Traveler Is Up in Arms Over Search at Airport

Until a week ago I was a political moderate. Now I am a rabid civil libertarian. I am trying desperately to come to terms emotionally with what was done to me, by my own government, as my husband and I were returning home to California from a Thanksgiving holiday visit with family in Texas.

While waiting to board a flight home, this 5-foot-3 grandmother, who looks nothing like Osama bin Laden, was subjected to the indignity of an intrusive body search. I did not set off the metal detector, nor was there the slightest reason to suspect me of any criminal activity, yet I was “wanded” and my bra area was thoroughly examined in case I was hiding a bomb in there. I have been feeling violated and angry ever since.

The message I took from this experience is that citizens no longer have any rights, even to bodily privacy; the government owns us and can do as it pleases with us.

It seems Americans have been so cowed that they are content to surrender the rights that so many brave men and women have fought and died for, in exchange for a mere illusion of security.

Eleanor M. Egan

Costa Mesa