[Linus]

It's interesting. I've had to go through the backscatter twice in the past four weeks as part of travels and they were pretty quick and non-invasive. TSA is generally professional.

That said, however, because my plane ticket was still under my previous name I had to bring my name change document with me along with my new passport. It wasn't an issue for TSA until I was leaving IAD (Dulles in DC) to go to LAX. I got pulled out of line and queried on this.

IAD has to have the WORST setup for security screening I've ever seen. Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) goes through a single TSA screening point (rather than having different ones for different terminals). I didn't have to go through the backscatter but to be pulled aside, asked why my name change was done in 2009 and the ticket reflective of now, blah blah, was humiliating and completely uncalled for. Basically, it nearly outed me and I swear, if I had been asked why I did the name change I would have filed a suit shortly afterwards.

I did notice when I was leaving LAX a few weeks ago they had changed their patdown procedure and were randomly (truly randomly) checking people and describing better what they were doing. I think they did listen and heard what people have said. Not every flight and not everyone will be backscattered. And I have seen that the room is separate (and it is an enclosed room with no windows -- they communicate via radio to the person in the room).

I wish they would do a proper external audit of the security behind them and the procedure of how images are stored but all-in-all, they are not that bad.