By Linda Kendall-Hagan, contributing writer for End the Lie © 5/11 Linda Kendall-Hagan

On a recent trip across the country for my friend and gay poet’s memorial service, the opportunity arose for me to test my belief that I am protected in times of imminent danger by St. Michael the Archangel and Dragon Slayer leading an army of angels, now including my dear recently passed away angel, Vytus*.

I’d heard so many horror stories especially from Alex Jones on about the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) fondling innocent passengers-to-be and even stripping their children down to nothing, I decided long ago that I was not going to travel and submit to such governmentally enforced humiliation, but when Vytus died, I knew I had to run the TSA gauntlet in order to travel from Seattle to Illinois.

I bought my tickets, boarded the airport shuttle at 3 A.M., and to my happy surprise, nothing at all happened in Seattle, Phoenix, or Chicago. It appeared that Alex Jones’ warnings about sexual assaults occurring countrywide – shouted daily in his gravelly overworked voice – were all overblown. Not one single TSA agent touched me and there were no evil scanners set up anywhere!

My sense of security changed in Detroit, Michigan, which has the highest Arab population in the United States. Talk about racial profiling. You know the airport where the infamous Underwear Bomber got his pants in a twist

The new passenger devouring Pro-Scanner exploded into view. At first, I was standing in line getting ready to go through the usual TSA security check while the sounds of plastic bins slamming onto the metal counters and plastic embedded rollers reverberated everywhere as loafers and running shoes thudded down in front of me, cells phones tinkered in and computers slid quietly as if hiding something private from the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was just too quiet!

Everyone seemed to be silent or whispering.  Tiny babies were whimpering and kids were asking what to take off their bodies or put in the bin next. Why weren’t there any scanners at the other airports I had visited?

I turned the corner to place my things in the bins. That’s when I saw it: a massive gray tube with a giant inscription over the door that read “Pro-Scan” quickly devouring anyone who came into its presence. It was shocking. Of course, I immediately called upon my protective band of Archangels including Michael, Vytus, Gabriel and Krishna and Buddha to boot!

All parents and even children were getting ready to walk into this “Pro-Scan” machine, which I had already decided violated my right to privacy, the Fourth Amendment (the right to not be subjected to unreasonable searches and seizures) and the Administrative Procedures Act, which requires a public review of such plans before the government can implement them.  It felt like we were all lined up to be searched by Nazis before getting into the box cars.

I watched horrified as scan victims jumped into the deadly ionizing radiation-delivering machine as if they were all criminals who’d just been ordered to drop their weapons and put their hands in the air because of some egregious terrorist act. Then, suddenly fear of exposure to millimeter waves and microwave radio signals used by these serial-scanners used to peek below one’s clothing overcame me. I gasped and called upon Archangel Michael to protect me from the nearby Security Guard whom I envisioned would soon be forcing me into the Pro-Scan’s hungry mouth.

Unfortunately, my Archangel warriors did not show up immediately, because I didn’t feel protected at all! You could liken my fear to that felt by my husband last summer while every fiber of his being shook during our ride around Alaska’s Denali, the highest peak in the U.S. with the highest ice cliff in the world. In other words, I was terrified.

Words of warning from several doctors including Dr. Russell Blaylock and Dr. John Sedate Ph.D., David Agard, Ph.D., Marc Shuman, M.D., and Robert Stroud, Ph.D., all from the University of California were streaming through my cerebellum in multiple tones and voices becoming a crescendo of sound similar to propellers banging on ice. All these doctors have stated these scans are dangerous.

Well, that was enough for me. Suddenly, I believe my Archangel must have arrived, because my fear left and as I looked for an alternative to the scanner my eyes courageously scrutinized the crowd of sheeple before me, all seemingly happily standing in various forms of disarray getting ready to pop into the Pro-Scan’s dragon mouth. There in the center of it all stood a big football player type jock dressed like a Security Guard about 15 feet away from me. I called to him in desperation saying, “I choose not to go through the scanner.” He yelled back confidently assuring me that it wasn’t dangerous, and it wasn’t like an X-ray, and that that passengers get more radiation just from traveling in a plane than exposure to the picture-taking device in the Pro-Scanner.

Little did he know, he was talking to investigative-research-oriented person that knew the TSA’s body scanners focus radiation on the skin and organs near the skin whereas cosmic radiation during high-altitude flights is distributed across the entire mass of your body. Also, according to the aforementioned medical experts, the ionizing radiation of these scanners can alter your DNA, and repeated exposure may cause cancer.  Also, the real dose to the skin is really very high. After all, it heats up the skin. People can actually feel the heat!

I glanced over at the two men watching denuded images of scanned sheeple being sheered by microwaves. The chief technician and his buddy were snickering and laughing at the images on the screen. Yes, they were actually pointing at the screen after each scan and then laughing together at something in each image (hidden from the victim’s view) that these Pro-Scan technocrats found to be hilarious. When they stopped laughing, they both kept smiling as more victims poured through the tube. Watching them sealed my decision not to subject myself to deadly radiation.

Once more, I envisioned my angel beside me, took a deep breath, and loudly told the security guard, “I’ve been told differently, and I refuse to go through the scanner.” Then, I turned to people in line with me and let them know that the scanners violated our right to privacy, especially because the resultant images showed private sexual parts and can be saved by the operators.

The two men behind me reacted as if they’d never heard that before. They even acted interested in what I was saying, and repeated my words to others behind them.  Obviously, the TSA hasn’t gone out of its way to inform the public about any of the infringements on our rights caused by the new Pro-Scanners.

The woman ahead carrying a small baby was told to run through the old fashioned plastic arch that most airports still have. When I asked if I too could walk through the arch, the guard gave me a strict no for an answer. When I asked why the mother was allowed to take her child through, and I wasn’t allowed, he told me it was because she had a child that she didn’t have to enter the new scanner. Then, I was told I could choose to be subjected to an enhanced pat-down, either in public or a private room. It seemed to me that a private room would allow for some pervert to do something to me where no one could witness the act, so I chose the public option.

Needless to say, being felt up by a very large woman is safer than going through the scanner. Still, I had to steel myself and get ready to yell at the top of my lungs if she even dared to stick her fingers between my legs in that private spot no stranger is ever to touch without my permission. Well, she came awfully close; in fact too close to be legal, if you ask me.

In 1992, I designed, created, and presented the first seminars on Sexual Harassment to the entire Adult School section of the Los Angeles Unified School System, which is the largest adult school in the United States. I had never been touched by anyone except my husband and my doctor in the places she so invasively patted me down. She felt around the periphery of my breast tissue, ran her fingers in the crease between my buttocks (at which point I donated a large methane gas-biscuit to her), and in the crease between my inner thighs and my private parts.

This done in public was really uncomfortable and humiliating. Because I had to travel, I decided to be felt up rather than be exposed to a Pro-Scan cancer-inducing device.  These searches may also be illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1972. I meant to make this article humorous, but the experience was in no way funny. The laugh is on the American public – every one of us – for letting the TSA violate our right to privacy like they’re doing just because the Underwear Bomber, who couldn’t bomb a flea, tried to get on the plane en route to Detroit last year.

If none of us stand up for our rights, we will continue to lose them. At least, we can all thank former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura for filing a lawsuit against the TSA, and former Miss USA, Susie Castillo, for complaining to the TSA for lewd conduct violating her civil rights. Castillo claims a TSA agent touched her vagina four times, constituting nothing less than sexual assault.  I suggest that we all call our Congressional representatives and Senators, and file complaints with TSA. This violation of our rights has to stop, and we can make it stop. Oh, by the way, I’m quite willing to share my archangels with you – just give ‘em a call!

*Vytautas Pliura (12/25/51-3/30/11) is included in the anthology “A Day for a Lay” and in his self-selected collection, “Tenderness in Hell”, at Amazon.com.

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