As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, the federal Transportation Security Administration is under fire for imposing full-body scans or pat-downs on the flying public. Although the agency says that the scans/pat-downs are not intrusive and that the privacy and dignity of travelers is protected, two TSA "HR" stories make that a difficult sell.

The TSA has been embarrassed more than once by internal harassment allegations and its sometimes lackluster response. Last year, a TSA employee in Miami physically attacked a co-worker after repeated taunts about his physical attributes that were shown to his co-workers on the scanners. Although the TSA said that it would deal with the employee who, by his own admission, "could not take the jokes any more and just lost [his] mind," it was not clear what would be done about the co-workers' highly inappropriate behavior that provoked him.

From the point of view of the traveling public, this story is revealing on at least two levels: first, it "reveals" how much of a person's body does show on these scans, and second, it "reveals" the mentality of some TSA workers, who will be viewing our bodies or patting us down. If this is the way they treat their co-worker, whom they have to face every day, imagine what they say and do about airline passengers who pass through only once and are never seen again (or are they?).