I'm not going to defend it. But it's very rare. For domestic travel at least, Aust is very relaxed compared to others. No removing shoes, belts, or whatever. No body scanners. No feel-up searches. Just put your bag on the conveyor (laptop separate dammit!) and walk through the metal detector. Maybe get picked for an explosives residue test, which is pretty non-invasive.

My guess, if you held a gun to my head, is that she really did have traces of drugs on her, and that's why the dog wouldn't leave her alone. Probably not carrying though. She and her husband have an infamous reputation here, think Anna-Nicole Smith. Which is probably the only reason the story made the paper. And just possibly, someone picked her out for a laugh - in which case, heads should roll.

I didn't know about videoing strip searches, but I presume they do it in case the person complains afterwards that they were molested. Which I suppose is sort of fair enough in some lights. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I'm hardly in any position to be judgmental of people, so I'll agree it can't have been a fun experience. And good luck to them.

Check out the comments to the article if you want to see the level of sympathy for her here. I'm definitely not in that camp. Her life is her life, and it's nothing to do with mine. I'm not excusing anything, just positing reasons why something so stupid ends up happening.

Not buying this at all. I have never had such an experience either returning from OS or on an internal flight and neither have any of my friends who travel frequently both internationally and domestically. Brynn however is something of an attention seeker and is the type who jumps at every opportunity to be on shows that feature also-ran and wanna-be celebrities, so my guess is that there's more to this story. It's also possible that she's been singled out for humiliation by some jerk. There's a lot of nanny-statism here but the TSA experience is, so far, not part of it, thank christ.

It's lottery. Individual TSA teams have a lot of latitude, and if they decide to be abusive, there's not a lot anyone is going to do about it. After all, you do "want to fly today".

So they direct the cute girls through the nudie scanner, pick on someone they just decide to dislike, whatever they want. It may not happen often, but the reason it can happen is built into the system.

The reason: the TSA does not care. The TSA has no reason to care.

Give security back to the airports and airlines. They earn money by keeping their customers happy. If their security screeners needlessly piss off customers, something will be done.

In fairness, I should point out that New Zealand has no airport security if you are travelling on a smaller plane on a domestic flight. You just drive to the airport, check in and board.

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/blogs/the-backpacker/why-the-kiwis-have-got-air-travel-right-20110816-1iw47.html

The reason: the TSA does not care. The TSA has no reason to care.

I'm going to have to fly to Washington (state) early next month.

Right now I'm considering dressing in my ren fest costume -- minus the sword -- which is a kilt (not a skirt), calf high boots that leave nothing to hide (I can't even really fit socks under them), and my ren shirt.

If I can get an informal poll on my thinking, let me know. :-)

Do it Jim, and when they ask to search you show them what's worn under a Scotsman's kilt!

Hey, it can't be sexual harassment if they ask to see right?