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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.'"
Tee-hee!
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that slashdot moderators lean very heavily to the left. The way they mod down my comments simply because they don't agree with them borders on censorship. I'm not provoking anyone, I'm not saying things that devalue conversation, I'm simply expressing my opinion. Expressing ideas that you don't agree with do not amount to flaming and trolling.
Not wanting to be groped or virtually stripped search (or have the same happen to your children) is not a left-right issue. I imagine you are being modded down because you are either (1) a shill (in fact, paid shills often post stuff like your posts to internet discussion sites) or (2) a useful idiot.
Please, take your fear-mongering elsewhere and leave the intelligent discussions to the adults.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
While I can understand the continued harassment of passengers via new policies and procedures is indeed getting out of hand, the fastest way to the corner of History Ave. and Repeats St. is to go back to how things were before.
Then we should work on protecting subways too, though I admit this will be an uphill battle.
Your president has the power to pardon anyone he likes for any reason, completely outside the judiciary.
And your point is?
Your president has just decided that it's not politically expedient to allow some 200 people accused of terrorism a fair trial. So instead he'll just allow them to be held indefinitely without charge. Even China has the decency to charge their political prisoners with a crime and giving them a day in court.
Read up on the Geneva Conventions to which the US is a signatory. This is legal. Maybe China would give civilian trials (military tribunals are a different matter) to its prisoners of war too, but that would be illegal by the conditions of the Conventions.
Your president can order anyone he likes - US citizen or not - to be placed on a "kill list", which gives the CIA the authority to kill them without any judicial oversight. Don't even bother mentioning a fair trial.
If a US citizen is actively fighting against the US in support of a foreign power, then no trial is needed. If the power is abused, the President still has to answer for it. For a related analogy, police don't require judicial oversight to defend themselves from an attacker. But they can and are second guessed after the fact.
...sound policy decisions free from the debasement of emotion...
Like the patriot act... Actually you're right. It was a cold calculated act that had been planned for years, but that a rational public would never allow. So let's make them irrational, and they'll accept anything we tell them.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
You-all in the USofA may feel safe enough, and rejoice in twitting the functionaries paid to defend you, but we here over the briny somewhere to the East have every reason to be grateful that technology (yea, faulty 'an all) is being mobilised to protect us a bit. How else will you handle a bloke in a girlie yashmak, with a charge up the passage where the sun don't shine? Stop hating authority, start beating the enemy.
Besides calling me a coward, what did you add to the discussion?
You could start by visiting this list of notable aircraft hijackings and trying to construct a similar list with any other target type. Sure we've had non-airplane terrorist incidents - public transit systems are certainly a target - but airplanes are for whatever a more attractive target.
Probably because it embarrasses the government more, makes for a more spectacular image, generates more press coverage, and tends to hit more affluent people - but I'm just speculating. The point is not really "why" anyway - the point is to properly allocate your security resources.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Well if you wife really would divorce you over such a trivial matter with no respect at all for your principals, may I suggest that divorce is where you are headed anyhow, and you should start preparing for that end now. Marriage is about compromise and respect. If either or both of you can't do that then it won't last.
As for expecting change overnight well because that is naive. I am telling you how it is, I don't care if you don't think that is how it should be, you have to deal with the world as it is. The only time somethign changes fast is when the person in charge of whatever it is wants it changed. Even then change is often slow. It took a long time for the TSA to become as bad as they are. When they first became the TSA, and the government just basically hired all the formerly private security screeners they were just incompetent. It was more or less the same shit you had before, just with different shirts. It was over time as they got established and their power grew with no corresponding oversight that they because the shitfest that we have today.
At any rate if you don't care about the TSA, then don't do anything. I'm not telling you that you have to care, just telling you what I believe you should do if you do care. I do not pass judgment if you feel they are fine, that is up to you. If you do care then at least do 3 and 4 if you just cannot do 1 and 2. I concede that there are circumstances where it is impossible to not fly, though I will note we got along without regular air travel for many a decade. Finally, if something like that really would cause your wife to leave you, then start making plans because it is headed that way anyhow, it is just a matter of when.
If you are being 'forced' to fly because of your employment, then find different employment. Look at it simply like an unfavorable working condition. What other poor working conditions do you suffer? I'd bet there are people in much worse conditions than you and the rest of the people whining about the new scanners. Who cares what you look like under your suit, if it's that embarrassing then go jogging a couple times a week or something.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
The fact is there aren't that many terrorists. If there were, there would be trains and malls and e.g. tourist hotspots exploding every other month in the US.
I'm going to call you on that one. Please tell me how you've come to this conclusion...or are you just telling yourself what you want to hear? My money says you don't really know.
And you are the best person to decide what qualifies as "security theater" versus true security? As for me, I'm glad they decided to do something. If you're so sure that you have the answers they need, I'd get on the phone with your congressman and tell him what policies they need to put in place. I believe they're doing the best they can; nobody's out to humiliate anyone.