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Underwear Invention Protects Privacy At Airport
Thanks to Jeff Buske you don't have to be embarrassed while going through the full body scanners at the airport. Buske has invented radiation shielding underwear for the shy traveler. From the article: "Jeff Buske says his invention uses a powdered metal that protects people's privacy when undergoing medical or security screenings. Buske of Las Vegas, Nev.-Rocky Flats Gear says the underwear's inserts are thin and conform to the body's contours, making it difficult to hide anything beneath them. The mix of tungsten and other metals do not set off metal detectors."
When you obscure genitalia, only the outlaws will have genitalia.
A hell of allot of good that do anyone. Its not like if the TSA sees anything remotely out of the ordinary with the scanner you are not going to then get the pat-down or some other intrusive search as a result.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
This will just get you an enhanced pat down, which you could opt for in the first place.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
If they can't see ALL of you, then they take you aside and pat you down. So with this device, instead of seeing you, they are going to take you aside and feel you up.
I don't know, the government has assured me that there is no risk of any of that stuff...
From the article: It's unclear whether it would lead to an automatic, more intrusive pat down by federal Transportation Security Administration officials.
No, if the image is unclear, the TSA's reaction is not. If you are not sure, check out what Dave Barry went through when the image of his groin was "blurry" http://www.npr.org/2010/11/15/131338172/humorist-dave-barry-and-the-tsa
Death looks every man in the face. All any man can do is look back and smile. - Marcus Aurelius
"Body scans and genital fondlings would save more lives if our government was paying to have them done in hospitals rather than airports."
This of course assumes the scans are safe, but you get the idea...
Living With a Nerd
The TSA kills Americans.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
They don't do cavity searches, that's part of the bizarre theatre of it all. Part of the point of this article was that most people hide illicit things in areas which would require a cavity search and they just feel you up. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/for-the-first-time-the-tsa-meets-resistance/65390/
I wonder what your odds of dying from TSA-induced cancer vs. an airline crash are?
More. So really, can we just end the security theater?
how about a "fuck the tsa" lead paint t-shirt? Maybe some leather-studded chastity underwear and crotchless chaps, too.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
4th amendment protects you against unreasonable search. Seems like it would apply at the airport. TSA claims that you are contractually obligated to put up with search when you enter the secure area and that your air travel ticket states this and as such is a contract. But, you aren't able to sign away your constitutional rights implying, at least, that this component of the air travel contract is illegal. How does this all square up?
If X-ray backscatter machines could sterilize you, you'd be sterile ten times over already from background radiation.
No, because the magnitude of background radiation is much much lower, disorganized, diffused by the Earth's atmosphere and electromagnetic field, non-directional, and not pointed in an organized fashion directly at your body, and doesn't reach nearly the energy levels of the backscatter machine. Especially when operators make mistakes with the machine that cause people to get even more exposure than they are supposed to, or to be exposed longer than the 2 seconds they are supposed to, that all the numbers validating its safety are based on -- when they make someone stand in the scanner for a few minutes with it running, the person is getting massive amounts of harmful radiation exposure, way beyond what is safe or indicated.
I'm all for frustrating TSA agents. Those people are traitors to the cause of liberty. 200 years ago, they would have all been hanged. I think frustrating them is a little less extreme, don't you?
I am the penguin that codes in the night.
A woman could use an 'underwear insert' in the shape of a humongous cock and balls. Question is, would that mean she is more or less likely to get groped? And would she be groped by a male agent or a female one?
A coworker went through the rapescan a couple months ago. Get this, though -- he was wearing a buttplug at the time and they didn't notice it. I think it was a metal one, too (he was caught by the metal detector first).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I reluctantly agree with this point. Although I am generally a law-and-order kind of guy, I think airport security is outside any reasonable threshold along the sliding scale of security, and therefore I think it is unethical for any individual to participate in the enforcement of that security. Basically what I'm saying is fuck those guys, they must be assholes if they agree to do that job.
~520 annual increase in traffic fatalities was the estimate due to people driving over flying. I believe there was also admittance that the backscatter would cause about 16 additional cancer deaths annually.
Net effect is an estimated 536 increase in annual deaths.
Loss of life due to terrorist attack against westerners from 2006 to 2008 was 12 deaths annually worldwide.
The scanners are estimated to be more deadly than the terrorists have been.
Our trade offs are brilliant.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
If you're that worried about xray radiation, don't fly! The radiation from the backscatter xray is only equivalent to 4 minutes of flight time for the typical scan time so even if you are in the scanner for a full 2 minutes it's only equal to the dosage you are going to get on a short flight.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I would paint some really big junk on my undies...
Haha, why not just read playboy before entering scanner.. that way picture should be clear and solid.
Uh, privacy concerns are quite separate from medical concerns. I object to the intrusiveness of the scans in the strongest terms possible but I also object to uninformed anti-science and technology mumbo-jumbo.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The goal of the Israelis is airport security. The goal of the TSA is increased pubic acceptance of fascism. You can see the difference.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You've hit on the main issue I have when people call these machines 'safe'. I accept that, under normal operation, they are safe. In the hands of a trained radiologist, I would not hesitate. But these machines are being operated by security people who are barely competent to work at McDonalds. I have already seen with my own eyes evidence of the machines not being used in the way they were intended and more importantly tested. And that's why I reject all claims that they are 'harmless' and will opt for a pat-down. Embarrassment I can recover from.
I was wondering if it is acceptable to the TSA for me to request a private room, and strip naked to let them do a visual only examination to prove that I'm not carrying anything dangerous. They can look as closely as they want, as long as they don't touch me.
I have no concerns about privacy, but I do have a problem with xrays and a person feeling me up.
But I have no problems about getting naked. Is that an acceptable for the TSA? I will try it next time I go through an airport.
Actually, I think this whole controversy from beginning (obtaining the machines) to end (the protest movement) is bogus.
Why do we have this machines? Because there is a threat that has been shown to be reasonable that these machines prevent? Can anybody point to a hijacking these machines *would* have prevented, but that wasn't preventable with the technology we already had? Almost certainly not. We are doing this simply to show we *can*. This is, unfortunately, a typical American approach to any kind of complicated problem: gamble on a quick technological fix. It doesn't hurt that this makes great security theater. Hiring more and better trained agents is not politically advantageous, because if people breeze through security and *don't* get hijacked, they won't notice anything but the high and expensive head count. Send them through a machine that transmits naked pictures of them into the next room, and they *will* notice their tax dollars at work, even though that has no practical utility.
Now the protest side is totally bogus too. So the machine sends a naked picture of me to a guy in the next room, so what? I walk to the showers at the gym and everyone in the locker room is naked. And if the guy watching the scanner gets off on watching *my* naked body, what do *I* care? He's obviously got bigger problems than I do.
No, the real problem is that this whole bogus affair takes money, time and focus away from real security concerns.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There have been many studies. They say "When used properly, the machines don't present unreasonable risk.". Unreasonable means that they're about what a dental X-ray would be.
The kicker is "properly", The people running those machines have not been well trained, and you aren't their customer. So they don't really bother about proper use. Convenient (for them) use is more what they consider.
(Ever notice that when you get a dental X-ray you wear a lead apron?)
Nobody has done a study of the exposure in the environments in which those machines are used. I expect that there's a high variability, with some part of the curve coming down in the "rather dangerous" section.
You don't pay more for the clowns at a security theater than you must. The money gets reserved for the approved contractors.
(Sorry, this last paragraph is pure cynicism. But I still feel it's probably correct.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The radiation from the backscatter xray is only equivalent to 4 minutes of flight time for the typical scan time
You are claiming an equivalency that is only based on one raw measure of the exposure, one of the least important measures of exposure (thermal energy), and misses important points.
The higher the energy of the radiation, the deeper into the body it will penetrate before it is absorbed. The lower energy radiation you experience in flight is reflected by the skin. The higher energy of backscatter machines is absorbed inside the body and can potentially effect the brain and the genitals. It might lead to sterilization or cancer.
The ionizing radiation you are exposed to on a backscatter machine is different and more harmful than the radiation you would be exposed to when flying, it is a different kind of radiation in magnitude.
The mere total exposure amount hides important factors such as the proportion absorbed VS the proportion harmlessly reflected.
Yeah, seriously. Nobody ever looks at the positives in this whole thing. Missing connecting flights while your girlfriend and/or mother gets groped by someone who is clearly qualified by the virtue of a high school diploma is a small price to pay for the convenience of hour-and-a-forty-five-minute lines for roller coasters suddenly seeming reasonable. They're exactly like safety doctors... brilliant analogy.
The calculated dosage is based on an average over your whole body (like any medical imaging would be, but obviously never goes through your whole body - instead it's all in your skin. Shouldn't this be recalculated? Either way, the risk is non-zero, same as the risk for getting killed by a terrorist. The question is, which risk is greater? As a scientist and a skeptic, I'm not at all convinced that bombarding EVERYONE with x-rays is the less harmful option.
They already said based on the radiation levels and 600 million passengers that about 10 people per year will die from cancer from this screening.
I think the number is lower. Many will die from other causes first.
But say it is 10 and it stops 1 airplane incident per 10 years- it's a wash to a massive savings of life.
Personally, I can't see why the terrorist don't attack the security checkin next. You are not scanned, there is high density of targets, and it would paralyze travel-- again.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
And the flight actually serves a purpose and gets you to your destination.
Body scanners are just security theater and offer you nothing positive in return.
>Basically what I'm saying is fuck those guys, they must be assholes if they agree to do that job.
More likely they are desperate. They have been rejected for police jobs and other civil service jobs. With the TSA they get federal benefits (increases like clockwork, it's better entry-level benefits than you'll get anywhere else).
Once you get in the door at a place like that, you're not going to voluntarily leave. If you can psyche yourself up to work a job where you cut the assholes out of pigs or work at a machine that's likely to pull your thumbs off, you can do this.
The real problem is that they aren't *professionals*. I think the airport security job at the lowest level should require years of police, military police, or private security experience and a degree in criminal justice. Instead, it's an entry-level vocational rehab job.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The patdowns are not responsible for any deaths. These reactions are caused by the irrational fear and exacerbated prudery of the TRAVELERS.
The part you don't understand is a lot of travelers aren't afraid of TSA. They're afraid of a government free to ignore our constitutional rights. They're afraid of people disappearing in the night and ending up in secret prisons.
No thank you. 9/11 was a nuisance. Tyranny would be a real tragedy. Maybe you should get over your irrational fear of "terrorism" instead of telling people their fear of the government is irrational.
What purpose do these security screenings serve except to inspire a culture of fear. I have trouble differentiating the TSA from Al Qaeda in that regard.
The goal of the Israelis is airport security. The goal of the TSA is increased pubic acceptance of fascism. You can see the difference.
Most appropriate. Typo. Ever.
Personally, I can't see why the terrorist don't attack the security checkin next.
Could it be because there are no real terrorists?
Laudele lor desigur m-ar mahni peste masura.