several years. at first it bothered me, but now, since it just means i always have to wait in line to get my tickets, i just cope with it. extremely minor inconvenience.

since 90% of my flying is to go lecture to college kids around the country about my work ( once or twice a month), i think it's more important to be able to drop the fact that "i'm on the TSA watch list for this [slide #1] and *click* this [slide #2]" during my slide show. at first people laugh, until i say "no, i'm serious", and then people get real quiet, and can see tangibly how the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act is actually applying to US citizens.

(i still can't believe they applied that stupid acronym to this act.)

then i move on to showing them pictures i drew of a dog's butthole, or two men beating each other with a platypus.

and, to answer the question from a few posts above, i don't use brushes, so i'm not worried about them being tapped! ha! even the US government can't wiretap pencils.