US security procedures for passengers who refuse body scans by machine are now being given pat downs that would bring a charge of s-xual molestation or indecent assault in most criminal jurisdictions.

The open-hand procedures mandated for America’s totally out-of-control Transport Security Administration involve manually determining the orientation of the p-nis and testicles in order to determine whether they are in fact explosive devices, as well as pressure to female gen-talia.

These procedures also apply to children and are all conducted by officers who have been commonly categorised in the US media as poorly educated, semi-fluent morons. It means, in plain English, that parents are powerless to stop a security official engaging in physical contact with their children in a degree that would be unthinkable, offensive and actionable in criminal law if it was something they did to a stranger not just their kids.

We have laws about feeling-up strangers and especially minors.

In the US, its legal. Part of the tableau of madness that pervades that society.

The choice for visitors to the US is bleak. The body scanner machines reveal s-xually detailed images of the person being scanned, and generate background radiation that, while insignificant even for frequent flyers, is potentially harmful to pilots and airport workers who may require scanning more than a dozen times a day as they move between the airside and landside sections of terminals that are divided by security and border protocols.

If the scanner is declined, it’s hand on, in the presence of another TSA official as witness, or might that be participant.

Last night the US Airways pilots union joined the American Airlines pilot association in recommending that its members refuse the X-ray scanners on health grounds, noting that the TSA has already blocked the use of dosimeters by its employees as “unnecessary”, and that they request the presence of a non-TSA witness at the invasive hands spread over light clothing, s-xual organs and cavity region searches essential to keeping Americans free — or shackled to fear and hysteria.

There is a detailed story about this situation here, which also publishes the US Airways pilot union memo on the situation, which expands on the recent alleged s-xual molestation of one of its members by TSA officials.