TSA adds new features to full-body scan results.
April, 2024 Pete Buttigieg, United States Secretary of Transportation, was quoted saying, “Travelers across the United States will be delighted to find they will now be able to create customized avatars for their airport body scan results. Jetsetters can now add silly hats and even a fat dong.”
One frequent flier had this to say about the change: “I remember the first time I saw that little guy. Fascinating, I thought to myself as I evaluated the small blue cartoon man on the screen with no penis.”
He went on to say, “I welcome the change. It’s long overdue that the federal government put the ‘fun’ in violating my fundamental rights to privacy.”
Flight patrons will be able to choose from a broad spectrum of customizable features for their new myTSA TravelBuddy™. Customizable options include hats, tops, bottoms, footwear, and the ability to accentuate certain parts of their body. Globe-trotters have long been perplexed as to why their scans have not been nearly busty or well-endowed enough. The new process will allow customizations for length, girth, yaw, and angle of attack.
Behind the software? The federal government paid a development fee of nearly $3 million USD to an unnamed management consulting firm. (It was the one that allegedly accelerated the opium epidemic. Rhymes with lick-skins-ski.) Anita Hanjaab, a partner from the firm’s Washington, D.C. office gave a statement while reducing headcount at a local soup kitchen: “I have PreCheck and a Tumi bag. Do I look like I’d be caught dead flying in economy with the middle class?”
Consumer rights groups have long been fighting the battle for more humane treatment by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to no avail. Rolled out in 2007, full-body scans were met with vehement criticism. Instead of using the scanners, travelers have been able to opt for a pat down. Records show that zero passengers have taken the alternative as they had not been recently lobotomized.
Industry pundits believe the TSA is rolling out the change to compensate for a flood of revisions to its security process that aim to further subject the American traveling public to increasingly humiliating security requirements.
These changes will roll out in two phases.
In the first phase, sniffer dogs will be trained to identify a wider range of scents in addition to their life-saving drug and explosive-sniffing talents. The canines will now be able to alert agents if a traveler is horny. Horny passengers will be pacified and detained in a roped-off section of the airport until docile.
The second phase was developed in partnership with the National Security Agency (NSA). The TSA will require agents to read aloud seven randomly chosen text messages that were sent from the traveler’s phone between the hours of 2:00 AM and 3:00 AM. The Administration confirmed they will be primarily pulling text messages from years in which the air-goer was 21 to 24 years old.
President Joe Biden weighed in on the issue. Mr. Biden was quoted saying, “Folks, I just heard the TSA is requiring us to travel in a new way. A safe way. You know, growing up in Delaware, we didn't have planes. We just had chocolate chip ice cream and good ol' American dreams. [Long pause.] Makes you wonder, do dreams fit through the scanner?”
Harbus investigative reporting shows the last time Mr. Biden flew on a commercial flight, he took PanAm, and was wearing a straw hat while seated in the smoking section.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump had this to say: “They’re telling me I can finally have a big cartoon dong. Can you believe it? My friends at the TSA gave me a big cartoon dong, and I didn’t have to ask. That’s what they do for me, my friends at the TSA. But the dogs, the horny-sniffing dogs. I said, ‘That’s too much,’ so they’re going to look into that for me.”
In a formal message, the TSA states, “Passengers who would not like to go through the scanners can pay $89 USD for Clear Plus and will not be subject to the new travel requirements. Let us scan your retinas, don’t be a prude. If you don’t like it, good luck with the no-fly-listers on Amtrak.”
The Administration announced it will be rolling out myTSA TravelBuddy™ to full-body scans nationwide in time for summer travel.
Alex Mazzaferro (MBA ’25) is from Chicago. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 2019. Prior to HBS, he worked in strategy and corporate venture capital.