What happens in Vegas starts at the airport

It's quite a choice the federal government imposes on American air travelers this busy Thanksgiving week.

Get zapped with a low dose of radiation by a body scanner, allowing TSA agents to view your naked body, or submit to a security pat-down so personal that if it happened inside a Nevada brothel, you'd be charged for it.

Airports have long been liberty-free zones. After 9/11, our government turned airports into what could have been a Monty Python skit titled "Ministry of Silly Things To Confiscate."

Fingernail clippers? Really?

Now, as terrorists explore more creative ways to hide explosives -- Fruit of the Boom underwear -- our government ratchets up security to a new level of insanity.

Call it the government grope. The picture that best told the story showed a TSA screener last week checking up the groin area of a Roman Catholic nun in full garb. Next best came from the video of the terrified 3-year-old girl crying and clinging to her mother as a screener attempted to feel her underpants.

About the only group of travelers who don't seem to have a problem with the new TSA rules are inbound passengers to Las Vegas. Makes sense. The whole purpose of those seeking the Vegas night club scene is to get naked and/or groped. So getting it coming and going is an added travel bonus. New Vegas TV commercials to follow: "What happens in Las Vegas ... starts at the airport."

But I digress. The rest of American travelers won't be so accommodating. And if you think I'm exaggerating about the new level of government groping, consider this description of a "standard pat-down" from one young mother traveling from Dayton, Ohio, to Texas:

"The TSA agent felt along my waistline, moved behind me, then proceeded to feel both of my buttocks. She reached from behind in the middle of my buttocks towards my vagina area. ... She then moved in front of me and touched the top and underneath portions of both of my breasts."

Sounds like the opening paragraph of a steamy romance novel.

Yet this is what we face today if we travel by air. About 60 U.S. airports currently have 300 new full-body scanners. The TSA, which some wags say stands for "Thousands Standing Around," plans to install 500 more units by the end of the year.

Some passengers have already resorted to carrying copies of the Constitution when they travel, citing their protection against illegal government searches. (That has yet to work, by the way, but it makes the kind of people who carry pocket Constitutions around in their coat pockets feel better.) Others use their cell phones to video their pat-downs and put the experience on the Internet. (Can www.TSAgropes.com be far behind?) Islamic groups threaten to sue on grounds that groping Muslim women violates Islamic law. (Only in America.)

This Wednesday, others seek to apply nonviolent techniques to grind the TSA process to a halt. It's called National Opt-Out Day. It's designed to slow the security process at airports by encouraging everyone to demand a time-consuming physical search.

I'm against that one. Not that there's anything wrong with Gandhi-like protests. I just don't want to spend any more time in a dignity-crushing TSA line than I have to. Especially on the day before Thanksgiving.

Nevertheless, any liberty-loving American has gotta like the actions of John Tyner, who focused public attention on the governmental grope. When his TSA "handlers" sought to do a groin check in the San Diego airport, he said, "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested."

The TSA threw Tyner out of the airport, of course. But his simple act of defiance made him a folk hero. The Associated Press reports the advent of T-shirts, bumper stickers, hats and even underwear emblazoned with the words, "Don't Touch My Junk!"

Not quite as catchy as "Don't Tread on Me," but until the American people stop trading their rights and dignity for an ineffective, politically correct security system, it captures the moment.

Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@ reviewjournal.com), former publisher of the Review-Journal, is a Stephens Media columnist.