TSA changes security pat-down rules
Scott McCartney
The Wall Street Journal

When Savannahian Amy Hughes objected to a security pat-down in Washington, D.C., TSA responded with rules change.

Rushing to catch a flight at Washington Reagan National Airport a few weeks ago, Amy Haywood Hughes passed through a metal detector with no alarm. But then she was ordered to go through again - after removing her suit jacket.

"I was wearing only a camisole underneath," says Hughes, a hospital vice president from Savannah.

Like many travelers recently, Hughes had run into the new Transportation Security Administration rule meant to protect against hidden explosives in clothing. After refusing to take off her jacket, she had to submit to a pat-down by a TSA official who ran the backs of her hands around her breasts.

"Have we reached the point where businesswomen who are platinum frequent fliers must now strip to their skivvies just to catch a plane?" she asked the TSA.

Apparently not.

Rare is the travel story with a happy ending. But here's one: Hughes, unhappy about the choice of going through security in her unmentionables or undergoing a security groping, e-mailed the TSA to protest its policy as unkind to women. She got results.

A TSA official called her and said that based in part on her e-mail, the agency revised its policy. The new rule: A woman doesn't have to remove a jacket if it's her "outermost garment."

The TSA also said that it has tried to educate its screeners that a woman's business suit is different from a man's, and even that it is harassment for a male screener to ask a female to remove her outermost garment.

Hughes said she tested the policy revision herself recently. Asked to remove her jacket, she told the agent it was her "outermost garment." The agent responded, "You mean you're not wearing a blouse?" Ms. Hughes recalls. When she said no, the agent let her walk through.

"Here's to reclaiming the friendly skies," Hughes says.