After some more grumbling on my part they eventually finished with me and I went to retrieve our luggage from the x-ray machine. Upon returning I found my wife sitting in a chair, crying. Mary rarely cries, and certainly not in public. When I asked her what was the matter, she tried to quell her tears and sobbed, “I'm sorry … it's … they touched my breasts … and …” That's all I heard. I marched up to the woman who'd been examining her and shouted, “What did you do to her?” Later I found out that in addition to touching her swollen breasts—to protect the American citizenry—the employee had asked that she lift up her shirt. Not behind a screen, not off to the side—no, right there, directly in front of the hundred or so passengers standing in line. And for you women whove been pregnant and worn maternity pants, you know how ridiculous those things look. “I felt like a clown,” my wife told me later. “On display for all these people, with the cotton panel on my pants and my stomach sticking out. When I sat down I just lost my composure and began to cry. Thats when you walked up.”
Via jwz's livejournal [1], Coffee, Tea, or Should We Feel Your Pregnant Wifes Breasts Before Throwing You in a Cell at the Airport and Then Lying About Why We Put You There? [2]
My Dad keeps asking when I'm flying out to visit him again. And I keep telling him I'm no longer going to fly anywhere until crap like that stops. I got stripped search [3] the last time I went to the airport and I wasn't even flying!
Several years ago for Thanksgiving I flew a round trip from Ft. Lauderdale to Chicago to Boston and I got searched in Chicago, never mind the fact that my plane was taking off in about twenty minutes.
Lord knows what will happen to me if I try flying now.
[1] http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=jwz&itemid=119054#cutid1