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."
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.
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.
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.
How's the crackdown on TSA employees who steal from baggage coming along? Oh, there isn't one.
No sig today...
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.
Apparently you didn't fly through Brazil shortly after the US started requiring those entering to give finger prints. Once the Brazilian boarder patrol people found out one was an American they would take them aside and get their finger prints. This consisted of using the old school stain your hand for a week ink for ALL fingers. They would then hold up the card, look at it intently and say something about the US requiring THEIR citizen to do this, then tear up the paper and throw it away. In the end though we still require finger prints to enter the US.
Oh absolutely! It costs the US tens of billions of dollars every year in lost tourism/business revenues to maintain the security theater.
It cost the USA my business.
I fly from London -> New Zealand via LAX once or twice a year, I often used to stop over for up to a week in the US on the way and head up to vegas, or do some skiing. Now I always go via Hong Kong even tho its a longer flight just to avoid the 'bullshit'. I suspect many others avoid the US for the same reason.
Lucky for the US it doesn't need those tourism jobs with its low low rates of unemployment eh?
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.
Doesn't matter. Even if it's your own plane, and you are the only one going to fly it, you still have to obey the rules.
You never know, you might hijack yourself with that pocket knife!
NOTICE: An actual, real, does-this-for-a-living pilot as told me this. This isn't some assumption on my part.
He told you wrong. If you aren't going through the secured terminal (which 99.9% of private flights don't), then you don't need security screening. I am an actual, real, living pilot and I've flown through over 250 airports large and small in the USA on private flights. O'Hare is the only one I've seen that actually has even a metal detector for private flights... I walk through, it beeps (because of my pocket knife, flashlight, keys, etc. on my person) and they wave me on through.
The sad thing is that in 7 to 10 years, nobody will even care... People will just accept this as completely normal. What scares me is what will make people uncomfortable then? People will be indignant that TSA employees are allowed to shoot anyone who looks at them funny on the spot? Then it's another 7 to 10 years of easing the measure onto the sheep as part of their everyday life...
Mind the frickin' laser...
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
Of course not, but there are several bits that are very nearly global. For example, every UN member apart from the USA and Somalia has ratified the UNCRC.
Somalia hasn't got around to it due to lacking a functioning government. Everyone else signed it in the 90s. Prior to 2005, the USA's major objection was that it would prevent them from executing children. That is failure to accept international law.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
I would be okay with it under the following conditions:
Until then, you're massively invading my privacy without doing a damn thing to stop terrorism---something that should not be acceptable to anyone sensible. I guarantee you that this bullshit will stop the first time somebody releases a "Girls Gone Wild TSA Style" video showing a bunch of goons sitting around watching nude X-ray pics of hot women who walked through the scanners. And statistically speaking, it's only a matter of time before this happens and it turns into a public outcry the likes of which the government has not seen since Vietnam.
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