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.
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.
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.
...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.
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.
After the pat down, I plan on asking - rather loudly - for a cigarette and if it's appropriate to tip for more "stringent" searches.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
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...
Also in the news:
Nobody will ever use the scanner in San Francisco.
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
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.
have fun in Hawaii
rewriting history since 2109
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.
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.
Are you implying the US Gov't would run false flag operations? That would never happen, sir, and I challenge you to retract your implication or back it up with facts. :)
(sarcasm, for the impaired)
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.
When the intent is to touch the genitals, then is the intent to search or commit a sexual assault. At what stage when committing sexual assault is a search warrant required.
At least everyone is likely to have the last laugh on the TSA, how well are they shielded from the continually exposure to tumour inducing xrays. Of course there will always be people to protect idiots from their own ignorance http://epic.org/privacy/airtravel/backscatter/.
With regards to limits on ionising radiation "the maximum exposure to ionising radiation shall not be more than 1 mSv34 per year for members of the public and 20 mSv per year for exposed workers", what steps are the TSA taking to ensure they are not exceeding mandated limits. One would assume questionnaires are being handed out with risk warnings and notifications for people at risk or do they just no think they will be held legally liable for failing to take due care, especially with children.
How about all operational personal, flight crews, cleaners luggage handlers and TSA agents, are they also required to be scanned when entering areas of higher security risk.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
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?
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.
I have serious doubts that Al Qaeda - at least, as portrayed by the media - exists.
I believe there are fundamentalist factions that want nothing less than to return civilisation to the fourteenth century and will blow things up to achieve it. But I think they're rare and consist of independent groups of nutters - occasionally one of those groups succeeds in causing harm, usually it fails miserably. I mean really, what sort of moron ships a printer full of explosives from an arabic country to a synagogue in the US and then leaves a traceable phone number with the shipping company? You might as well print "Danger: Explosives!" in big letters all over the box.
This idea of an organised, worldwide, cell-based terror organisation for whom there are almost no limits to what they can achieve working to organise these attacks doesn't hold water on the very simple grounds that I don't believe such a group would have such a poor hit rate.
When I was training to become an EMT, we had a whole unit on terrorism. As emergency personnel, we of course are front-line in an attack, but also, we tend to get access to people's homes and such. Since we're not police, we tend to get welcomed inside even if somebody's building bombs or running a meth lab. We're trained on what to look for, and so on.
Anyway, long story short, the terrorism expert asks us that hypothetically, if we had $500 and a desire to cause as much damage and chaos as possible, with no regard for our own lives, how much damage we could cause. He gave us only a minute or so to think about it, and if you yourself think about it now, the damage would be significant. Then he says that terrorists are much, much more motivated, better funded, and spend all of their time, day and night, figuring out how to kill us.
It's a scary prospect, but the moral of the story is that any security measures can be beaten, no matter how extreme. As far as I'm concerned, hijacking is now impossible. That happened as soon as we locked and reinforced the doors, things any forward-thinking airline should have done before 9/11. Blowing up a plane seems unlikely as well, but not for the reasons of TSA's latest measures. Think about the times terrorists have tried, since 9/11. What happened? Security failed to recognize a threat, so the other passengers subdued the terrorist and prevented the bomb from going off.
What was the government's response to this? Increase security for last-week's threat, rather than attempt to figure out what might be the next threat. No real praise for the alert general public, just lots of fear-inducing "the government needs to do more!" calls from the media and government leaders.
What I learned as an EMT is that government is not the answer, an alert public is. Like the smoking SUV in Times Square, a street vendor stopped a terrorist attack. Passengers on airplanes have stopped terrorist attacks several times. Government should worry more about identifying these people before they get to the US, and uncovering plots among those terrorists already here.
Two things are absolutely critical for the government and general public to realize. One, that terrorist attacks will occasionally happen, and no amount of security will protect us from a sufficiently determined murderer. Anyone who promises no more attacks can happen is flat-out lying. Two, the best defense from terrorism is in rapid reactions from whoever happens to be there when an attack gets underway, either to stop it, or contain the level of mayhem.
Hopefully people out there, and not just those who read slashdot, come to accept the above two facts, and government changes to reflect that.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
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
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.
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!
Why would that surprise you? Shipped cargo isn't inspected at all. (Well, except once it lands at customs)
This is because, it's totally impossible for a bomb to be in shipped cargo and...wait, no...
This is because inspecting cargo before shipping would not be visible to the American people, nor would it involve herding them around like cattle so they accept whatever you choose to do to them without warrants, like sexually molest them.
And hence there's no spending money on that part of security theater.
In fact, such a thing might inconvenience an Almighty Corporation, so that's doubly bad.
Sometimes I think the best way for a terrorist to act would be to incorporate and just kill people that way. Or just blow up the economy. Or destroy all real estate records so no one knows who owns what.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?