A broadway star's travel nightmare.

Three Bangladeshi tourists giggled while walking through the Miami airport's latest security device, the Barringer Ionscan 400B--a phone booth--size glass compartment that jets a whoosh of air around your body to check for explosives and drugs. It's hard not to laugh at the parade of tousle-haired travelers exiting the machine--harder not to laugh at the ticklish rush of air itself. But post-9/11 airport security is no joke for the growing number of travelers who have been harassed by Transportation Security Administration officials under false pretenses.

It seems like everybody has a horrifying TSA story nowadays. Just ask Hugo Redwood, partner of Tony award-winning Broadway star Denis O'Hare (Sweet Charity, Take Me Out). In October, Redwood was arrested at the Newport News, Va., airport screening station for saying "I guess we must be terrorist suspects." He was separated from O'Hare and taken into custody, where an official reputedly said, "You're invisible now. We don't have to tell anybody where you are." He was detained by the TSA for so long that he and O'Hare missed their flights home, were expected to purchase new tickets, and were forced to hire a lawyer--the total costs exceeding $3,000 so far.

"I understand TSA is a new agency going through growing pains, but it shouldn't come at the cost of our civil liberties," says Redwood, who was reluctant to say that he was targeted because of being gay or black but admits it's hard not to question the racial element. "But there's got to be a nonprejudiced way to make air travel safe."