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Bruce Schneier vs. the TSA
An anonymous reader writes "Bruce Schneier has posted a huge recap of the controversy over TSA body scanners, including more information about the lawsuit he joined to ban them. There's too much news to summarize, but it covers everything from Penn Jillette's and Dave Barry's grope stories, to Israeli experts who say this isn't needed and hasn't ever stopped a bomb, to the three-year-old girl who was traumatized by being groped and much, much more."
Another reader passed along a related article, which says, "Congressman Ron Paul lashed out at the TSA yesterday and introduced a bill aimed at stopping federal abuse of passengers. Paul’s proposed legislation would pave the way for TSA employees to be sued for feeling up Americans and putting them through unsafe naked body scanners."
how is scanning teenagers not considered manufacturing CP?
we all know the images will be saved, they have to be. After all, what kind of security outfit would not want the capability to go back and look at the images after a future terror attempt happens? Of course they'll want to go back and review surveillance footage and these images, to see if they need to change thresholds or procedures, to see if/what they missed.
So given that it's a given they are saving them for forensics purposes (and perhaps for evidenciary purposes if a terrorist was brough to trial), isn't this the outright manufacture of child porn?
Why is that a country founded on the ideological rejection of tyranny is creeping ever closer to the text book example of abuses of power?
It's been a while since the 9/11 attacks, and maybe later updated information was hidden back in the classified ads of my newspaper - but I thought that the consensus was the 9/11 hijackers did not bring their boxcutters onto the plane with them. So these increasingly intrusive TSA make-work tactics would have had zero effect on the worst terrorist attack in US history.
Not to mention that, post 9/11, passengers and crew realize now that modern-day hijackers are mainly interested in killing everyone on the plane. So in the attempts that have followed, passengers and/or the crew have successfully thwarted those attempts. That's the real solution - an aware public.
These silly "solutions" the TSA keeps rolling out don't seem to be accomplishing anything other than annoying air travelers. If any of these measures had actually demonstrably stopped even one attempted attack, don't you think the TSA would be crowing it from the rooftops?
#DeleteChrome
It all started on 9/11, when instead of reacting to the attacks as a matter for coordinated worldwide policing, we elevated those fuckers to the same status as a nation-state and decided to declare war on anyone and everyone who didn't instantly get in line behind us. We stoked our own fear to an insane degree, and it's already boomeranged back on us in so many ways. This is just one more self-inflicted wound in a long line of idiotic mistakes we've made over the last nine years.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I would feel safer if we got rid of the TSA and just had one or two fully decked out marines on board each flight. Would be cheaper too...
link
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commissioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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look him up. He has abused and manipulated his relationships with Homeland Security to try and make billions for him and his friends with the naked scanners. Part of the groping is to try and force people to use the scanners so they can sell more of them. Chertoff and Rapiscan Systems need to be indicted.
Your linked article is satire. But I didn't really know if it was satire until I read it through.
The terrorists have won.
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but I don't let my dislike for him cloud my judgement of his individual ideas.
This is a good one; even though his wording in trollish and flamebait worthy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Knowingly putting yourself in a situation where your "normal" liberties must be compromised is your choice. You're welcome to take a bus, train, car or boat to your destination instead.
And the TSA is welcome to go fuck off. They don't get to decide which liberties people must voluntarily compromise in order to fly, or at least that's not how it's supposed to work.
The idea that anything that's not a fundamental human right can be taken away on the whim of any random government bureaucracy is, bizarre, to say the least.
The TSA doesn't "own" flying. They are proposing measures that are invasive and fundamentally ineffective, and we're supposed to have a say in whether or not we want that.
sic transit gloria mundi
Really? Then why didn't he introduce a bill forbidding the molestation of passengers and exposure to harmful and ineffective scans? Or better yet, if he really believes in smaller governement he would introduce a bill eliminating the TSA all together since they are a wasteful ineffective agency that has done nothing to make anyone safer.
Instead he proposes a bill which says, in effect, "if you don't like how you are treated by the TSA you can spend a few hundred thousand dollars trying to sue the Federal Government. This is nothing more than political grandstanding and pretending to be "against big government".
"Honestly, I'm not sure why this is such a big deal - it's as if we (African-Americans) think we have a God-given right to ride at the front of the bus. Yet in everyday life, we must give up certain liberties; when I'm driving on public roads, I don't have the right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure by over-zealous law enforcement. But that's OK, because I voluntarily put myself on a bus, or on a public road."
The government doesn't give us rights. We have the rights inherently. Just because the government says driving on roads that I payed for isn't a right, doesn't mean their position is legally sound. Their unreasonable search and seizure of persons and property at airports is outright illegal under the Constitution. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. The reason it continues is that nobody in power will prosecute them, and courts won't hear criminal cases brought by the general public.
So how long do you think before, TSA would require a body scan before boarding a bus or a train or a ship? You would still be fine with it, if you were informed in advance, right? One can still take the car or walk or swim, right?
Have you every been through Ben Gurion?
It's very effective but it's a pain in the ass compared to US Security.
Last time it took me a full 3 hours from entering the airport to arriving at the gate to depart. They x-rayed my bags, then hand-searched them, and asked me grilling and misleading questions before I even got to the ticket counter to check-in! Then it was a long wait to get through immigration. Then I got singled out for another x-ray line that _crawled_ along. There was probably a dozen of us in that line and it took 30 mins to get us all through. I think they make you wait on purpose to see if you get nervous etc.
Effective yes, but I'd hate to have to go through that everytime I want to fly.
Companies have the conscience, remorse and morals of those people who control them.
Companies are not autonomous entities. To perpetuate such a preposterous idea is to absolve those who run companies of any responsibility for their decisions and actions.
The full body scans are silly because Al Qaeda has ALREADY used suicide bombers with explosives in their BODY CAVITIES. These are not exposed by full-body scanners that stop at the skin surface.
From the linked article "Asieri had a pound of high explosives, plus a detonator inserted in his rectum." That was 2009.
Perhaps you missed the whole "Socially Liberal" part, since you keep trying HARD to force libertarians into the tired grooves of either "neocon republican" or "limp wristed spend thrift liberal". Libertarians are not either.
The libertarian would be FOR government regulation for such things as equal rights. What they are against is regulations saying which kinds of house you can own, or what kind of shirt you can wear on the subway (or what kinds of games you can buy for your kids.)
It's simple-- Libertarian comes from "Liberty"-- for the most part, anything that increases the liberty of citizens is considered good; Biggotry is not a liberty that is good for the general citizen, because it de-facto implies obstructionism and lack of liberty to a portion of those citizens. Same with Gay marriage (concerning obstructionism being bad).
If anything, the Libertarian is more likely to suffer the bias AGAINST big business, BECAUSE big business tries to keep people down in general (to prevent competition). Your assertion that Libertarians would support racial biggotry is horribly unfounded, and serves only to highlight your own ignorance of that ideology.
You said the same things I wanted to say, but better. For once, the "Think of the children" mantra is actually reasonable here, and it might actually help to snap people out of their complacency and make them realize how degrading this latest security theatre is. It's one thing to meekly give up all of our privacy and liberty just because the government asks us to, but even BEYOND that, they are now trying to take away our basic dignity. People need to draw the line somewhere and make the TSA realize, enough is enough.
Imagine you have a teenage daughter. Would you rather: (1) have her be irradiated by a medically-unproven scanning device which will show images of her naked body to the sleazy TSA guys behind the counter, any one of whom might capture that image with his cell phone to wank off to later, or: (2) have her be physically molested by a same-sex TSA employee who will touch her breasts and crotch, in public view in front of other passengers, or (3) have her be physically molested by a same-sex TSA employee who will touch her breasts and crotch, in a private room out of sight?
All three of these are grossly invasive and unacceptable options. Of course they're grossly invasive and unacceptable for adults too, but it might be easier to make people realize this if they happen to be a parent and you can explain it to them in terms of what is going to happen to their child. After thinking this through, I think any decent parent would be quite angry at the TSA.