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.'"
It's only a "gross violation" if you are forced to do it. There is an opt-out.
Yeah, and in some cases opting out means being ejected from the airport without being allowed to board your flight, and even threats of $10,000 civilian fines. Here are just a few recent reported incidents:
TSA encounter at SAN
Woman Says She Was Cuffed And Booted From Airport For Questioning Body Scanners
Pregnant Traveler: TSA Screeners Bullied Me Into Full-Body Scan
Even pilots are being ejected from airports for refusing to submit to the scanners:
Pilot who refused body scan at Memphis International blasts TSA security
Sorry, but if even a pilot can't opt out of going through the scanners then either something is severely broken in the system or the whole opt-out argument is complete bunk.
I was managing the campaign of a United States Senate candidate that actually read the health care law and was a rabid opponent of it, holding town hall meetings all over the state educating voters about how bad the bill was. Why, what were you doing, complaining about it on Slashdot?
Social Engineering Expert: Because there is no patch for stupidity.
The Europeans don't do this. They don't even allow the scanners!
Actually the Europeans do allow scanners, and claim that 95% of passengers approve of them:
Manchester Airport body scanners in all three terminals
Besides, if an international airline flight originates abroad and lands in the US, then the TSA forces the originating airport to jump through all sorts of security theater hoops. Back in 2004 I flew to New Zealand & Australia. My flight back was from Brisbane to San Diego. At the Brisbane airport the flight departed from the very last gate in one of the concourses. I got there a couple hours early due to the timing of my connecting flight, so I went to the gate, sat down, and started reading a book. About 2 hours before the flight a group of about 5 security agents showed up and had everybody leave the departure area - moving to the next-to-last gate in the concourse. Once our departure area was vacant they roped it off, put on rubber gloves, and started searching the entire area. They searched under the seats in the departure lounge, inside the trash bins, around the gate agents desk, etc. Once they had swept the gate area all but one went on board the aircraft and I assume did a fulls sweep of it as well. After that was done they allowed passengers back into the waiting area, but they screened our passports as we returned. I asked one of the screeners what this was all about, and they told me that it was solely because the destination of the flight was inside the USA and therefore USA regulations required the additional screening.
Anybody with even a tiny bit of intelligence could see how useless all this security theater was. If I was a terrorist and wanted to hide a bomb in the airport I'd simply hide it in the waiting area of the next gate and detonate it when the security sweep is going on since all the passengers would now be in that waiting area. Or if I was going to smuggle weapons or anything else on board the plane then I'd have them hidden elsewhere in the concourse for me to pick them up. Unless the screeners search the ENTIRE concourse then a sweep of just one departure lounge is a complete waste. But it was a requirement forced on them by the USA.
Congratulations, America.
Osama Bin Laden has won.
Read the ridiculous treatment of this upstanding citizen who stood up to the TSA. He wrote a very interesting account of the abuse the TSA is doing.
An excerpt: 'I looked him straight in the eye and said, "if you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested."'
http://www.object404.com