Joe Nichols Feels the Pain of TSA Pat-Downs

Joe Nichols, like many touring country artists, takes to the sky to get from one venue to another, in addition to the personal travel taking him from his Texas home to Nashville recording studios. With his travel schedule, we wondered how he feels about the extreme airport security measures, especially the arguably invasive pat-downs?

"I go back and forth," Joe tells The Boot. "Here's my thing, I travel probably 250 days out of 365, maybe more. I believe that certain people that are targeted right now, that are feeling the pressure of the TSA, are the victims of what a bunch of wackos have done. The terrorists keep coming up with new and creative ways to just keep us guessing, and is in itself the biggest crime. I think the sexual assault part is [a valid criticism.] I don't think people signed up to be groped or taking advantage of in any kind of sexual way. I think that's wrong. I don't think it should be a requirement to travel for a person to be subjected to another person having their way with them."

But Joe has a solution. "On the other hand, we have X-ray machines out there that can do a total body scan, let's fork out the money and let everybody go through it," he says. "It's an anonymous process that people would all have to walk through, and it shows everything on your body without putting your name next to it. There's no personal kind of intrusive, invasive procedure other than you're a figure that walks into a machine and shows us everything we need to see."

Although, there are lots of people out there who are expressing fear of such procedures. "I don't know, if there's science out there that backs that up, then we'd have to think of something else," Joe admits. "I hadn't heard that until just now. I do feel like people do have a legitimate gripe when it comes to being assaulted. Of course, then again, if you buy a plane ticket, you're kind of signing over your privileges to the requirements of flying and traveling."

Joe is in the studio working on a brand new album that will hopefully be released in 2011. Click here to check out his tour schedule for 2011, and read our entire interview with him here.