TSA-Proof your Underwear So Your Private Parts Don't Show Up on the Big Screen

Los Angeles Times

Let's keep our privates private.

If you're a frequent traveler, here's one holiday gift you'll want to unwrap before Christmas Day approaches - underwear that works double-time to shield your genitals from radiation and conceal them from pesky airline screeners.

The novelty underwear comes with ultra-strong, weapons-grade tungsten lining and fibers that supposedly bounce away harmful x-rays.

It also includes material

that is in the shape of fig leaves and other configurations that mask your private parts. The same goes for bras, but over the nipples.

"You shouldn't have to be digitally strip-searched or doused with radiation to visit your grandmother," said creator, Jeff Buske of Larkspur, Colorado in an LA Times article.

Buske, an electrical engineer, came up with the idea to "TSA-proof" your underwear in January after news hit that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, aka "the Underwear Bomber," stuffed his skivvies with explosives in an attempt to blow up an international flight near Detroit on Christmas last year.

The incident prompted the TSA to speed up production of full-body imaging screenings, as a result.

Buske predicted there would be resistance to the new screenings and went to work formulating the underwear.

He started selling his product for $35 through an ad in infowars.com in March.
Sales have skyrocketed to the thousands ever since.

It's a great idea but judging from countless passenger testimonies - including the woman with a prosthetic breast and a man whose urine bag broke during an airport screening - the underwear probably won't prevent another excessive pat-down from TSA workers if they think you're hiding something suspicious down there.

Perhaps the next time we have to endure another humiliating Post-9/11 search at the airport, we should do like the infamous "Naked Guy" from Cal Berkeley and show up at the LAX buck naked.

My former classmate, Andrew Martinez, now deceased, gained notoriety in the early 1990s for his anti-authoritarian antics by wandering about town with only his sandals and a back pack.

He was the first person arrested under Berkeley's anti-nudity ordinance in 1993.

His over-the-top behavior may not have changed the world but is sure to be the most colorful response to the government's overly repressive ways.

With reporting from the LA Times