CNN political commentator Angela Rye getting a pat down
A Transportation Security Administration screener told MacFarlane she would have to undergo a full-body pat-down by a female officer. Late for her flight and with no option other than to be searched in private, MacFarlane agreed.
The pat-down, done over her clothes, explored her breasts, crotch and buttocks.
"I did not imagine that she would ask me a few times to spread my legs wider and in fact touch my vagina four times with the side of her hand," MacFarlane later wrote in a complaint to the TSA.
The experience humiliated MacFarlane, 56, a Charlotte graphic designer and part-time teacher who flies several times a year. It also left her with a nagging question that millions of fellow travelers could ask: How much privacy must Americans give up in order to fly safely?
Just a month before her search, TSA had launched a new, "more involved" pat-down procedure.
TSA defends its screenings. Officers are trained to treat passengers with respect, it says. Pat-downs are done by officers of the same gender as the passenger, with a second officer present, and can be done out of sight of other passengers.
"Pat-downs result in the discovery of knives and other dangerous items carried on a passenger's person on a daily basis," spokesman Mike England said. "They are a valuable tool in keeping our skies safe."
But some security experts question whether the screenings are really effective, and civil liberties advocates say pat-downs can be nearly sexual in their intimacy.
Complaints poured in when the TSA began more aggressive searches in 2010. Travelers gave graphic accounts of genital contact by agents, the New York Times reported, and "a general sense of powerlessness and humiliation."
CNN political commentator Angela Rye posted a video of her own pat-down at Detroit's airport last December. Rye said she fought back tears as a TSA agent twice touched her crotch.
"Of course, we want America to be safe and protected but we should not violate the emotional and physical safety of our nation's citizens at the same time," Rye wrote.
'Humiliated'
MacFarlane said she is sensitive to being touched by strangers. Her pat-down, by a female officer who explained the procedure in advance, took place behind closed doors.
"I told her I felt humiliated," MacFarlane said. "She told me she was surprised that I'd never been searched before."
She filed complaints with TSA and Sen. Richard Burr's office but concluded that the agent was just doing her job.
"I travel fairly often, have no criminal record and am a cooperative person," she wrote in her complaint. "I feel the search was improper, uncalled for, and other searches could have been conducted that would have eliminated the need for invasive touching."
TSA told the Observer it can't comment on specific complaints. In a response to MacFarlane's complaint to Burr's office, the agency said a test indicated explosives might have been in her bag, prompting the pat-down. None were found.
"The description of (her) screening is consistent with TSA (standard operating procedure) for alarm resolution," TSA wrote.
People who refuse to go through imaging screening or walk-through metal detectors, or who have triggered alarms, undergo pat-downs, TSA says. TSA also chooses passengers randomly for pat-downs.
Passengers who won't complete screening aren't permitted to fly.
'Sensitive areas'
MacFarlane's search came a month after TSA changed its pat-down protocol, reducing several options to one standardized procedure. TSA won't describe the differences between the old and new procedures but, Bloomberg News reported, warned airport officials that passengers would be more likely to notice them.
Days after TSA's new policy was enacted in March, the TSA search of a 13-year-old boy in Dallas left his mother livid. Her video got 7.7 million views on Facebook.
TSA says the new procedure uses "enhanced security measures" that were put in place several months earlier but doesn't expand the areas of the body - including the breasts, groin and buttocks - that can be patted down. They're intended to find hidden weapons concealed on the body, such as improvised explosive devices or components.
Officers use the back of their hands to touch those areas, the agency's website says, but in some cases "the front of the hand may be needed to determine that a threat does not exist." That policy existed before the new procedure began in March.
TSA said it has received about 11 complaints about pat-downs in Charlotte between July 2016 and July 2017, the same number as in the previous year. TSA screened about 9 million passengers in Charlotte between March and late July.
The threats TSA hopes to stop are real: Screeners nationwide found a record 96 firearms - 85 of them loaded and 26 with a round in the firing chamber - in carry-on bags in the week of July 24-31 alone. Agents routinely find knives, brass knuckles, batons and stun guns.
Comment: Of course it bears reminding ourselves that none of this would be occurring if elements of the US gov hadn't permitted and facilitated the horrific events of 911 16 years ago.