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Airport Screeners could see X-rated X-rays

AdamBomb writes "Think airport security is bad enough already? Well, the Department of Homeland Security is now planning on rolling out new machines that will allow screeners to actually see through clothing. Could be bad news, though privacy advocates are obviously fighting it."

19 of 1,407 comments (clear)

  1. Who wants to see everything? by IO+ERROR · · Score: 5, Funny
    "Well, you'll see basically everything," said Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate and technology consultant. "It shows nipples. It shows the clear outline of genitals."

    It's time to get a job as an airport screener!

    --
    How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
    1. Re:Who wants to see everything? by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think any healthy person has anything to hide. But...

      For all those who've had major surgery, wear adult diapers, colostomy bags, have stomas, preoperative transexuals, hemaphrodites and other private matters of which they may not want their travelling companions or the minumum wage "security" guard at the airport to know about, I can see some good reason to be concerned about their privacy.

      Doctors take oaths and take patient privacy seriously. Airport security?

      And there's nothing to stop a suicidal nutcase from packing their chest cavity with explosives. Should this be a full x-ray?

      If this goes anywhere, I bet the company selling this junk has some relationship with a politician.

  2. Regular people by Ledora · · Score: 5, Funny

    Have you seen regular people in society? like 1/3 of people are overweight and many people are OLD..... yeah it would be nice when a euro female soccer team comes thru but UGH I would not want to see the normal 40something soccer MOM (or dad)!

  3. sample pic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a sample of what they see:

    http://www.freedomisslavery.info/index.php?p=1138

  4. Thomas Jefferson saw this coming by madsenj37 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most bad government has grown out of too much government.-Thomas Jefferson Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

    --
    Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
  5. When can we expect... by Mister+Impressive · · Score: 5, Funny

    When can we expect the retail eye-wear version of this technology to be mass produced?

    </obligatory>

    --
    Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
  6. Are you suprised? What did you expect? by John+Seminal · · Score: 5, Funny
    The city of boston started with 1000 camera's for the convention, promising it was only for the convention, then deciding to keep them.

    The city of chicago followed next, installing 3000 camera's. They can look inside cars. They can tell if you're smoking a joint. They can tell if you're talking to a prostitute.

    The city of naperville is installing fingerprint machines in order for people to use the library.

    The United States Congress is pushing for a national ID card, with biometrics.

    Lets face it, people will soon be tracked, it will be impossible to just slip into a city. The police will know who you are and where you are at all times.

    They will soon take your DNA, without your agreement. Anyone hear about DNA dragnets being used in towns? And it is easy for them to get it. They pull you over in your car, they take you down to the station with a bogus charge. They take your picture and fingerprints. They then tell you, we'll we made a mistake, sorry, you're free to go. And as you leave, they vacum up the hair that fell out off your head. Now they have all the information, and there is nothing you can do about it.

    So what if they can see you naked? Big deal. That should be the least of your worries, that Officer Friendly can see your wee-wee. What would worry me more is he can keep a tab on what your reading at the library.

    Databases are here to stay, and in the future your whole life will exist in a database, somewhere.

    It sucks, but that is the preperation for the revolution. If you're not willing to work 50 hours a week just to cover your rent, you will be labled a terrorist. Cuba is waiting for all who complain.

    --

    Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."

  7. Re:Hardly X-Rated. Maybe R-Rated... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This falls on the "acceptable security" side for me.

    That's great. Meanwhile, the rest of us are trying to enjoy what rights we have left, ok?

  8. that's the problem by cahiha · · Score: 5, Funny

    If a male has nothing to hide, that's exactly the reason why he is concerned to be seen naked.

  9. A couple or more things by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    1) The images released to the news are intentionally blurry. The real images are much sharper. You can also see e.g. the shinbone as the backscatter radiation penetrates not only clothing, but skin.

    2) The amount of radiation received is portrayed as being low. What they neglect to mention is the dosage per UNIT TIME. Sure, you get more on an International flight, but it is amortized over a number of hours, not minutes or seconds. For example, a bone marrow recipient has the old defective marrow killed off by radiation over a couple of days; the same dosage would be fatal if given over a short time period. You also have to add in the cumulative effect of being scanned now in ADDITION to any other radiation you already would receive. If you fly frequently, this may be alarming.

    3) This still does nothing for explosives smuggled internally, or for the 95% of unscreened checked luggage. It also does nothing to protect people standing in lines for tickets or at the terminal.

    For instance, imagine the TSA actually catches a suicide bomber strapped with explosives. Well, he or she can take out hundreds of people in those parallel security lines, from a combination of different flights...

    Thus, all the screening they have added is NOT for protecting people, but for protecting PLANES. Planes are expensive.

    Finally, remember in Israel they made it very hard to hijack a plane. What happened? They got suicide bombers every OTHER place instead. Night clubs, restaurants, cafes, on buses, in traffic, everywhere. If you don't want suicide bombers, you have to prevent people from WANTING to do it in the first place. Trying to catch them in the act is going after the symptom, not the root problem.

    Airplanes are more secure now for one reason only. The passengers now know to fight back.

    We aren't going to see another hijacking for that reason alone. However, there are numerous ways to sneak items onboard which could take out the plane. And it is trivial to leave an unattended package in a crowded line, and an incident at a major airport will shut it down and snarl traffic across the country just as well as if it were on a plane.

    It is impossible to stop 100% of determined attacks. The best defense is to avoid having enemies that hate you to that extent in the first place.

  10. Stupid by BenjyD · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Airline security is so strange. No metal cutlery, no pen knives, nothing vaguely weapon-like in hyour hand luggage, advanced scanner technology everywhere on boarding.

    But can I take these four bottles of duty-free vodka which can be turned into extremely sharp weapons in about five seconds in my hand luggage? Of course you can sir.

  11. Re:Hardly X-Rated. Maybe R-Rated... by jcr · · Score: 5, Informative

    While the decline from '03 to '04 is good news, the significant figures are those that include the period from immediately before the adoption of the UK's victim disarmament law until the present day.

    For the overal historical picture, see "Guns and Violence: The English Experience"

    In a nutshell, crime in the UK was on a fairly steady decline until the proponents of victim disarmament started to get their way in the 1930s. It all really hit the fan in the late 1990s, when the gun ban precipitated a sharp rise in gun crime.

    When a government is willing to imprison an innocent man for defending himself from criminals, you should certainly expect a jump in crime.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  12. Re:If you drive on the highway... whats an airplan by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 5, Funny
    Hmm what keeps someone from storing plastic explosive up their a$$ ?
    Now that's what I call a dirty bomb!
    --
    "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
  13. Re:Hardly X-Rated. Maybe R-Rated... by xSauronx · · Score: 5, Funny

    see, the fondling is my problem with airport security too...it just never lasts *quite* long enough.

    --
    By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
  14. And That Buys You What, Exactly? by Greyfox · · Score: 5, Insightful
    In the past lets say, oh, 20 years, how many people have snuck a weapon onto a plane on their person? The 9/11 terrorists carried their boxcutters on in their luggage and at the time they'd have been allowed those items even if they'd been searched (And I seem to recall that at least one of them actually was.)

    Besides which, the golden age of hijacking planes is now over. No group of passengers or crew is going to allow it anymore. Pull any shit on a plane and you'll get your ass tackled by every person on the plane. If they somehow still succeed, the government will have no problem blowing a civilian aircraft out of the sky now that they know what their alternatives are. I got even money on any single fighter pilot being able to pull the trigger on civilians, which is one of the reasons they scramble two.

    The more I see stuff like this, the more I'm inclined to believe that no one in the government has any idea how to actually keep its citizens safe. I'm think that this, like many other "security measures" since 9/11, is a placebo designed soley to comfort an ignorant population by making them think that someone is actually doing something useful. Certainly a naked X-ray is a much more comforting thought than is the idea that you could be on the receiving end of an air-to-air missile if someone does actually succeed in hijacking your plane...

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  15. U.S. Constititution 101 by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Today folks, we will learn about a clause of this great document that says, more or less, you have many, many rights, and that it doesn't have to be listed in the Constitution or some other document for it to be a right. That's correct, it does not have to be listed, to be a right.

    One example, plucked right out of the air (pun intended), is the right to travel freely. You don't have to present documents or internal passports to move within the US.

    So, not do you only have the right to fly, technically, it is a violation of your rights to make you present identification.

    But it gets better. You have the right to enter into contracts as you see fit, as an adult, but not into contracts that violate any of your rights... you can't sell yourself into slavery. One example of a contract you can enter into is paying $500 to fly to some city on the other side of the country. An example of a contract that is invalid, giving up your right to very intimate privacy such as revealing your nipples and buttcrack to a airport screener in return for being allowed to board.

    you don't have to fly if it's that big of a deal for you.

    Maybe he does have to fly. I can think of any number of contrived scenarios where there is no other option, really. Some quite plausible. A parent is dying on the other coast, and you only have a few hours left. Rocketcar Taxi Services is out of business for breaking speed laws...

    But it does not matter. It could be the shallowest reason, or no reason at all. The entire point of having rights, is that you don't need to ask for permission to exercise them, or justify their use. And even if we're going to get into tired arguments about abuse of rights, if such a thing is possible, not wanting to be digitally undressed by a TSA mouthbreather just to go on a trip is not one of them.

    1. Re:U.S. Constititution 101 by mmeister · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here here!! I only wish there were more people that were interested in their rights over the illusion of safety.

      Come on, nail clippers "banned"? Because you might threaten to clip somebody's nails on the plain? (They're not sharp enough for anything else).

      Four matches is OK, but FIVE!! OH NO, that's a potential terror risk!!

      And as a bonus, I saw on the news that they're now arbitrarily fining people when they find something on their "do not bring list" with a minimum $250 fine (because the law allows them to). The amount of the fine is based on what you had confiscated and "your attitude toward the screeners". Then your name is put in a secret database and you may be subjected to more security searches indefinitely (in other words, persecuted). And no, you are not allowed to know if you are in the database or what information is stored about you in that database.

      TSA is doing exactly what many of us have feared, they're flexing their muscle in the name of "better security" and stealing away our rights in the process. The x-rated x-ray machine is yet another example of this.

      Of course, the only reason we're "safer" right now is because the terrorists haven't decided to strike. So what will happen when they do? Just start writing down your rights so you can remember what you used to have!!

      Welcome to Germany, 1943! Enjoy your flight!

  16. Re:Hardly X-Rated. Maybe R-Rated... by magarity · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're either a cretinous Fox News slave or you're knowingly mendacious. Either way, fuck you

    What did I do to get this kind of language??? From ACLU's own website: The American Civil Liberties Union today told a House subcommittee that airline passenger profiling would be a dangerously ineffective, invasive and potentially discriminatory practice

    The grandparent post was about a 2 year old getting searched in the name of being fair to everyone and I pointed out that it would be discriminatory and the ACLU would be all over them if they picked only on suspicious characters. Are you seriously telling me that the ACLU would be in favor of not screening small children but only suspicious characters??? How do you reconcile your claim with their own news release say that profiling better not be used because it might discriminate??? It's all very fine if you want to support searching small children in the name of being fair, but don't blast me if I agree with the grandparent that it's silly to do so.

  17. Re:Hardly X-Rated. Maybe R-Rated... by Total_Wimp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm amazed at the fact that people are so fearful of terrorists that they would allow this. The murder rate in America is between about 10,000 and 25,000 people. Even at the low number, each year about four times more Americans get murdered by fellow Americans than died in 9/11.

    We don't allow ourselves to be randomly strip searched at the mall, in bars or before entering our cars, yet we're far more likely to be murdered in those places than on (or by) a plane. Why do we look at run-of-the-mill murder as something that we can't afford to give up our rights to prevent, but terrorism as something that is so fearful that almost anything is fair game.

    I don't think I'm in a position to not travel on a plane, but I can still protest if they impliment this. I will find a non-metalic substance that's high contrast to one of these machines and I'll spell out the words "go fuck yourselves you nazi whores" on my chest or back, but under my shirt. The only people who will see it will be the screeners. I will continue to be completely cheerfull and cooperative in every other way. After they get finished looking at my cock and my ass cheeks with their machines, I dare those mother-fuckers to accuse me of being crude or mean to them.

    TW