As a girl, Cissna had been touched inappropriately, she told the panel, and as a mental-health counselor since 1962, she has tended victims of abuse.
So when she learned that to get on the plane last month she would have to undergo another pat-down, she refused. She left the airport and traveled four days - by car, ferry, and small plane - to get home.
Cissna provided the most emotional moments during the first morning of testimony before a subcommittee that is probing the use of whole-body-imaging machines.
The drama was provided by the jockeying between Democrats and Republicans over whether officials from the Transportation Security Administration would get to testify.
TSA officials objected Monday to having to sit next to the head of a privacy group that has sued the agency five times. Democrats were more sympathetic to the TSA's discomfort.
Midway through the hearing, the TSA agreed to send two officials to answer questions, but with 45 minutes left before another panel needed the room, Subcommittee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, announced that the TSA would have to come another day. Ultimately, the chairman allowed the testimony.
Much pointed commentary emerged during a discussion of the new technology's safety and effectiveness.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said his group was battling the TSA to see 2,000 images of passengers' bodies it believes the agency has kept. The group contends that the machines can store the sensitive pictures when set in a training mode. The TSA denies the machines save such images.
