Hi Frelga, good to see you. I do post on TORC (mainly in Movies), but I never really chatted there. Actually, I haven't been to TORC much lately - not too many Hobbit discussions that interest me, and I haven't had much time, so I stopped checking it often.
Jude, the TSA experience was this:
I was directed to the backscatter, while DH was sent to the metal detector. (I did get the impression the document checker was sending more women than men to the backscatter machine. Maybe because they didn't expect us to make waves?)
But the setup there is that the backscatter machine and metal detector are side by side. And with the international departures all leaving around 5 pm, the checkpoint was busy. So both were open.
The screeners in our lanes didn't say a word when people in the backscatter lane got to the front of the line, ignored the machine, crossed over and walked through the metal detector instead. I did - and so I didn't have to opt out - and so did several people behind me.
On top of that, they were being "old school" and if the metal detector beeped, they tried very hard to figure out what metal you might be carrying, then sent you through again. Not straight to the full body patdown like a few months ago at SFO.
In a nutshell, it looked like they were doing their best to avoid patdowns. All in all, it was surprisingly painless after the misery of our last U.S. checkpoint experience.
On the other hand, I have to say that European security was refreshing. No shoe removal, no fuss, no shouting. And though DH had a patdown once, it was obviously different - the woman just *patted* to check him for weapons. (not like the one in the U.S., where he was rubbed all over his body, including a careful rub over his genitalia). He wasn't the least bothered by the one in Europe. Also interesting that we had no questions at all, going through passport control in Germany. He just looked at our passports and said "welcome to Germany." The U.S. side questioned us more, coming home (where did you go? why? etc), though it wasn't terrible by any means.
And Lalaith, thanks, I might if I have time.