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Full Body Scanners Installed In 10 US Airports
Lapzilla brings word that airports around the US are beginning to use a new type of body-scanning machine which records pictures of travelers underneath their clothing. The process takes roughly 30 seconds, and the person viewing the pictures is located in a separate room. We've discussed similar scanners in the past. From USAToday:
"[Barry Steinhardt, head of the ACLU technology project] said passengers would be alarmed if they saw the image of their body. 'It all seems very clinical and non-threatening -- you go through this portal and don't have any idea what's at the other end,' he said. Passengers scanned in Baltimore said they did not know what the scanner did and were not told why they were directed into the booth. Magazine-sized signs are posted around the checkpoint explaining the scanners, but passengers said they did not notice them."
Gross.
Second thing:
Wonder if it would be legal to sell a line of rubberized scan-proof lingerie?
"Auntie Mandy's No-Scan Panties: The TSA won't see your va-jay-jay today"
"Bodacious Ta's Rubber Bras: If the TSA wants to see your nipples, make 'em buy you dinner first."
"Mr. Happy's Super Sleeves: Take a 'tripod' through the TSA scanner."
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Government-sponsored voyeurism has reached a new low. Who are we protecting ourselves against again?
Silence of the Lambs style human skin suit. A man needs his privacy.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
Even worse: They want to see our children naked!
Please will someone (aside from the TSA and pedophiles) please think of the children!
Would the recorded images of people under 18 be considered child porn?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Wouldn't this fall under the auspices of unreasonable search and seizure? It seems to me this manner of search invades personal privacy for no other reason than everyone is a criminal in the eyes of the TSA.
I would hope that this matter gets brought up in SCOTUS
I recently saw signs for this when going through LAX - but the serurity point I wnt through did not have them installed yet.
The sign I read had one line at the bottom that said you could opt/ask not to go through the screening process. It did not say what horrid, annoying or time conuming process was the alternative.
Like so many other times when dealing with law enforcement, simply say "no, I'd rather not."
It occurred to me recently when they started charging to bring almost any luggage with you at all, that actually they are trying to make flying such a ridiculous process that people will just stop doing it unless they really need to.
Think about it. The new fees on checked luggage are just going to cause people to push the envelope of carry on bags to the point the boarding/unboarding process is unbearable. Add on to that the 3-1-1, you can't bring liquids with you at all if you can't check baggage and you're not allowed to carry them on. Now they also are going to be looking at basically naked pictures of you as you get on the plane, and, oh yeah, don't forget you are paying a lot of money for this poor treatment, and soon the sodas won't even be free.
No one in their right mind would fly at all under these circumstances, and that's exactly what they want.
Add to that the fact that the average airline seat was designed to fit the human body perfectly... by testing the fit against a one-armed, one-legged midget with a fetish for being confined.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
That's not what they want. Fuel has moved from 10% of the airlines' cost to more than half, in some cases. Nearly a dozen airlines have folded in the last few months, and even the largest carriers are getting panicky. If anything, this is more problematic than the post-9/11 jitters, because everyone knew they would subside, but no one knows if this is going to be a bubble or if it's the new standard for oil. As someone who likes to fly 3-5 times a year (and would like to fly more), I'm concerned that what used to be comfortable $300 flights (I'm 5'4") will become crowded $450 flights, and that makes it hard for me to justify the expense.
The airlines would love to get back to competing on fares while also having a comfortable profit margin. It's just not in the cards right now.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
That's the wavelength. It uses radio, I'm assuming like ultrasound, except it doesn't penetrate your skin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millimeter_wave
It would be within the range of 57-64 GHz.
...airports around the US are beginning to use a new type of body-scanning machine which records pictures of travelers underneath their clothing. The process takes roughly 30 seconds, and the person viewing the pictures is located in a separate room. So, basically, it's like one of those "private rooms" in a porn shop. Except, the slide show pictures come every thirty seconds and you could get anybody from the hot blonde who is heading to Florida with her friends to...well...this guy (possibly NSFW).Probably the most embarrassing thing that would be revealing some of the locations of body piercings.
This isn't an X-ray machine, or even a Z-backscatter machine. It's a millimeter wave device. TSA has a web page for the thing. It's not as detailed as a Z-backscatter image.
Here's the product page for the ProVision scanner. It's made by Level 3 Communications.
This thing was first announced last year, so the story is out of date.
http://www.tsa.gov/blog/2008/05/you-asked-for-ityou-got-it-millimeter.html
Ocean liner. Fine meals, suites, good company, pools, ocean view, time to reflect, luxury in general. When you get where you're going, rent a private vehicle, presuming you're going significantly inshore. Possibly train travel; depends on the country. Trains can be luxurious and fine; or they can be just like aircraft. Research is worth doing before you travel.
When I compare going on an aircraft to an ocean liner, the aircraft comes off as an experience somewhat akin to a few hours in a hamster cage. With crowded, angry hamsters and mad scientists at the cage door.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Gotta give those TSA pukes a little thrill. Or maybe I'll go through wearing a wig and a dress. The female screener will REALLY enjoy that. I wonder if anyone ever rubbed one out as the passed through the metal detector?
I'm just trying to make travel more enjoyable for everybody.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Only if the tumor is in the shape of a gun or knife.
I have to wonder how effective he would be as president.
On the flipside, he could and probably would veto pretty much any needless expansion of government, funding bills, etc...
Total Stalemate.
On the plus side, in my experience a government that does nothing is doing better than usual.
Yes, well, if they're going to be charging a lot of money for an uncomfortable experience, it doesn't seem very smart to pre-annoy the living heck out of the customers before they even get on the aircraft.
They don't need to be doing any of this nonsense. They just need to armor the cockpit and plop an air marshal on each flight. That reduces the threat to the less than it used to be; the trigger for all this hysteria was flying the aircraft into extremely high value and heavily populated buildings. So make that impossible and let the rest of us get on with our lives.
The real problem here is that hysteria is meat and potatoes for political stumping. Politicians have every reason to push this crap around -- it saves them from having to deal with real issues. Like health care, the infrastructure, the national debt, erosion of the constitution... you know, stuff that actually matters. But a huge number of people are gullible and stupid, and that's why this crap will never end, barring total collapse of the government.
Democracy is flawed from the outset. It allows any two uninformed people to outvote an informed person in a context where informed people are rare. Both in the general public and in the congress. Game rigged to fail, right there.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
In the many years I studies physics, there were no particles I knew of that created something called "millimeter waves".
Er, studied physics where?
There's nothing mysterious about millimeter waves. They're from about 30GHz to 300GHz. They're not ionizing radiation, like X-rays. Here's a simple scanning millimeter wave radar system with pictures of the components and images from the system. Note the tiny waveguide and feed horn. It's a radar in miniature. This little unit runs at 35GHz, so it's just barely into the millimeter range.
In the millimeter RF range, it seems to be possible to get up to about 100GHz with off the shelf components using Gunn diodes and GaAs transistors. Above 100GHz is still mostly an area for experimental work. There are people working on "to 100GHz and beyond!. But not much is really working up there yet.
This isn't a backscatter X-ray system. That's a completely different technology.
How about the officer watching remotely sits in one of these things so all passengers can look at who is looking at them. I bet they'd get a ton of applications for that job...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is exactly what they want EVERYONE to think. But the truth of the matter is, no, you DON'T have to go along with it. People need to wake up and stop being a bunch of ignorant sheep in the face of all of this. Refuse the scan, refuse the pat-down, refuse to even fly anymore. Prices are going up and so is the amount of bullshit they make you go through to squeeze yourself into a cramped metal tube with not but a package of stale peanuts as food.
Really, why is all of this crap even necessary? All it does is create more headache for everyone involved. I'm not saying we need NO security, but this is honestly going completely overboard. Metal detectors? Good idea. Keeps people from bringing certain bad things on planes. X-ray luggage? Also good, for reasons stated above. Air marshalls? I'm not keen on the idea of firearms at 35,000 feet, but someone in law enforcement is a good idea if someone gets a bit drunk or stupid. Re-enforced cockpit doors? Should have been done a long time ago. That's just common sense.
Beyond that, I don't really see any of it as more than an excuse to spend vast sums of money. Air travel is still one of the safest (albiet nowhere near the most comfortable these days) ways to travel. The only reason incidents get so much media attention is the number of people killed in one event. Wait a couple hours and the number of deaths on the highway will take the lead once again, however. Bombings went out of style in the 80's, and you can forget about any more hijackings. After 9/11, do you REALY think passengers are going to stand for that sort of crap anymore? Not a chance. We're throwing money at phantoms, here. Attacking air travel is pretty much dead these days, but not because of any new security measures. All the same, I think I'll take my chances on the highway. At least nobody is going to attempt coercing me into a full-body scan and cavity search just to get into my car.
One final aside:
Wasn't the whole mantra several years back one of "We musn't change our way of life, or THEY will have won."? Now look at us. We allow draconian measures to be passed in the name of "security". We freak like children with imaginary boogeymen under our beds when someone even THINKS the word "terrorist." We happily give up privacy because we are sold on the illusion that it's for our own good and it will only effect those who have nothing to hide. We have become completely paranoid and changed the way we do pretty much anything, out of fear that we will get hit again. I'm sorry, but isn't that the very goal of a terrorist act? To have us do EXACTLY what we have done in the past seven years?
Society has become so caught up in going apeshit trying to prevent THEM from winning, that the exact opposite effect seems to have occured. Eight years ago, almost nobody had ever heard of the names being tossed about on the news. Now, it's foremost in everyone's mind. Their goal wasn't to savagely murder thousands of people, that was just the tool they chose to use. No, their real goal was to make themselves known, and us frightened. I hate to say it, but they succeeded.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
I'm getting tired of the terrorism arms race. We don't really get anywhere in the end, other than inconveniencing innocent people and wasting tax dollars. What's worse is that it's not even a symmetrical arms race. We re-up our side many times in-between each successively more advanced attack attempt by the enemy.
If I were Al'Queda, do you know what I would do? I would just keep coming up with nifty ways to hide a knife or a bomb that are novel, and send people through airport scanners using these ever-changing techniques and looking suspicious, just to be sure that every one of them are caught anyways. The net result would be that every caught "terrorist" results in the US wasting more money and pissing off more citizens in a futile attempt to improve security against each new method. What easier way to inflict pain on the US is there than that?
New methods that beat the current system are always easy to invent at any given point in time, especially for someone with money and determination on their side. The article says these things can't see through skin or rubber. Like all systems, this new one is fallible too in many ways.
The correct way to combat air terrorism is a 3-pronged approach:
1) Stop pissing people off. I'm *not* a terrorist apologist. Far from it - terrorism is always wrong in my moral book. But you can go a long ways to towards preventing it by not pissing off large groups of angry people to begin with. By this I mean improve our foreign policy.
2) Focus on smart human intervention. There has been some DHS focus lately (I'm not sure how much) on training psychological profilers to patrol airports undercover. This is likely far more effective than anything the TSA screening stations are ever likely to do, and much less susceptible to the arms race problem.
3) Stop trying to turn your own population into sheeple - teach them to be observant, responsible, and empowered. A citizenry which is self-confident and alert is a great watchdog against all kinds of bad events. A citizenry who gets treated like cattle (as in, current TSA practices) act like cattle: they keep their head down, don't observe and react to strange events. They just start assuming the Nanny State must be taking care of things for them, no need to be vigilant.
No one bitches and moans. No one. Americans, at best, grumble and murmur under their breath.
In a nation infamous for its loud and litigious protesters, the silence, the absolute and utter _silence_ on this issue is screaming. Where are the protestors? Where are the acronymed activists groups? Where are the calls to senators and paid for TV ads against these intrusions? Where are the B-list celebrity messages? Where are the class action lawsuits?
Jesus. Even the ambulance chasers have been battered into submission. You're not going to be able to fix this for decades.
May the Maths Be with you!
The same way you'd qualify anyone for any other important job. Test them. Would you hire an engineer who has no experience in engineering? Would you hire a doctor who hasn't passed the medical boards? Would you put a soldier in the field who doesn't know how to fight? No? Then why are you so bloody eager to employ anyone off the street to decide issues they have no expertise in?
Qualification for any important job is only sensible. The myth that "we are all created equal" was a philosophical blunder that was probably meant to imply no more than "we should all be afforded the same opportunities, and what we make of them is what we get." The opportunity is to try for a job; not get it. The potential should be to pass or fail, not to get it just because you're breathing and slightly warmer than room temperature. As it is, the "qualifications" for political office are to pretend you believe in an imaginary friend and don't get caught doing anything the body politic can't afford to do themselves. As for who should issue the tests, just your average bureaucrat should do fine. I'm sure they could design them, too, that's the just the kind of thing they love to haggle over.
Well, you have a democratic republic. Sort of. Insofar as its been able to obey its constituting authority, which isn't very far. Enjoy it.
Me, I'd rather have some form of meritocracy. The idea of people running an enterprise who are actually qualified to do so -- as opposed to being "popular" -- is alluring to me. Americans made Paris Hilton popular. And Britney Spears. And Flava Flav. If that doesn't tell you how busted the idea of "popular" is, I don't know what will.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
What ever happened to freedom from unreasonable search and seizures by governmental bodies (TSA)?
I mean seriously - what has happened - have we slid down the slippery slope, or been boiled to death one degree at a time?
I'm just waiting for a clothing manufacture to come out with millimeter wave blocking clothes or underwear. Need a little metallic weave in the cloth to do the trick.
..........FULL STOP.
I mean - what's to stop a hijacker from hiding a ceramic knife up his rectum? or C4... this and metal detectors wont find it. Can we expect cavity searches next?
..........FULL STOP.
If you don't agree with me, I'd can cite many history examples to prove my point.
I like to kill your couch. HE DIED HARD! MOO.
Why did you not also quote the VERY NEXT SENTENCE FTA?
Here peabrain, I'll save you the trouble:
"Passengers scanned in Baltimore said they did not know what the scanner did and were not told why they were directed into the booth.
Magazine-sized signs are posted around the checkpoint explaining the scanners, but passengers said they did not notice them."
Didn't notice all of the signs around the checkpoint....hmmm just like 6 year olds.
"How does a passenger refuse the scan if they're not told what's going on until after the fact, or given the option of refusing the scan??
They (and YOU) can start by pulling your heads out of your rectums and PAY ATTENTION to what's going on around you.
Yeah, I know your type:
'Me!Me!Me!-Gimme!Gimme!Gimme!'
That's what is wrong now:not scanners in airports per se, but idiots like you who DO need a nanny. You have brought the whole deal on all of us.
*sarcasm* Thanks, asshat!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I take it you haven't been a patron of the British rail system then.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
No, that's not obvious at all. Look, who picks those who qualify the physicists? How do they get qualified? Why don't we get a majority of dimwit creationists running around physics labs? What about lawyers? Why can't just anyone be a lawyer? Wouldn't that be "fair"? Subject the selection process to scrutiny. Let the academics work it out. Define it as working that way. Etc. This isn't insoluble.
Are you seriously telling me that because it isn't easy, we should turn away and let this mess continue sliding downhill? I'm not saying its easy, I'm just saying what we have is BROKEN. Don't think my ideas are any good for fixing it? Fine. Fix it some other way. Just blinking fix it before our torturing, big-brother-esque, rights-eroding, liberty-crushing, save-the-everloving-children at the expense of anything at all society falls apart at the seams.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No. You need to look at the employment report to understand it. That link goes to whatever is the current version of the report at the time (it's issued monthly), though archives are available.
There's a population of about 300 million people in the country. Many of them are retired or too young to be able to work. Some are infirm, others do not need to work. Others simply aren't looking for work. All of these are not counted in the statistics. Everyone else -- those working and those actively looking for work -- are considered the civilian work force. Of them, 5.5% are not employed. That works out to about 8.4 million people. Of these, about 38% have been unemployed for fewer than five weeks. Another 29% have been unemployed for 5-14 weeks, and the remaining have been unemployed for longer than 14 weeks.
The unemployment rate in the Europe Union is even worse than in Canada, at 7%.
Full employment is reached at about 4% unemployment. Anything lower than that, and inflation starts to set in because it becomes a sellers' market. Employers have to come up with exorbitant salaries to hold onto their workers, and it becomes an arms race among the employers, who then have to raise their own prices to avoid taking financial losses. This happened in the last couple of years under Clinton, when the unemployment rate dropped under 4% and things started to get messy.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Car analogies break down.
Another student of physics here. You can make pretty much any frequency of radiation you like by moving electrons at that frequency. The difficult part tends to be how to move them about that fast. :-)
Efficient emission and detection of Submillimeter radiation has not been practical for very long, which may be why you haven't heard of it. It's most often refered to as Terahertz Radiation.
If you want stories of people being purposefully mislead, they outright lie about these things in Heathrow airport, London.
The signs tell people that the machine uses a "very low dose of x-ray radiation". I was picked for a random security check, and given the choice of the scanner or a manual search. The manual thing sounded kind of scary, so I went for the scanner, in the full knowledge that it involves someone looking at my naked body.
Now, because it sounds a bit frightening and was very new then, they were obviously instructed to reassure people about it, so when I insisted on seeing the images, they let me (they showed me the shot from behind, presumably in the hope i wouldn't realise they'd obviously looked at my cock). It was very obviously a Terrahertz-band scanner, but the staff and all the signs stated it was an x-ray machine, because everyone is used to those.
Guess not everyone is a physics student who knows that X-rays are more dangerous than T-rays! I wouldn't have gone in the machine if I hadn't been totally sure that the ionising radiation was a lie.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Seriously, anyone want to place bets on how long we have before the penis "enlargement" industry starts mentioning this in their spam?
ExTEND YUOR "MEMBER"! Did you hear that hot airport security worker snickering and pointing at your tiny P3N!S when they scanned you?????
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Drive, take a train, ride a bike, horse or walk. But when it becomes necessary to do so, so that one may live in the USA, then restrictions on that activity essentially infringe on our rights.
Obviously some lose this right because they are a menace to others (drunk drivers, etc).
As someone else pointed out, the TSA is my problem, since it is a governmental agency.
..........FULL STOP.