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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.'"
As soon as you provide a list of terrorists discouraged from boarding planes in the first place because of elevated security policies.
Why just do this on one day only when you can make this your default choice? I'd rather be safe than sorry when it comes to cancer. And I dont much like being treated like a naughty child by the TSA or whoever either.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
People from simply removing all of their clothing when they are "hand searched"? Or demanding that a LEO be present at the search? Or demanding that the search be video'd? If the search is "public", then can someone tape it? Or getting the name of the employees who search you?
By the way, where did that 'bagger come from from up thread? What a parrot.... Prove a negative, indeed....
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
Perhaps the new motto ought to be: Land of the sheep, home of the scared?
US paranoia has reached an incredible level. Yesterday I was in Madrid Barajas airport to travel to Liverpool, and there were automatic announcements advising passengers should turn up at the gate for US-bound flights an hour and a half before the boarding time of the aircraft to make it though enhanced security. If you have luggage to check I suspect you now have to turn up at the airport 3.5 to 4 hours before the actual departure time for a US bound flight.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
When traveling this holiday season, opt out of any porn scanners. Opt out LOUDLY. Say “I OPT OUT” while you smile at the nearest TSA agent. Be polite and move on to step two, the Pat Down. Getting a hand pat down. Teach your children to shout LOUDLY, “STOP TOUCHING ME in a SEXUAL MANNER!”. Adults shout LOUDLY, “Stop TOUCHING ME in a SEXUAL MANNER!”. Smile and be polite as you do this. Children are allowed and encouraged to cry. Video the whole escapade with sound and as clearly as possible. Post to youtube.com Behold the power of the Internet. Game on Janet!
You're correct. That it what it would meant to _most_ people.
To _rational_ people, it means the TSA approach is not working, We should try something else, like psychological screening. Israel uses it with relatively great results. I have no problem answering a few questions about where I was and where I'm going
http://www.japantoday.com/category/commentary/view/psychology-not-just-technology-needed-for-airport-security
Make it more uncomfortable for him than it is for me. Just some suggestions for those who have to go through this bullshit.
When you come back from your "pat-down" be sure to tell all the other passengers to ask for *that* particular screener, because he give excellent hand-jobs. See how red you can make him turn.
"We haven't had a genuine terror attack in a long time".
A genuine terror attack is one that fills you with terror. It has very little to do with the convictions of the perpetrator.
There's no such thing as a "terrorist".
Not a single one on the planet.
Terrorism is a stratagem, not a political philosophy.
It's like calling the WW II Germans "Blitzkriegers", or the Americans "Amphibians".
"respecting laws that were put in place to keep us safe"?
But what if I think these laws address the wrong issue's, and only serve to create an illusion of safety against an ill-defined opponent?
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
So they take their hats off and shave off their beards. In fact, I clearly remember hearing that the September 11 hijackers shaved before they boarded the planes...
people start getting indignant about security again
People aren't indigant over security - They're indignant over "security theatre," with billions spent for questionable returns.
For me, the big deal is not that some poor security guard has to look at my fat gut or grope my privates. For me, the issue is that this is a *tremendous* waste of money for little return - Money that desperately needs to be spent elsewhere. The days of terrorists smuggling explosives onto planes on their body is over. The recent "Yemen" incident points to this - The threat to airlines is the same issue that security experts have been telling us about for 20 years: Air freight. If you're on a plane, chances are you've been screened 100X more than what may be in the cargo hold under your feet. These nude-o-scopes do nothing to address that. However, addressing the issue of air freight is very complex and expensive and doesn't easily demonstrate to Ma and Pa Kettle that goshdarnit, the government's doing something - Whereas visibly putting a brown man in a turban into a scanning phonebooth thingamajiggy does.
Finally, if you *are* legitimately concerned about items being smuggled onto a plane on a passenger's person, you only need to talk to a prison guard or Israeli security expert to learn how useless these nude-o-scopes are, as they don't look *inside* the body, which is where most contraband is hidden these days anyway.
Flying isn't a right but being secure in our persons from unwarranted and intrusive searches is.
All of the people who have ever died on a plane, from mechanical problems and pilot error as well as terrorism, doesn't even add up to a single years worth of drunk driving fatalities. I would bet that you still willingly get in a private car so you're only fooling yourself. Airline security is already good enough that further encroachments to our actual, enumerated, rights are not necessary.
How about instead of restricting and violating our own citizens over this, we go out and find al Queda wherever they happen to be, and kill them all? I mean, supposedly the US is this horrible imperialistic country which thinks nothing of killing poor innocent foreign civilians... how about we start taking advantage of that? Quit tiptoeing around the Pakistani government and send the entire US army into the border area with an ROE of "shoot anything that moves that ain't ours". If there's caves, fill 'em with poison gas (remember supposedly the US violates the Geneva conventions all the time ANYWAY). If there's objections from the Pakistani government, nuke Karachi. Same for anywhere else terrorists might be hanging out, and that includes Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria.
No? There are some things that the US government shouldn't do, even for the laudable goal of stopping terrorist attacks? Well, then perhaps invasive airport security scans are one of them too.
For my job, once I was charged with putting together war game scenarios. In one imaginary game I created, I had a 'terrorist' group completely controlled by another 'imaginary country'. In the situation, the terrorist group destroyed a target of supreme U.S. importance. Our country spent the next 10 years fighting this 'terrorist' group. In the process we virtually bankrupted the country, and eroded all the freedoms that we were supposedly fighting for. In the end it was revealed who the real country controlling the terrorist group was. However at that point the imaginary country in question had just had 10 years of incredible economic and technological expansion. It was literally too strong to fight. The scenario planned to be kind of like the "Kobayashi Maru" scenario in Star Trek 2 the wrath of Kahn, where our little ship puts up a last ditch noble fight in the face of sure death in the hands of overwhelming odds.
However, at the time my superiors decided that my scenario was too unrealistic. Instead we had to keep fighting the imaginary terrorist organization.
--All wars are at their heart economic wars, and sometimes the enemies are not always overseas.
An Israeli security expert like Rafi Sela, who told the Canadian Parliament that the strip search machines are "useless".
"Sela, former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority and a 30-year veteran in airport security and defence technology, helped design the security at Ben Gurion."
A dermatologist might very well need to see every inch of you.
Although when I went to a new dermatologist and he asked me to strip my response was, "I'd prefer not to."
He shrugged, said 'ok', and just examined me above the waist.
(don't ask what I was wearing below the waist.. lets just say I hadn't planned on a full body examination for a neck issue)