I'm sitting in Logan now, and about thirty minutes ago I was planning to go through the backscatter. Two hours of sleep has made me compliant, I guess.

Then I saw the damn thing. More precisely, I saw people being herded through it and forced to put their arms over their heads while they got scanned. Something about that was more horrifying than I would have expected. It reminded me of livestock. So I said to one of the TSA workers, a little more bluntly than I'd intended, "I'm not doing that." I intentionally didn't say sorry throughout. They're my rights.

To the credit of Logan's TSA agents, everyone I came in contact with was very friendly. When I told the agent I wasn't going through, she said--very politely--"That's fine. You'll get a patdown, though." When I said "okay," she nodded and called someone to come give the patdown. No shouting "OPT OUT! OPT OUT!" or anything.

The patdown was pretty much what I expected, although the TSA agent brushed my genital region with the back of his hand instead of the palm. It didn't bother me at all (physical contact very rarely does), but I can definitely see why people would be uncomfortable with it. Trigger central. Again, to his credit, he was very polite and professional, telling me everything he was going to do before he did it. Not that I would have had much choice, I guess.

I don't like this. To a certain extent my utter terror at flying makes me feel reassured that there are more security measures, but on an intellectual and moral level I have no desire to give up my rights just so I don't have an anxiety attack on a plane. Seeing people go through that machine was really, really creepy.