I opt out mostly to make it as difficult for the screener as possible, not because I think it's particularly less of a violation of my privacy to get my nuts felt up vs. irradiated with low power mm wave. (if there were a "you can have a copy of your own scan" machine, I'd probably voluntarily go through mm wave for fun). If people opt out, it 1) ties up a TSA agent 2) makes a TSA agent do something moderately unplea…
> If people opt out, it 1) ties up a TSA agent Isn't this something that doesn't scale then? Author of this post is complaining of being "defeated" because no agent came to give him his pat down. What if it just so happens that a few people had opted out in a short window, and so their pat down guy was tied up? The more people follow this example on a given day, the longer your wait for the pat down will be.
There's extra lulz for me because if I check a bag on a domestic flight it is essentially always because the bag contains a firearm. The red-tagged bags must fly with the passenger, and TSA has already had extended contact with me by that point (they search the bag containing the weapon in your presence, usually in a private room, etc.), so I think making me miss my flight at that point would cause them a lot of trouble without me even needing to prod.