Airport Security vs. Cyborg Steve Mann

CompaniaHill writes: "The New York Times (free reg, etc.) has a story on University of Toronto engineering-professor-turned-cyborg Steve Mann's recent run-in with humorless airport security. Apparently his preplanning and documents were sufficient to get him through the Toronto airport security on his way to St. John's in Newfoundland, but not sufficient to get him through the St. John's airport security on his way home. Two days later, after strip-searches, forced removal of implants and x-raying and other ill-handling of delicate hardware, he returned home in a wheelchair. Mann's lawyer is attempting to recover the cost of the $56,800 in damaged hardware, while his doctors are studying his body's response to the removal of the implants, some of which he has had for over twenty years."

Comments

Re:The article

[Deanasc]

fuck you

It could only work once

[GlenRaphael]

I would pay at least $10 more per ticket to fly on an airline that didn't have any airport "security" at all.

I hope you're trolling, but WTF? Did you not notice what happened last September? [...] Please explain.

What made 9/11 possible was that it was unthinkable. The passengers and pilots couldn't believe it would happen, so they allowed it to happen. What stops it from happening again is our new mutual knowledge that it is possible, not those goons at the gate. That's why the last plane didn't hit anything. Sure, by all means allow the airlines take suitable measures to keep their cockpit secure. Arm the pilots, secure the cockpit door, that sort of thing. But this business of piling up an endless string of inconveniences on the passengers is ridiculous. It doesn't add nearly enough security to be worth the cost in time and trouble.

Whenever we purchase a plane ticket each of us has the opportunity to decide whether we think the value of the services being offered to us is worth its cost. What I'm saying is that in my personal utility function this business of lining up to be xrayed and interrogated and searched has no value at all; it only serves to make plane travel take an hour longer than it otherwise would. So just as I might be willing to pay $10 more to save an hour off my travel time by taking a faster flight, I'd be willing pay $10 to save an hour by accepting a faster (but less "secure") check-in process.

Some other /. poster said it best at the time of the event:

No amount of inconvenience will give you the security you desire.

Forcing people to turn on their computers doesn't protect us against smart people with bombs in the spare battery compartment, sending people through a metal detector doesn't protect us against smart people with sharp ceramic or glass or obsidian or plastic objects, and everybody knows this. And I for one am sick of all this nonsense. We should stop pretending that the solution to a failed strategy is more of the same.

Nope, from now on I want to fly the Unfriendly Skies. And if somebody tries to take my plane, we'll all have our own knives and guns aboard to stop them in their tracks. Who's with me?