TSA and children and accepting the unacceptable

I'm glad my family and I have had some nice trips this past year - to Florida and to Scotland - because I will not be buying any airline tickets. I refuse to deal with the insanity of the TSA.
That they seriously thinks the inappropriate gropings and x-rays (with most of the machines not working making the pat downs mandatory according to a good many news reports) will make anyone safer is beyond me.
I think of some of our friends and extended family, of the families I know through my work with children, and I include tweens and teenagers when I say children. Families with autistic children, children who have been traumatized or molested, children with psychological issues, are offered no alternatives. Stories are documented about the infirm and elderly being forced to get out of wheelchairs, leg braces removed, etc. There is a news reporter who took a cell phone video of his three year old being held by his wife, the child screaming as she is being patted down - and while the Dad objects and remarks about compromise and does this strange double standard of being outraged and yet trying to be okay with it, this child knows her parents stood there while she was terrified and touched by a stranger in places we tell our children not to allow anyone to touch them.
I don't want to be okay with something like this.
Apparently now if this took place with your child and you decided the hell with the tickets, we will just leave rather than upset my child like this, especially if you or your child has any sort of issues where this could be deeply upsetting you can be detained and significantly fined.
Can you imagine a rape victim having to go through these pat-downs? I read comments where the critics basically say man-up and shut-up and just go through to keep America safe. Apparently they have never been subjected to any sort of sexual harassment or history that might make these searches unbearable.
What of pregnant women or people with cancer issues - the radiation is not "nothing" as we are told. Children should not be exposed to full body scanning radiation.
Yet we are accepting this?
We honestly don't think as a country we could come up with saner, reasonable alternatives for airport security that don't stomp on our civil rights?
If you are flying and experience any problems with the TSA involving any kind of abuse during searches, the ACLU has a complaint form for you to fill out as they gather information.
If you opt out of flying - let your government and the airline industry know via letters, emails, tweets, blog posts.
I appreciate the need for safety and security but I do not believe for one moment that what the TSA is doing is making my country safer.
"He who trades freedom for safety gets neither." -Benjamin Franklin