Slashdot Mirror
TSA To Make Pat-Downs More Embarrassing To Encourage Scanner Use
Jeffrey Goldberg writes for the Atlantic about his recent experiences with opting out of the back-scatter full-body scanners now being used to screen airport travelers. Passengers can choose to submit to a pat-down instead of going through the scanners, but according to one of the TSA employees Goldberg talked to, the rules for those are soon changing to make things more uncomfortable for opt-outs, while not doing much for actual security. He writes, 'The pat-down, while more effective than previous pat-downs, will not stop dedicated and clever terrorists from smuggling on board small weapons or explosives. When I served as a military policeman in an Israeli army prison, many of the prisoners 'bangled' contraband up their a**es. I know this not because I checked, but because eventually they told me this when I asked. ... the effectiveness of pat-downs does not matter very much, because the obvious goal of the TSA is to make the pat-down embarrassing enough for the average passenger that the vast majority of people will choose high-tech humiliation over the low-tech ball check."
first pat
Go ahead.
You might want to have a think about who's really being humiliated in this situation though. I don't think it's me.
How exactly does this make us anymore secure? If a terrorist could exploit a loophole in the pat down procedure, then he wouldn't care whether it was anymore embarrassing.
What will be the difference between a pat down and a molest? Inevitably it'll take a lawsuit to find out.
Mod Me Up. You'll make a grown man cry.
Maybe a solution to this panic-stricken theater would be to start requiring all passengers coming off a US flight to go through the same mess as those arriving in the US. Especially those who are government employees. And make sure they are told "this policy will remain in place until the US once again starts behaving like a civilized country".
Maybe with the addendum that "All travelers arriving from countries who have not signed the ICC treaty must be strip-searched and quarantined for 48 hours on arrival, before passport check is done." (this would include those arriving on diplomatic passports). Countries who do not accept international laws have no business sending people outside their own borders, period.
... between indecent assault, and being irradiated with dangerous levels of microwave and X-rays?
Oh well, it's not like I can't drive anywhere I'd otherwise fly to.
but let me be the first to say.... LOL
I Need someone to rebuild a Digitech Digital Delay pedal for me....for me...for me...for me.
I would opt for the pat-down provided the person checking me is not gay. Considering how seriously homo-phobic (most) men are, he hopefully won't be too thorough.
I'd STILL be cheering after all these years...
Look what we're doing to ourselves... We've done more damage to our country than the terrorists ever could have hoped to do directly...
We proved it.. Terrorisim works! And works fuckin awesome too! Not directly.. But the whole country losing its fucking mind, wasting BILLIONS, is sure a huge victory for the terrorists.
Way to go my fellow sheeple americans. Fuckin ijits.
Whilst making the pat down more embarrassing may encourage scanner use for the average bloke, average blokes don't blow up planes! So basically this seems like just another ploy to irritate the general public to foster a false sense of security.
So I get a little free hand action with every flight? AWESOME!
Can I tip extra to get a stewardess?
TSA: Sir, please empty your pockets, even scraps of paper, then step into this booth and place your feet on the yellow footprints. Me: I'd like to request a patdown, please TSA: Certainly sir, please wait here. Approx 3 min wait, then someone walked over, and spent another minute explaining how he will touch my butt and pelvic area with only the back of his hand, then he proceeded to do that The actual pat-down took another 3 minutes and was quite thorough It felt a bit intrusive, but not having experienced one before I don't know if I got the new, enchanced version or not. Like parent above, this was my silent protest: let them waste time on this. I will continue to opt for the pat-down.
Quiet? Hell you really want to make it fun, take some viagra before going in, and moan a little when they start the pat-down.
If you have to feel uncomfortable, they should as well :)
XKCD, where would we be without your ideas.
...
...that you people continue to put up with this crap.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
If I had that job, I would at least have to humor to say, "Cough, please!", when checking the balls.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
But I expect a refund if the plane blows up. Is that fair?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Then ask for a private area. This will require at least three TSA employees to occupy there time exclusively for you. I fly several times a month and always do this. I guess it is just my little method of rebellion. I did notice the pat down I received two days ago was much more invasive.
You need to be trained to accept government intrusion into your personal space, do whatever they tell you to.
If you'll let them feel you up in public then letting them scan your email will seem like no big deal.
No sig today...
How's the crackdown on TSA employees who steal from baggage coming along? Oh, there isn't one.
No sig today...
Anyone else starting to see the TSA as a bigger problem than actual terrorists?
Not sure about the solution but what we have is dysfunctional. We know we can't count on the airlines to run airport security. But TSA is starting to treat the flying public like some inconvenience while doing little to thwart actual terrorists.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
seems like
http://xkcd.com/779/
would make it as embarrassing to security doing pat downs as viewing the scanner results
will make it FAR more embarrassing for the dude or dudette who has to examine my sweaty junk.
The biggest complaints about this new policy will soon be coming from the staff.
Whether it is sanctioned sexual molestation ( pat downs ) or getting nuked with scanner radiation Americans didn't cause this problem and we do deserve to be treated this way. It is time to find another solution.
A start might be to make the scanning more palatable by hiring higher caliber people for security and giving them training in how to act and be more mature about the process. Their behavior and comments started many of the objections with scanning.
No seriously. I haven't come across any details regarding the backscatter or the pat downs that discusses differential treatment for young travelers. Don't have kids, but I would imagine a parent's dilemma when traveling in the coming days will be: a) quasi-nude imagery of my children; or b) stranger danger.
I think that the real long-term plan here is to minimize pat-down use to such a level, that later it can be abandoned altogether without much resistance from the flying public. When they (you know, THEY) have been able to make us consider pat-downs as the less-humiliating option, I think they are safe to assume they'll eventually be able to force us to do anything...
This has never been a problem for me. I only wear a speedo and flip-flops when I travel by air.
Does your job require you to travel cross-country?
If so, your employer, as part of your work function is forcing you to subject yourself to either [a] "being seen naked by a stranger", or [b] "being groped by a stranger".
Either way, it seems like a perfect test-case for a sexual-harassment lawsuit. There are alternate forms of transportation that don't require being forced to make the decision above (if speed is important, you spend more money and charter a jet, if thrift is important, you spend more time and take a train). So if your employer requires that you fly commercial, it seems that you have an excellent cause of action under existing Sexual Harassment law.
Bonus points if you actually work for the gov't so you can avoid suing someone who didn't have a lot of say in the rules in the first place.
Kinda remands me of a tactic the Aussie unemployment benefits department (Centrelink) used a while back, they didn't want people to come in to the office so they would keep changing the appointment times to encourage people to use the call centre to solve their problem.
Or even our local water authority, who after many complaints about chlorine levels in the water being too high (it was because their dissolving drum units kept getting it caked up inside them), rather than fix the chemical system, they increased the size of their call centre to handle the complaints.
Hrmm, seems its a common thing that government agencies just don't care about people, they only care about numbers.
...
Was anyone else completely unsurprised at the cargo place alerts just now?
One day we have a senior airline exec saying that this is ridiculous and the next daythings are 'found' that reminds us how much we need all this security.
Coincidnce? I don't think so!/p>
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
This just in, TSA has received the next model of magic-wand scanner device. Complete with multiple prongs for total coverage this new model will effectively prevent terrorism by submitting all passengers to the US to rape. Experts say that his device, known as the probulator, is the most effective weapon against terrorist because "muslims don't like getting things shoved up their ass". Thank God for our freedoms and liberties as we all walk bow-legged down the concourse to our next flight.
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
The whole security theather is not about the whole efficiency of the measures. It is more a thing that someone who thinks he is responsible can say that all measures are taken. Your 2.30 minute delay will not make an impact for this. As the writer of the article points out, it would be more effective to attack the security waiting queue. It will shut down air traffic just as effective. Bad guys will route arround the security
However if it makes you feel good then please take the ball feeling pat down instead of the penis measure machine. the fact that you feel you did your part to resist this is a good start.
only a handful of people get pat downs - the ones who fail the metal detector
This is not true -- my travel companion was once stopped for a pat down for no reason at all, right after walking through the metal detector without setting off anything.
Palm trees and 8
Come on, what real proof is there the rule change is to be more "embarrassing"? It's utterly stupid on the face of it if you think AT ALL about airport security as it is, and will be in the near future:
1) There are not enough scanners to process traffic flow at any airport.
2) (the big one) only a handful of people get pat downs - the ones who fail the metal detector. Which you don't realize until AFTER you have gone through it, so how is a slightly more embarrassing pat-down which no-one even knows about going to make you want to choose a scanner? Since people assume they are not going to trigger the metal detector why would behavior change in the slightest?
Honestly, more and more SLashdot stores are devolving into utter paranoia. And not even the productive kind.
Pat-downs are given to those who fail either of the automatic methods, or to those who explicitly request opt-out from the backscatter xray.
I belong to the latter group, those who request opt-out. As it would be, hospitals and veterinary clinics have highly trained people with advanced degrees who, when taking any kind of medical imaging, are tracking exactly the exposure that their patients get (and over time). This, so as to minimize and manage the risks from being radiated. They also have people at hand who know how to deal with radiation burns etc.
Airports have.....the TSA. They're neither trained in radiation nor tracking exposure. As exposure is cumulative, there is a real risk.
The general advice has been around here, that if you have a melanoma in certain forms, you definitely should refuse backscatter x-ray because we simply do not know that it won't worsen it, and we suspect that it may.
Thus, having a (common form of) skin cancer sufficient reason for the TSA (the employees of which, for the vast majority, are not licensed to practice medicine) to present "more embarrassing" treatment.
I systematically refuse to go through backscatter x-ray, as I find it unduly invasive, and that it does nothing to further aircraft security. Sometimes the TSA agents ask, and I reply "on medical grounds" - as they are not physicians, they are not competent (and they start to know this) to discuss passengers' medical conditions.
And, for the record, I know of at least one sexual molestation lawsuit having been brought against a TSA agent and the TSA, who enjoyed the "pat-down" of a teenage girl a little too much. Note to TSA agents: if you want to group a teenage girl, pick one whose dad is not both a trial lawyer and just behind her in line .....
-- "Life is a bitch - and she hates me..."
There is precedence for this. In the early 20th Century, there were frequent terrorist bombings by anarchists. As such, it was standard procedure in France to have a similar pat-down before boarding a steamer ship. An account of this was written by the famous author Henri de Balsack.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
This article is the one linked to from Drudge. I find it interesting that it reports most people at LaGuardia were willing to go through the TSA security because the 'alternative' is worse (plane blowed up). I queried my friends and acquaintances this past week and not one of them feels these security measures are necessary and many are changing travel plans around which airports have the scanners.
"I don't know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747,"— Rafi Sela, leading Israeli airport security expert, referring to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, which has some of the toughest security in the world. source
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
This won't get any better until you require everyone who flies to go through it. None of the private aircraft passengers are required to endure this, nor are any legislators. That means that everyone with power, and everyone who controls power, are exempt.
Until that changes, expect airport "security" to get more annoying.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It's not just "the ones who fail the metal detector" who get pat-downs, and that's not what the article is about. The TSA is increasingly using backscatter x-ray machines; if they decide to put you through one of those, you can opt to get a manual pat-down instead. This is the category of people we're talking about; they are trying to get more people to choose the backscatter x-ray by making the manual search more uncomfortable.
As for there not being enough scanners, TFA says "Agents were funneling every passenger at this particular checkpoint through a newly installed back-scatter body imaging device." I can confirm this; the last few times I've been to Logan Airport in Boston, they were putting every adult through the scanner. (They allowed a few small children to go through the metal detector instead.) Perhaps this is true only at some airports or only at non-peak times, but there are certainly situations where everyone gets funneled to the backscatter machine, and opt-outs get patted down.
The second time this happened to me, the TSA agent announced that we would go through the scanner, and didn't mention that anyone had the option to get a manual pat-down instead. When I politely requested to opt out of the scanner, the TSA agent kept trying to talk me out of it, repeatedly asking why I wanted a pat-down, informing me that it would be degrading, etc., before finally allowing it. (Honestly, one of the reasons I wanted to request a pat-down was so that other people knew it was an option!)
i thought child pornography was illegal, but dont kids have to go through the backscatter too... hmm... odd
If the TSA wants to make your pat down more humiliating, you have a chance to be even more of a pain in the ass: demand a private screening. It is well within your individual rights to do so. Furthermore, demand that a video camera document the screening so if something untoward happens, you have legal recourse. You have to remember that the TSA are just "security guards" with no more real authority than a civilian. The only TSA employees with real power are the Criminal Investigators (also known as an 1811 after the GS-1811 pay grade.) I have no problem giving an 1811 the respect they deserve, I have friends that are 1811's and they epitomise professional, honest civil servants. They go to rigorous training, have strong formally educated backgrounds in law, science, and procedure.
If your rights are denied and you miss the plane as a result, you do have more than a fighting chance. The ACLU is known to rabidly hate the TSA and itches for a chance to whittle away at their undeserved power. However, when I say be a pain in the ass, I mean be polite but firm and stand your ground. You need to appear like you are the better, more responsible person in the interaction. Don't allow yourselves to be bullied by a screener and don't be afraid to call out a potential abuse. Most importantly, know your rights! You do not have to submit to a body scan. I work in an airport and if I got this x-ray scan every time I pass through security, I might get slow radiation poisoning over several a career.
So, the TSA is out to make flying a PITA. Well, at least they're finally admitting it.
Flying for pleasure seems to be dead. Guess I'll have to keep the car running in tip-top condition, and drive to my various destinations. Virginia to LA, Virginia to Tucson, Virginia to St. Louis... its something to do after retirement. Maybe I can get a travel buddy to share expenses.
Seriously, they're going to end up doing cavity searches. As it is, your choices are get strip searched or get fondled, and that's fucking nuts (no pun intended). The sad part is that even if they did do a cavity search on everyone from 3 years to 103 years, they still wouldn't be able to stop terrorists from attacking us (hell, what's stopping a terrorist from chartering a private flight out of some rural airstrip that doesn't have any real security?). If we don't want them to hijack major airliners, we just needed the reinforced cockpit doors and instruct pilots that as soon as terrorists take the plane over they should land (or otherwise contact the FAA for guidance). 9/11 can't happen again. Our actions were based off the premise that the terrorists would fly the plane to Cuba, land, get some money, and everyone goes home happy, end of story. We know what happens now, so we adjust those plans and the rest of us go about our business. Instead we get people freaking out and others saying we need more and more security to fight a problem that quite frankly doesn't exist in any real sense. Al Qaeda are like The Matix of terrorists. Their first attempt was unexpected and really hit us hard, but their sequels just kinda fizzled.
I will not submit. Period. This, sadly, means I can't fly anymore. I haven't done so since the rise of modern facism using numerous false-flag terror operations early this century. These new full-body scanners are another step in the wrong direction.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Those are excellent points (and I had not heard of any checkpoint being able to handle sending everyone through the backscatter system), but I still think it makes no sense to claim the more invasive techniques being introduced now are designed to drive people to accept the backscatter machine now, when full deployment is years off for most locations.
They are probably just another bureaucratic shuffling to do something just to have something being done, there is nothing more sinister afoot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Anyone else starting to see the TSA as a bigger problem than actual terrorists?
Not sure about the solution but what we have is dysfunctional. We know we can't count on the airlines to run airport security. But TSA is starting to treat the flying public like some inconvenience while doing little to thwart actual terrorists.
They've been the bigger problem all along!
So now everyone who works at one of these airports with body scanners needs to be scanned themselves. Every time they leave and reenter a secured area. Everyday they show up for work. I hope their insurance covers repeated exposure to low-level backscatter x-rays.
Come on, what real proof is there the rule change is to be more "embarrassing"?
Occam's razor.
It's utterly stupid on the face of it if you think AT ALL
Exactly - the utter absurdity that this could be in any way about security is the "real proof".
Are they really going to touch a 6 year old boy or girl?
If you tape you son getting molested as evidence , is it child porn?
The people who smuggle explosives up their a**es still won't be detected by the new pat down, so the whole purpose is to either force non-terrorists to be violated by being naked on a scanner or to be violated by a more aggressive pat down (or should that be feel up). Don't get me wrong, I think we need to be on guard against terrorists, but this doesn't seem to do anything towards adding additional protections, only additional harassment.
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe some TSA agent copping a feel of a man or woman's genitalia will somehow make flying safer.
"Occam's razor."
Right, so instead of some devious plan where making patdowns slightly worse in order to drive people to use a scanner even though they don't know the patdowns are worse before they happen...
INSTEAD, why not the simpler explanation of a bureaucracy just making changes because that's what large organizations do?
Thanks for making my point.
Exactly - the utter absurdity that this could be in any way about security is the "real proof".
Exactly, proof it is unrelated. Oddly you sounded like you thought I was wrong even though you agreed with what I was saying.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Right, because the guy who's about to suicide bomb a fucking airplane is going to have second thoughts when he discovers that the "infidels" might lauch at him before he gets on the plane. I hope someone sues the shit out of these stupid bastards. All they're doing is keeping the channel that lets terrorists though while adding fuel to the fire by subjecting them to ridicule I might add, as well as making the people that pay their fucking salary more uncomfortable than they already are. Fuck you airports. This type of shit makes me hope the terrorists beat you, if it weren't for the innocent passengers involved.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
"Orders are orders", eh? It is the screeners who are executing bad policy. They are just as guilty as anybody else
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I worked with woman who has a bone disease making her bones very brittle. She has had to have something like 3 or 4 four pins in her arms and legs, shoulder joint replacements and hip replacements (she was only around 40 at the time). She and another coworker had to fly into some airport in Montana or Idaho (Helena or Boise) and the airport was small enough that at the time they didn't have a stationary metal detector and were checked with wands. The wands were more sensitive than the stationary detector and it kept going off as he scanned over the parts of her body with the replacement parts. She kept saying "yes there is pin there" or "that is a metal shoulder joint replacement." Eventually the idiot got frustrated and asked her if she could take them out. Apparently the guy traveling with her almost had a hernia trying not to laugh. At the time she didn't appreciate the humour but when they got back it made a pretty funny story. Bottom line is that many of these security guys are not rocket scientists for a good reason.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I had a member of the T.S.A. (Steve at the Port of Seattle) posting death threats to me on my message boards on my website.. So anything this organization does, no longer surprises me.
We actually traced the I.P. back to the Port of Seattle!
Unfortunately, one of our moderators thought he was doing the right thing by deleting it when we should have preserved those messages as evidence.
-Myke
not to fly at all. of course then the airlines will bemoan further lack of business due to the so called business climate and demand further tax payer funding..
I have an immune disorder that flipped in to high gear February last year, resulting in having pneumonia four times in five months. It's a genetic disorder, and I will not expose myself to those scanners for two reasons. First, I've had more than enough x-rays and diagnostic radiation in the last year, and I'll be having more, so I'm not going to casually go through things like this. Second, because this is a different kind of tech, they really don't know what repeat exposures can potentially do to your genes, and mine are screwed up enough.
Nope, they're going to have to pat me down. Maybe I'll skip showering for a few days before I fly next.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
I think it's actually a ploy to irritate the general public to drive more.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Worked there until I knew it was a waste of...well everything. I had to pat down combat vets in wheelchairs and baby's in strollers.
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
Governments do not seem to mind that these measures do nothing. A recent example in the UK concerns the power of the police to search anyone on suspicion of terrorism. Last year, the police searched over 100,000 people that way. Those searches did not lead to any convictions or even charges. In fact, they didn't even lead to any ARRESTS for terrorism-related offenses.
Because most of the people being searched were Arab Muslims, the searches aggravated those people and thus might have increased the chance that they would assist in a future terrorist attack.
Full story in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/28/terrorism-police-stop-search-arrests
Governments are obviously using the security theater for something other than real security.
I thought the trip to Mars required extra bits on your body....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Every time i take the "no pat-down at all" of driving instead of flying, it will be my small, quiet protest against both the injustice of the unconstitutional search, and the waste of time. Recommending you arrive two or three hours early for a three hour flight mocks the whole process.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
What about kids? If a parent does not want his kid to go through the naked-scanner, will the parent then be forced to watch his kid be groped? They grab on to the buttocks now and go between the legs until they feel "resistance" aka testicles.
"ARE YOU SNIFFING ME?"
"i'm thinking of a magical place, lets GO THERE! yes Yes YES!!"
Our elected officials are too afraid to take a stand against anything proposed in the name of "security," especially if security translates to political patronage controlled by them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/31/charles-henry-bennett-tsa_n_443707.html
They get off on violating children
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/dyrr8/help_i_believe_the_tsa_violated_my_son/
False Hope!
What Change?
No sig for you!!
Damn; where's Cthulu when you need him?
From wikipedia :
The typically exposure for a bacscatter x-ray scan is 0.005 mrem
The typical exposure for a 6 hour flight is 2mrem
The typical annual exposure for a human is 360mrem (mostly from natural sources)
The occupational safety limit (as set by the NRC and EPA) is 5000 mrem/year, or 2000 mrem/year if averaged over a 5 year period
The backscatter x-ray machine exposes you to 400x less radiation than the flight itself, and constitutes 1/70,000th of your NATURAL annual exposure. Even if you went through the machine EVERY SINGLE DAY of the year, you would still be under the annual occupational hazard limit by a factor of 3,000... phrased another way, you could go through the machine every 30 seconds, 24/7, for a full year without hitting the annual exposure limit!
There are many good reasons to refuse the backscatter x-ray. However refusing it on "medical grounds" is being purposefully ignorant of the facts, and immediately deflates your credibility with anyone that has access to the internet and passed second grade math. If you are THAT concerned about radiation exposure, you would be far better served to wear a paper hat whenever you are outside in the sun!
That being said, the backscatter x-ray machines, and "pat-downs" are bullshit symbollic measures. Neither can detect materials stuffed into orifices, and you better believe that someone motivated enough to bring down a plane will not hesitate to outdo goatse (not that they would even have to, a few grams of plastic explosive attached to the bathroom wall is all you need). Furthermore, as any police officer will tell you, a pat down of everything EXCEPT the "private regions" is absolutely worthless. It's all just part of the theater, citizen!
My brother's dog would qualify, no problem. Nothing more embarrassing than having the crotch missile at family gatherings or when trying to talk to that hot chick at the dog park...
Emminent scolars in the field of radiation and medicine do not agree with the conclusions that the wikipedia information that you present asserts. See, for example, this letter from UCSF faculty in bilogy and medicine, here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/35498347/UCSF-letter-to-Holdren-concerning-health-risks-of-full-body-scanner-TSA-screenings-4-6-2010
With all due respect, I would assume the sigtanators to this letter to certainly not be "purposefully ignorant" on this matter.
-- "Life is a bitch - and she hates me..."
I'm *VERY* sensitive, and I "suffer" from premature ejaculation. What happens when I get an erection an shoot my hot sticky load of love juice from my fire hose all over a hot uniformed TSA stud?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Customs guy asked if he can get into my pockets and pad my inseam after I didn't want to get scanned, I told him to knock himself out and feel free to give me a hand-job while he was down there. He was WAAAAAAAY more uncomfortable than I was. Don't underestimate the human element, turn the tables on the tools of tyranny and get into their heads.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
This is not true -- my travel companion was once stopped for a pat down for no reason at all, right after walking through the metal detector without setting off anything.
I recently flew with several co-workers, and one of them managed to get patted down (after passing the metal detector, without setting it off) both going and returning. The fact he is Iranian probably had nothing to do with it.
Many of the people working for TSA are not rocket scientists, granted, and many are genuinely below average IQ (and many above) but their main objective is to protect their job and paycheck, NOT to insure safety. That would be true of most any normal person who hasn't been through the reconditioning training that the military offers (and police/firemen/paramilitary to a lesser degree).
My experience has been that most TSA agents are fairly normal, friendly people. The minority that act like jackbooted thugs are the typical "failed the police entrance exam" types that were beat up as kids and want to take it out on the rest of the world now by "protecting" them.
The real problem (for me) isn't the jackbooted types, it is the sheer incompetence of the average TSA agent, which is so bad that you have to blame the system, not the individual. And of course, blame the politicians who are a bunch of cowtowing pussies for implementing such a kneejerk system to begin with. I still say give everyone a gun or a knife when they enter the plane, and there is no chance of a terrorist taking it down.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
And the boarder agents at the land boarder crossings as well. They can be over the top too often... both on the American and the Canadian side (mind you on the Canadian side it is mostly directed towards Canadians as they really are just rebranded tax collector automatons).
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
guess not too much longer. Before long you will need an anal search to go see a movie. The TSA needs to start publishing stats on what they are actually catching with this screening. My guess is nothing, it is all a big money waste (especially the boon dongle body scanners)
She kept saying "yes there is pin there" or "that is a metal shoulder joint replacement."
Isn't that why people with certain medical conditions, such as metal pins, are supposed to carry around some sort of bracelet or whatnot so that they can pass through security with fewer incidences. This also protects you from accidentally getting tossed in an MRI after an accident if you're unable to respond.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Was this article supposed to be taken seriously? It sounds like an attempt at bawdy humor to me.
Respectfully, I disagree.
1. You can screen your doctor for trustworthiness.
2. You can choose to visit a doctor of a gender you prefer.
3. Doctors are bound by the Hippocratic Oath: I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know.
4. Doctors rarely take, much less retain, nude photographs of your body.
Collection and use of personal information, including digital photographs, paves a road for government with inscrutable purposes: using information about people while denying them the ability to choose how that information is used. This is a severe tilt in balance between the power of the people and the power of the state. A tilt, to emphasize, that is unfavourable to the people.
In Smith v. City of Artesia, 1989, the court said, "Privacy is inherently personal. The right to privacy recognises the sovereignty of the individual." What is more private than our private parts? What can the general public be subjected to, en masse, that is more personally invasive than a pat-down or nude photo?
More blunt? Can do.
The choice: allow an anonymous agent to take nude photographs of your child, or let strangers grope your child until their hands meet "resistance": a euphemistic way to say, "touch their testicles, penis, or vulva."
Any job that forces someone to feel a child's crotch so as to encourage parents to usher their children through a machine that takes nude photographs--without probable cause of having committed a crime--is a job that aught not to exist.
Systematic violations of our private areas must be countered with outrage and utmost resistance (!) against corporations and governments alike. The TSA are not police and North America has no Police States, yet.
Add to this the uncertain health risks. Terahertz waves have resonant effects that can unzip double-stranded DNA, which, ultimately, could significantly interfere with gene expression and DNA replication. Think children, pregnant women, or sperm. And guess what wave frequency x-ray backscatter machines use? Hint: THz. http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.5294
My emotions surge at the thought of people speaking or acting out against tyranny. People must express themselves vehemently and eloquently against the infractions that governments permit to be made on our freedoms. Sometimes one voice, or one courageous action, is enough to inspire a nation. http://i.imgur.com/cfifB.jpg
Martin Niemöller foretells of what happens when people--even those who prefer to drive than fly--keep quiet: They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.
John Dewey stated, "We cannot separate the idea of ourselves and our own good from our idea of others and of their good." When we protect the rights of individuals by forcing Corporations and Governments to sit at the same table as Respect, Dignity, and Decency, we protect all of our society.
I implore you to read: http://davidjarvis.ca/dave/letters/nothing-to-hide.pdf
And fake an orgasm.
This is pure FUD. The search, which I know as the credit card sweep, (which I've both done and received numerous times) doesn't involve fondling the balls. It's a light brush with the outside of the hand. You aren't even checking the balls, you're checking the inside of the thigh. Depending on the garment worn, it can be quite easy to tuck away a full sized pistol in that area. If you don't search that area, you might as well not do searches period.
I somehow doubt the TSA employment procedures include the question "Does the candidate have the good sense to refuse to accept stupid orders?"
Until video of you walking into the scanner with a woody gets posted to your facebook page for all your friends and family to see. . .
Just tell them you are gay, before the pat down. That will make them uncomfortable.
Or just start moaning and bucking your hips when they get to your crotch.
Inspired work.
Please, if you could add more do so :)
...
the first time a 16-year-old girl decides to take a stand against the scanner. A few cries of "Child molestation!" in a crowded airport would certainly draw general attention to this issue.
Which slogan would win, "If we don't do this, the terrorists win" or "Won't someone please think of the children"?
Read the definition of "faux", that's the point.
Now you should follow your own advice:
I'd try to come up with something more clever if I were you, right now you just look ignorant.
Ouch.
I have already discombubulated the TSA agents with my utilikilt. Maybe I will start wearing it more often, "regimental" style, and while wearing a gay pride t-shirt and a big grin.
If they are going to be thugs, I'm going to make it funny.
The TSA is protecting fuck-all. They are there to perpetuate the culture of fear that has been so profitable for a few people in positions of excessive power. A patdown isn't going to stop the next 9/11, all you need to hijack a plane is your bare hands and a psychopathic disorder.
These patdowns and scans punish the innocent and do nothing to stop the truly dangerous people of this world.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
to get publicly humiliated by the TSA. That would be AWESOME slave training and public humiliation. (Its for reals peeps.)
I'm just waiting for the first internet porno shot at a TSA line to come out (complete with moaning, groaning, [Sleepless In Seattle style,] and "shamefaced with embarrassment" done for FREE courtesy of the airlines and the TSA. It can even be shot in 720P video for nothing with a Flip HD video cam. WOW. What has the TSA wrought?)
If I should ever fly again, I'm personally going to go through making as much loud moaning, crying, histrionics and really weird whimpers as I can manage (trying not to burst out laughing right in the video camera.)
Luckily, for the TSA's officers, I'm planning to take the train.
Its like the "No Agenda" [ http://www.noagendashow.com/ ] song: "Trains good, planes bad..."
Ass wads...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
to receive this kind of treatment at the club in San Francisco. SFO here I come!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
congress critterz.
No more running through a privileged line to get where ever.
That should take care of a lot of problems. Just make it THEIR problems too.
I can guarantee the TSA would be shot down before the next congress adjourns.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
People where medic alert bracelets for medical reasons. I have yet to hear of any legitimate security reason to do so. I suspect that given her surgery scars (these are not two inch pins but ones that fit down the centre of her bones where the marrow runs (not the whole length but enough to give support). So the scars are visible (including the joint replacements). I am pretty sure doctors and nurses can figure out things like that when they see them.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
It does suck balls, traveling into and through the good ol USA. All I want to travel with is is some weed, which used to be NBD until crotchbomber came along.
I guess it's good one of my flying destinations is Amsterdam.
Nope, no ball sucking yet. Just ball fondling. The TSA hasnt gone that far yet...
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
If a terrorist could exploit a loophole in the pat down procedure, then he wouldn't care whether it was anymore embarrassing.
If a terrorist could exploit a poophole in the pat down procedure, then he wouldn't care whether it was anymore embarrassing.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
"When I served as a military policeman in an Israeli army prison."
Would we actually be submitting to anything at airports if the Zionists hadn't upset the whole Arab and Muslim world? Was not the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem by the Zionists the first major terrorist incident in the world? If the Israelis hadn't spent the last 62 years terrorizing the Arabs, lying to the world, building illegal nuclear reactors for the sole purpose of producing weapons, disrespecting the UN and the ICC, didn't engage in blowing the crap out of Gaza, didn't insight the US to bomb Iraq etc etc... isn't it about 99% likely that none of this would be necessary, that terrorism would not have become the only means left to grab world attention.
Stuff Israel and its catalysism of terror, boycott Intel, Starbuck, Coke and the rest of the supporters of the 'God gave us this land' so we can create an apartheid state and abuse the native population team. http://www.inminds.com/boycott-israel.html
The whole world has to suffer because of a fundamentalist claim of 'God gave us this land 3,000 years ago'; loopy and insane. Jeffrey Goldberg rubs our face in a world where privacy has been stolen because of spoiled brats from the Jewish community, the ones that participate in the largely unfair imprisonment of Palestinians, something he is proud to announce he contributed to.
Internet Kills Israeli PR - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME_NpnH7jDc
Send a message to the Zionists to get off their arse, stop blaming everyone else and resolve the ongoing and appalling abuse of Palestinians which has brought us to this point in history. The way to eliminate terrorism is to eliminate the frustration that is at the core of why terrorism is practiced. Continuously beating people up with a stick is never going to make them love you.
A classic example of authoritarians offering a spurious choice in the hope that everyone, including the victim, will see the process as legitimate. The Atlanta, GA police force would be truly proud.
when we want to travel far. Now they've just got us a little more literally.
And the boarder agents at the land boarder crossings as well. They can be over the top too often... both on the American and the Canadian side (mind you on the Canadian side it is mostly directed towards Canadians as they really are just rebranded tax collector automatons).
Are the boarder agents looking for pirates? I can't think of any other reason that they would deploy boarding parties.
If I should ever fly again, I'm personally going to go through making as much loud moaning, crying, histrionics and really weird whimpers as I can manage
To make it to such a degree where is actually makes a difference, expect to be charged with creating a public disturbance. Furthermore, others waiting in line are then more likely to refuse the pat down and be scanned. So its a win-win for the TSA. Which is to say, they get to make an example out of your while using you to encourage others to do exactly what they want in the first place.
They're incompetent people implementing an incompetent system. Even the ones that are competent can't change the fact they in something that obviously can't work. Banning weapons? Really?
I say give everyone a tiny club. Something about a foot long, with weight in the end. Or, rather, have it detachable from the seat.
It's utterly impossible to hold anyone hostage with that, (Or, at least, it offers no benefit over just threatening to punch them or holding them by the throat.) but it sure as hell is possible for a group of people to beat the shit out of hostage takers with it.
Incidentally, for all the money we spent on security at airports, we could have given police officers and whatnot permission to fly armed and just hired thousands of rentacops for any extra flights.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Considering they are rebranded tax collectors, I would say yes. Even if they do work at the... ahem... border.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
they are cocksuckers.
I will remove my knee joint if you remove yours. You first.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
For those who are fed up with these Body Scanners, please sign my petition to have them stopped. I will be sending this petition to our representatives in Congress. Please spread the link around. The more signatures we get, the more effective the petition is. Post it on your facebook, website, email your firends.
http://www.petitiononline.com/BodyScan/petition.html
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