Airport Screeners Will No Longer Touch Females Between The Breasts

from nbc

WASHINGTON -- Just in time for the Christmas holiday travel rush, the government has modified patdown search procedures for female passengers.

Effective Thursday, airport security screeners can no longer touch female passengers between their breasts. Screeners are to pat down the perimeter of the chest, backsides and abdomen of women unless detection equipment picks up the possibility that they're hiding explosives.

The new rules are in response to numerous complaints from women about the intrusiveness of the searches.

"This reduces some of the anxiety that some passengers have expressed," Transportation Security Administration spokesman Mark Hatfield told the Associated Press, adding that the change does not weaken security efforts.

Roughly 2 million passengers a week are patted down. Some are searched this way after setting off metal detectors twice; others are chosen by computer.

The government directed airport screeners to carry out more frequent, more thorough searches for explosives. That policy was instituted Sept. 22, after 90 people were killed in two plane crashes in Russia believed to have been caused by Chechen women who carried explosives on board.