NFL adopts TSA-style full body pat-downs for fans at stadiums

The NFL plans to have fans at stadiums patted down, TSA-style, as a new security measure.

Under the new "enhanced" pat-down procedures, the NFL wants all 32 clubs to search fans from the ankles to the knees as well as the waist up. Previously, security guards only patted down fans from the waist up while looking for booze, weapons or other banned items.

Full story at USA Today

(via Quinn Norton).

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Harold Combs

Maybe this will cut down on all those mass murders at NFL games. What, no mass murders at sports games? Nevermind.
http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/TGZ75URQ6DKTCNXV3RV36ZKALQ Matthew

It sure is annoying. I hadn’t been to a football game in years, and I saw a line that was really short to get in. I get to the woman waiting, and it turns out she’s a security guard who only frisks women. So, I get crazy football fans yelling at me for trying to cut in line. Like, I knew that I have to get groped by a man to get in… geez.
OldBrownSquirrel

Ankles to knees and waist up? That’s skipping the region between the knees and waist, which is a major focus of TSA attention since the underwear bomber. This isn’t quite a TSA-grade grope.
- cinerik
  
  Exactly. This seems like a wild attempt to court controversy where none exists. The headline is damn misleading.
Antinous / Moderator

Dear Boing Boing,

I’m sorry to say that I must leave you as my dream job has finally become a reality. I wish you luck in all your future endeavors.
- grimc
  
  Searching fans, not players, Antinous.
- nosehat
  
  Ha ha!
Samuel Clements

So, skipping the area that almost always has pockets?
LintMan

I’m wondering if this is more about boosting concessions by preventing people from carrying in booze and food, than it is about safety.
- http://BrianEaston.net/ Brian Easton
  
  Some jerk smuggled a taser in to the Jets – Cowboys game last week, so no it’s not about boosting concessions. Not like this kind of pat-down is unheard of, I’ve had it happen at just about every collegiate athletics event I’ve gone to (basketball & football).
  - mccrum
    
    Did they taser any of the concessions people?
- BGThree
  
  Clearly the intent is to prevent people sneaking booze in (you are still allowed to bring in a bag of food as far as I’m aware). Classic case of unintended consequences though – people will just binge drink in the parking lot even more than they do already. Newsflash: people get drunk at football games, even (especially) if you don’t let them bring booze into the stadium, and even (especially) if you charge $12 for a beer inside the stadium.
Navin_Johnson

LOL!!!
It’ll be fun to see how those that demonize lowly TSA workers (instead of officials) will treat this. These aren’t government workers so there’s no libertarian/propaganda angle. Gonna be interesting!
- librtee_dot_com
  
  The thing is, it’s much less offensive than the TSA.
  
  Why?
  
  Because the odiousness of a stupid rule is in direct relationship to how difficult it is to boycott it.
  
  Going to NFL games is in no way a necessity to anyone’s life. If you don’t like this, you can just never go to another NFL game. And I hope you do! Spectator sports play no role in society other than to fill gaping voids of meaning in our lives and keep people distracted from what is going on.
  
  Never taking a plane, on the contrary, is much more difficult for many people – especially in a country as spread out as the USA, or those with a Passport who want to use it.
  - Navin_Johnson
    
    Astroturf account: “buddhaflow” You’ve neither got flow, nor buddha vibes. That was some of the most hypocritical, justification bullshit I’ve ever seen. THANK YOU for proving exactly what I was saying.
    - librtee_dot_com
      
      Namecalling doesn’t count as rebuttal. The definition of an astroturfer is not ‘someone you personally disagree with.’ What is your point exactly?I could hold a houseparty, but say that no one can come in unless they are anally probed by me personally. And I don’t think anyone would really have a problem with that; my party would simply consist of me sitting around by myself with a party hat and a bottle of cheap champagne. The NFL is like that, on a larger scale. The TSA forcing every airport and airline to accept their ‘protection,’ whether they like it or not, is a very different thing.Also, as this video indicates, there is some possibility that the DHS has directed these new rules: certainly, they have been working together closely on various aspects of stadium security for some time.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Spriggan_Prime

Cuz this will go over well after all that pregame tailgating…
iamlegion

So, they’re doing something _more_ invasive/insulting, yet at the same time _less_ effective (given the huge blind spot of the thigh area). And just as the TSA is publicly discussing _reducing_ the level of BS people have to go through to get on a plane.
How do people this stupid still get to collect paychecks while so many sane humans are out of work?
MisterH4x0r

This is a non-story really. I’ve seen stabbings at at least 3 NFL games here in Cali (One at a Chargers v. Raiders game in San Diego…the other two at Oakland Raiders games at home.), as well as being present (But did not witness) at least two shooting incidents. If people weren’t idiots to begin with, maybe silly things like this wouldn’t be implemented. Humans suck. Blame humans who do these things.

Thus, I have no complaints.
thezarray

They hate our freedoms, remember that.
herrnichte

Some bright chappie needs to form The Fans Union. Wherein ticket prices, and stadium* practices are submitted to binding arbitration. Membership in The Fans Union gets you better parking — but you must be willing to go out on-strike (even during the big game). yep… this could be all yours (and a life of contact with organized crime) all for the cost of an initial web-page hosting sign-ups.

*stadiums often paid in part or full by the local tax-payers, i might add.
msilverman

This is awesome, because I’ve always thought watching a football game would be way more fun if it were more like going to the airport.
Cowicide

Hmmm… considering so much money from organized sports is money laundered into the GOP, I consider this a good thing if it cuts down on the amount of people that will now go to NFL games.

Then again, I’m not sure the typical avid football fan is exactly the kind of person to cares about these things very much…
nosehat

This has nothing to do with security, and everything to do with overpriced concession sales.
michaelcote

Don’t forget, the NFL is a non-profit 501(c) organization. Not kidding. See, Taking a Sack: The NFL and its Underserved Tax Exempt Status

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1605281
http://profiles.google.com/johnperkins21 John Perkins

My wife and I were thinking of going to a game this season, but this news has dissuaded me. I think I’ll just stay home and watch the game on TV, it’s much more comfortable that way, and I receive much more enjoyment from the friskings my wife gives me than random male strangers.
AirPillo

According to that quote, that means they will pat down people’s lower legs, and then the area above their waist, while avoiding the thighs, butt, and lap.

Comparing that to the TSA’s thorough and humiliating patdowns at best simply makes TSA searches seem tamer by affiliation, and at worst is just kind of a stupid thing to say.

The only thing that NFL patdown is going to be groping is your socks, sides, and underarms, which is exactly the kind of patdowns I’ve had to go through to get into the Whiskey A Go-Go on the sunset strip. It’s not bothersome at all unless you don’t like being touched whatsoever. Compare that to feeling violated after TSA agents paw at your inner thighs, chest, arse and crotch.

♪♫ One of these things is not like the others ♪♫
treacle

Two comments:

1. This will simply make people more complacent in the face of increased searches and pat-downs. And our pass-state police state slowly boils the frog.

2. ”Combat Football”… just let the fans fight it out in the stands! Your ticket is a waiver, go tooth and nail. Why not? Better than gladiator fights, or feeding atheists to lions. (‘The National Pastime’, Norman Spinrad).

xo!
- cinerik
  
  But unlike travel, this is truly optional. Don’t like the (non-TSA style) patdowns? Don’t go to the game.
riorico

Just wail till NASCAR starts strip-searching attendees. For that matter, we should all just appear naked in public, to prove we have nothing to hide. Anyone wearing clothes is de facto a terrorist. Look, she’s wearing shorts! Shoot her!

As for the NFL thang, GREAT! Humiliation builds character! Humiliate fans, searchers, everybody — and don’t forget the reporters, stadium maintenance crew, concessionaires, officials, the players especially, and the cheerleaders.
Cydonia

You know, I always wondered why airports were always such high probability targets. Security is extremely tight, and people aren’t even packed that densely together. If you wanted to have a large impact, a full sports stadium would be a better choice. Lots of people, lax security, large crowds to get lost in…
In my opinion, it’s good that they are tightening this security. And, unlike an airport, this is an optional activity.
Jay Converse

C’mon people, this isn’t about terrorism, it’s about money! When you go to FedEx field to see the Redskins, Dan Snyder wants you to buy his $8 Budweisers.
Donald Petersen

Every rock show I’ve attended for the past twenty years has done the same thing. Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Flogging Molly… I once had to stash my ZZ Top keychain high up in a palm tree to be allowed entrance into a show. ’Cause, y’know, it looked kinda sharp.
- AirPillo
  
  And when you go through it to get into a rock concert, it doesn’t really bother you (well, not me, maybe more privately tempered people than I) except that it holds up the line a little bit more.
  
  … though it does kind of suck when you end up having something in your pocket that they choose to take an issue with.
  
  TSA on the other hand, strives to find the degree of excess that best offends everyone. It actually really bothers me that this is being compared to what the TSA does. That is giving the TSA way too little credit for disrespecting dignity and privacy.
Holly McLachlan

Every rock show I’ve attended for the past twenty years has done the same thing…. (I tried to reply but it didn’t take)
Probably not fully 20 years. Last “rock concert” I went to in a stadium was U2 in Las Vegas (arguably security theater capital of America) in 1997. No sanctioned “security” molestation occurred. Last ballgame I attended was a Reno Aces minor league game, 2011. They searched bags, not bodies.
If fans are such thugs that physical patdowns are needed for true safety — stop supporting the team by paying to go see it. Get off your butts and go do something sport-like yourself. Or just cut to the chase and start visiting your relatives in prison. Because there is no good reason to let anyone else treat you this badly.
- cinerik
  
  This badly? A quick upper body patdown and a check around the ankles? Honestly, I’m not bothered at all by that. Not in the slightest, especially when not forced to do so as it’s a voluntary activity. I’ve had just the same at nightclubs for years. TSA gropings are an issue, but this is a storm in a teacup.
  - penguinchris
    
    I don’t like to go to concerts (or nightclubs, though I’m not a clubbing kind of person anyway, or sporting events, though I’m not a sporting events kind of person either) in large part because of the security.
    
    I mean, I understand why it’s needed in many cases, because idiots bring in weapons or drugs or whatever. But the people who do those things, do them anyway – they just figure out how to get past security. Meanwhile, everyone else has to feel violated and they get hassled for stupid stuff.
    
    Basically, I greatly dislike having to think too much about what I’m going to bring someplace – can I bring my camera (not if it looks “professional” in most cases, but policy varies wildly even at the same venue)? can I bring a bottle of water? can I bring the pocket knife that I always carry with me normally (I don’t actually carry a knife, it’s just an example)?
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Given how dull professional team sports are, getting groped at the gate would probably be the most interesting part of the outing.
      - Guest
        
        THIS! LOL
        
        Ugh, bread and circuses…
- inwoodresident23
  
  I guess you’ve made a pastime out of going to shitty rock shows, then. All the best rock shows I’ve been to have been in small venues with no security and at least a hint of violence.
  - Guest
    
    :3
- Donald Petersen
  
  Probably not fully 20 years.
  
  It started for me in 1991, in fact. U2 fans must be more demure and docile than your garden variety headbangers, I guess. The first thing I noticed was people being prevented entry if they were wearing any studded leather, which you used to see a lot of at Priest and Maiden shows, and in fact any metal gigs in the eighties. But I guess people started shedding other people’s blood with their Rob Halfordesque gear, so the venues started clamping down. In short order they began frisking. I was still in college (’88 to ’92) when people started hiding their joints and lighters in their socks, then in the toes of their shoes. Sometimes the emphasis was on drugs and weapons, other times for bootleg recording equipment, but metal fans have been given this 2nd-class-citizen treatment for so long now they’re totally used to it. The alternative was being refused entry, and either slinking home or trying to hop a fence or something.
  
  I suspect the NFL isn’t going for the full groin patdown because it’s just possible that the potential for ugly, explosive confrontation might be higher with NFL fans in what’s supposedly a family-friendly environment than it would be when staring down some pizza-faced teenagers who don’t remember a time or situation when they weren’t getting frisked before being allowed in anywhere. The NFL has some kind of image to protect. Maybe Staff Pro does too, as does the Los Angeles Forum (which is now owned by a church, which must have been tickled pink to be making a pile of cash from Ronnie James Dio’s version of Black Sabbath the last time they played L.A.), but apparently it’s a very different kind of image.
  
  Anyway, even though I got used to it, it always irritated me. I might have been less irritated had I run into this kind of treatment everytime I went to a high-profile gathering. Doesn’t happen at the Old Globe Theatre. Didn’t have to deal with it at the Emmys. No patdown at classical shows at the Hollywood Bowl. But back when I was a teenager, someone decided it would be in everyone’s best interest if they just went ahead and frisked all the metalheads before they let them in the concert hall. Somebody figures it probably saved a few lives (or at least a mint in property damage and liability, plus untold fortunes in snack-food concessions).
  
  But people put up with this shit. Because of these and many other distasteful abuses of customer comfort and convenience (read: respect), I long ago stopped attending concerts at the San Manuel Amphitheater (formerly Glen Helen Amphitheater, formerly Hyundai Pavilion, formerly Blockbuster Pavilion, formerly that big expanse of dirt and rocks in San Berdoo where they held the US Festival). I could regale you with stories of their overpriced and painfully distant parking lots which as far as I know remain completely unpaved and strewn with boulders (even at $20 per car), the lack of shade, the price-gouging on water, the unbelievably piss-poor front-of-house sound… suffice to say I gave up on the joint completely, swearing never to return, which means I had to miss Iron Maiden the last time they swung through Southern California. That happens a lot, because this is the largest outdoor concert venue in the U.S., so a lot of bands would rather play there in front of 65,000 people at once rather than play three 20,000-seat shows. I quit going there on principle, but that doesn’t hurt the place’s fortunes one jot. It’s still in business, it’s still the largest outdoor amphitheater in the country, and everyone I know hates the goddamned place… but if you wanna see the big rock shows in Southern California, you gotta go there.
  
  Sorry about the rant. I just hate it when greed and mismanagement remain profitable, even when they really start abusing people.
Guest

How did we ever survive this long without constant searches!
cstatman

Papiere Bitte! Just get used to it. it’ll be okay. It’s for SAFETY. Thing about the CHILDREN. Your civil rights? yeah, buh-bye. And we’ve trained you to LIKE it.
- cinerik
  
  Please. Take your Godwin elsewhere. Nothing mandatory or any worse than a nightclub here.
10xor01

As if $100+ tickets, awful overpriced food, and obnoxious drunken fans weren’t enough. Good thing they settled that “strike.”
Grumblefish

“NFL adopts TSA-style full body pat-downs for fans at stadiums”? Well, they’re not exactly, they’re not going for the crotch area.

It’s still obviously too much, but without the groinal fondling it doesn’t count as a TSA-style molestation. Not going to make the big time humiliation without the junk juggling.
cellocgw

Searching fans is pretty pointless since we all know the primary attack vector is a blimp: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Sunday-Thomas-Harris/dp/0451204158
Ron Fontaine

“Land of the Free, Home of the Brave”

Yeah. Right. This is how the Gestapo got its start. More people die each year from honeybee stings and snake bites than from terrorism.

The police state continues to increase in the USA. THIS HAS GOT TO STOP.
- RobDobbs
  
  “More people die each year from honeybee stings and snake bites than from terrorism” just became my new Tweet.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1544740812 Ray Scully

Great, frisking a drunken idiot that has been tailgating in 8 degree weather shirtless and painted green with a giant chunk of cheese hat and a tramp stamp of Aaron Rodgers face…weee, sounds like a dream job for the minimum wage security slave. Watch out for that projectile vomit dude, might want to wear a hazmat suit with your nitrile grope gloves.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_B7JK5WZI3OP7GQ7OR4IJOQBWK4 Airport

Dozens of people are murdered by tasering from police and nothing happens, but when one incident occurs its an excuse to implement tyrannical conditioning that even the soviets didnt do. Anyone who goes to a game after this is implemented is a traitor
http://twitter.com/t_w_t terence william

so – is it fair to say that the terrorists won? It’s a nation of paranoia and disintegrating privacy/personal liberty.
http://twitter.com/openfly ǝɔʎoſ ʇʇɐW

Seriously did no lawyer point at “sexual battery” in the state criminal offenses? I mean seriously…