Slashdot Mirror
National Opt-Out Day Against Virtual Strip Searches
An anonymous reader writes in about a protest called for the busiest airline travel day of the year. "An activist opposed to the new invasive body scanners in use at airports around the country just designated Wednesday, Nov. 24 as a National Opt-Out Day. He's encouraging airline passengers to decline the TSA's technological strip searches en masse on that day as a protest against the scanners, as well as the new 'enhanced pat-downs' inflicted on refuseniks. 'The goal of National Opt-Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change,' reads the call to action at OptOutDay.com, set up by Brian Sodegren. 'No naked body scanners, no government-approved groping. We have a right to privacy, and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we're guilty until proven innocent.' The US Airline Pilots Association and other pilot groups have urged their members to avoid the scanners and have also condemned the new pat-down policy as humiliating to pilots. They've advised pilots who don't feel comfortable undergoing pat-downs in front of passengers to request they be conducted in a private room. Any pilots who don't feel comfortable after undergoing a pat-down have been encouraged to 'call in sick and remove themselves from the trip.'"
I wonder how well this would've gone over in October 2001. We haven't had a genuine terror attack in a long time, so people start getting indignant about security again. Do we really need to have another international calamity for us to start respecting laws that were put in place to keep us safe?
Everyone can (and should) agree that this is a gross violation of privacy and should not be tolerated.
It's only a "gross violation" if you are forced to do it. There is an opt-out.
Maybe I'm just shamelessly immodest, but I support these scanners if they can be shown to speed up the process of checking in. People need to get over being seen naked - do they avoid the doctor's office as well?
"Virtually groped?" That's insane. Have a separate line for the insane people. That covers the "expanding the power of the state" crew, too.
We live in a world where airplanes attract way more than their fair share of terrorism - we need to accept that fact. We can't pretend that people won't try to bomb airplanes, even if there are much easier ways to kill people. Terrorists don't go after low-hanging fruit... they go after the spectacular. Otherwise they'd be bombing suburban bus and train routes, malls, and other places which are almost impossible to police. A plane is an exceptionally hard target in comparison, and yet they persist.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
>People need to get over being seen naked
Why don't you get over yourself first, you stupid faggot.
Civil disobedience (in the modern sense) is worthless; they have enough jails for everyone, and the media won't make a sensation out of you the way they did about Rosa Parks.
So you were lap-dog to the insurance industry lobby's lap-dog. Meanwhile, universal health care is working fine in Europe and Canada.