SEVERAL YEARS ago, I experienced a patdown at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, and vowed never again to permit it. At the time, I was a middle-aged woman with a knee injury, requiring a cane. Ushered to a special lane, I naively thought that it was a kind gesture for a disabled person, until I was told to stand on two footprints, a difficult feat, while a female employee patted me down. It was intrusive and embarrassing, as, unlike a doctor’s office, there was no privacy, and I felt violated rather than protected.
Only my husband and doctors should have such intimate access to my body, and I would rather strip to my undies than submit to such a procedure again. I plan to fly out of Boston in the next few months, and intend to wear presentable underwear, just in case. In the interim, hopefully someone will realize that these procedures are an overreaction and will not deter an imaginative terrorist.
Louise P. Richardson
Portsmouth, N.H. 
