'd rather be safe than sorry."
Traveler Jeff Daigle has also been patted down. "They got very close to private areas, no question about it," he said. He says they never touched him inappropriately, but he does see how some people might feel uncomfortable.
"I think if anybody is a little bit shy or uptight or conservative in their views, then they're going to have a problem with it," he said.
The TSA screens more than two million passengers a day and says a very small number of those are actually patted down or subjected to full body scan.
"I have mixed feelings about it," said traveler Cathy Woodhouse. "I understand the reason they have to do it. I don't think they're doing it to be obscene or anything. So, I understand why they have to do it, but I think some times it may go a little overboard."
Privacy advocates aren't convinced. They point to the online leak of hundreds of scanned images of naked bodies from a Florida courthouse body scanner this week.
The TSA says it doesn't save its scanned images and that their scanners are not the same as those used at the Florida courthouse.
