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Next Step For US Body Scanners Could Be Trains, Metro Systems
Hugh Pickens writes "The Hill reports that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for US vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary. '[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,' Napolitano said in an interview with Charlie Rose. 'I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime.' Napolitano added she hoped the US could get to a place in the future where Americans would not have to be as guarded against terrorist attacks as they are and that she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized. 'The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?' says Napolitano. 'I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.'"
The obvious next logical step would be body scanners to get into your car, and should you refuse, your car will grope you inappropriately.
Although I'm sure the car fetishists are salivating at that prospect already.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
No offense, but this is completely speculative, and seems to ignore the fact that these body scanners can cost up to and exceeding $100,000 [epic.org], and that's not even including the costs of hiring and maintaining staff to manage the machines. I personally find it hysterical that anybody would think we'd see these in the _many_ train stations out there in even the distant future. Toss in buses as well, and you're quickly approaching $1M just to "secure" one bus/train route.
As it stands, the cost of these technologies is far too great to be presently implemented at this level. Although, if the TSA is indicative of the average IQ required to operate these machines, even the morons who work for our fabulous local CTA here in Chicago might be able to run these things.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
Next Next Step will be places of work and all public places.
Tons of people have worked out that this stupid policy is not a solution - why hasn't the government?
seen most of the movies and tv shows and reading some of the books now. everyone is always getting scanned
geeks should rejoice
Fuck you.
Hi John Pistole.
Fuck you too.
And Obama. God it pains me to say it.
Fuck you. What the fuck, man?
And to the 82% of people who think this is good,
Fuck all of you.
And yes, I get it that getting scanned is equivalent to the radiation exposure of ~3 minutes at 30,000 feet, but that is unavoidable whereas the scanner is.
Thankfully the US doesn't have (m)any widely-used metro systems. How about implementing this on a bus as well ... lol
Europe will never go for this, and this is another reason that I have no interest in returning to the states.
ugh ... when will Americans actually actively protest against something.
The USA interfering in other country's business has a lot to do with radicalising terrorists. The sooner they realise that they're not the World Police(TM), the sooner everyone can go back to minding their own business.
It's too late to stop funding the IRA, but staying out the way of those thieving Israelis would be a good start.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
You don't have the right to fly. Or take the train. Or the bus. Or drive. If you don't want to be molested by the government, you can walk.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
What is "The Hill"? Can someone link to the source or are we just to take Hugh Pickens on faith that this actually happened?
What's next? Are they going to mandate these devices on the doors of every house in the United States? That you would need to go through one to be approved to be outside? After all, if you are outside you could hurt someone. This presumption of guilt and having to prove your innocence is getting crazy.
"Catch-22 states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision the accused violator is accused of violating."
You are in trouble now!!!
says Napolitano. 'I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.'"
You mean other then having nothing else to loose. They don't hate us or our freedom but they do hate when they have nothing to care about. Fastest way to create a terrorist is to take away rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The three letter acronyms will fail as they squeeze tighter. Fastest way to defeat a terrorist is to give him a real job or business to support loved ones with out interference from corruption.
I got the enhanced pat-down the other day and I must say it was some of the best sex I've had in months.
In your car maybe, More likely in your house
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The technology will get cheaper and easier to use. They will probably even fix the radiation concerns.
Unless the citizens of the USofA, get their asses in gear and fight for their liberty (and common sense) this technology will become ubiquitous. We will become a police state that will extend beyond Joe Stalin's wildest dreams.
It is a characteristic of bureaucrats to extend their power infinitely unless they are somehow limited.
100% safety & security ! Where terrorists can not strike...
What ever happened to illegal search and seizure?!?! How are these even remotely legal? Seems like we are one step away from Big Brother listening in on our phone and Internet conversations. Oh wait....
If it isn't broke, tinker with it till it is!
I take a train to work every day, here in central, rainy right now, and just plain miserable central Europe. The train service here is fantastic. Efficient and cheap (OK, maybe you might want to avoid an ICE in summer, when it is hot). Lot's of folks take commuter trains to work; something like the "High Speed Line" in Philly, or BART in San Francisco.
If they start putting scanners in here . . . the economy would go to hell in a hand basket.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
No link to the article?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Will they pick up the latest threat to our freedoms?
I don't want to put my baby daughter through a scanner, pure and simple. Studies can say many things (and in this case, they do), but we won't know the true effect of this largely untested family of (lucrative and rushed to market) technologies for 20 years.There are clear shortcomings evident in many of the "its safe" studies (such as the testing which uses volumetric radiation measurements while the technology doesn't pass through (suggesting much higher concentration at a lower depth)).
Short answer: I think all of us (with children) would prefer our children to opt out of the the complimentary skin cancer and just get the college diploma at 21.
/* MAGIC THEATRE
ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY
MADMEN ONLY */
Let's consider for a moment that more murders, assaults, robberies, drug deals and general lawlessness happens outside of train stations and airports. Doesn't it make sense then that we have random body scans, with the option of full-body pat downs, on our highways and bi-ways and perhaps even random checks of our homes. After all, that's where those bombs, guns and other assorted weapons would be in the first place. I say, let's stop playing around and just throw out the Fourth Amendment and admit we made a mistake accepting it in the first place.
I knew she was this stupid when it comes to security. She was good at education and better at the budget than some, but her border security policy was awful and never did jack shit towards actually keeping anyone safe. Why she was selected for this, of all jobs, is beyond me. As I said, she could have been good at something else like Secretary of Education, but Homeland Security is possibly the worst possible position for her. She just has no grasp of what makes things secure (hint: it's not a fence/scanning machines).
Well, that's what you get for being the bully in the school yard.
'The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?' says Napolitano. 'I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.'
Was I the only one that picked up on this part of it and immediately thought of "thought crimes"?
There has to be some way that I can fly to visit family without getting a cavity search. Also, there has to be some way that people who might not like the way the government is doing things (but doesn't intend on killing a plane-full of innocents) can do the same.
'Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.'
What's next? Full body scan and TSA style cavity search, nut-grabbing patdown when you pick up your kid from daycare?
'I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.'
Really? It took you ten years to realize this?
Hint: being sold by your neighbor to the CIA, blindfolding, extraditing, torture, more flying, Guantanamo Bay, ten years of lock-down will turn ANYBODY and his brother into a so-called "terrorist".
Full body scanners, on the other hand, don't do shit, terrorism-wise.
As for a fear-free future: stop being afraid.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
'The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?' says Napolitano.
Recognize that the cost of freedom is accepting that someone else might use that freedom to hurt you. If you think you should be searched in order to travel because it'll make "us" safer, you need to turn in your US citizenship.
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither." (Jefferson)
It might also help to recognize that in countries which are far less free, there's still plenty of terrorism.
Please help metamoderate.
Body scanners in the subway? Screw that, I'll just take a Johnny Cab instead!
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I would love it if we had a president who said something like this:
"Yeah, about the TSA. We're ending it. Same with Homeland Security. Folks, the simple truth of the matter is there's no possible way to secure ourselves against all risk. I think we can all agree that the Soviet Union operated as a police state none of us would want to live in and even with all that security, they still had serial killers. China routinely uses the death penalty for drug smugglers and yet they still have a drug problem.
"The trappings of the police state represented by the TSA does not deter terrorists, it represents the illusion that government is doing something. It also is making a great deal of money for people who provide goods and services for the paranoia industry.
"The fact of the matter is that we will get hit again. We don't know by who, we don't know where, we don't know when, but it'll happen. You know what, though? We're strong. We can take whatever they dish out. They could fly ten more planes into ten more buildings, they could set off a nuclear device in downtown New York. No, we won't like it. But we'll crawl out from under the rubble and rebuild. Living as we have before, uncowed, unbowed, not conceding a goddamn thing to terrorists, that's middle finger resolutely extended right back at them. It says 'If that's all you've got, we've got nothing to worry about.'
"What we're no longer going to do is live our lives looking over our shoulder, jumping at shadows, giving up the way we live our lives because someone has rattled us, because we've lost our nerve, because we've been beaten.
"Oh, and while we're on the topic, Middle Eastern nuts wouldn't have so much money to finance terror attacks if we weren't giving it to them for the goddamn oil. They wouldn't even have a reason to attack us if we weren't involved in their politics in the first place. Our post-oil energy policy is also our anti-terror policy."
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Since when in recent memory has what something costs prevented the government (state, local, or federal) from doing something?
When your dealing with an entitle that considers deficit spending as being caused by not taxing enough instead of spending too much how can you write off this idea?
It will find its way to select train stations, places where politicians routinely need to advertise their concern.
Cost won't be the primary concern in their implementation outside of airports, the primary concern is, how much money my district gets and credit I get versus scorn I receive for spending said money or scorn received for what was implemented.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Meny train station don't even have full time ticket agents and you have to buy them on the train and what the point when any dumb ass can just drive around the gates and maybe crash a train by having it hit his car?
Maybe the cta it is setup pre boarding gates but not metra the train stations are way to open. some times the trains stop and the door opens in part of a road.
At this point I'm just glad that militant Islam probably has some pretty strict rules about sticking things up their butt. If one of those guys put a stick of dynamite up their ass and blew up a plane with it then the new air travel rules will largely restrict willing passengers to porn stars.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?
By not being fucking cowards, that's how. The motive of terrorism is terror; killing people is just the means. As long as we are contorting ourselves in fear -- and programs that border on institutionalized sexual assault to secure airplanes are definitely contortions -- we are encouraging, not discouraging, terrorism.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I know this was an elaborate hoax designed for my entertainment, but come on, let's stop with the scanners and touching people inappropriately and all that. That's crossing the line. I mean, surely no one did this for real. Tomorrow I will wake up and this will all be just a crazy dream, right?
If I'm ever required to go into one of those scanners, I'm going to exit screaming "HULK SMASH!"
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
I would have thought all the guns carried by Americans would be far more of a threat than any terrorist bombers. After all, how many suicide bombers have killed people on public transport recently?
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Oh, Janet! Sure we can take over boats and wreck them using mere boxcutters and explosives. I'm sure you've seen the movie Speed.
But let me give you a hint. Trains? Didn't you watch old cartoons as a kid? When we want to derail them, we don't need to be on them, and if we are, we have wasted some kamikaze brothers who could have better employed elsewhere.
I also think understanding what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.
Yours,
The Terrorists
and don't stop scanning until every last person on earth has been scanned, and then start scanning over again!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
research into the psychology of how a politician becomes radicalized
Look where all those arguments about how ridiculous it is to have such draconian security at airports but not in malls and trains leads -- to draconian security in malls and trains.
The Hill reports that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for US vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.
Terrorists hadn't figured out that malls, schools, buses, trains, etc. are US vulnerabilities? That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard and just shows how little respect Homeland Security has for the intelligence of US citizens.
I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime.
Translation: Look at how terrified and inconvenienced we've gotten away with making people. It's time for Phase 2 of Operation Immobilize the Populous.
The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?
If we haven't gotten out of this by now (because that's not really the goal), we're never going to.
I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.
Perhaps it's, oh I don't know, feeling your religion, culture, way of life, and independence are being threatened by a force dramatically more powerful than you? Let's stop picking on people smaller than us and maybe the won't retaliate in desperation.
I'd love to be less tin-foil-hat about this, but I just don't see any other realistic way to interpret what Homeland Security is trying to accomplish. I just can't see how it's truly about the security of the populous.
The lobbyists for the scanner manufacturers have succeeded in getting them in airports. They need to continue to expand their market.
But abusive federal agents are exempt.
More victories in your stupid war on Drugs.
America is a fucking joke, I can't believe I moved here on purpose once.
A dose of radiation every single morning? No thanks. There's a fucking reason the dentist leaves the room when i get a dental X-Ray.
The cumulative exposure would be much greater than the imaginary 'dirty bomb' I'm supposed to have nightmares about.
And to the partisan morons rallying behind their president on this one (the only explanation why the anti-Bush "omg my freedoms are gone" crowd is suddenly in favor of the most invasive security procedures imaginable). Fuck you, you shit eating dirtbag hypocrites. Good thing you got Obamacare. You deserve the cancer.
Once you implement more security, it is extremely unlikely that it will be rolled back in the future. So basically, once it's here, it's here to stay for good. The government probably won't stop until every door is a scanner.
What better terrorist attack could there be than blowing up a huge bomb in a shopping mall at Thanksgiving or Christmas? Then we'll need metal detectors (and then backscatter scanners) at all 27 entrances to the malls, and we'll end up shopping online. "The economic recession is closing stores!" No, it will be paranoia and stupid governments closing stores.
But what then? What if a terrorist decides to work at Amazon, or UPS, or the post office? You could get a bomb delivered to YOUR OWN HOME!!!
The only way we can be perfectly safe is to stay at home, eat nothing we didn't grow ourselves, drink nothing we didn't produce ourselves, cut off from the rest of humanity. Scratch that--the only way we can be PERFECTLY safe is to be dead.
There will always be random attacks, terrorists, and accidents. There is always a chance you're going to die today. Don't let the world turn into a police state (run by private, for profit corporations). Go out, take some risks, tell the government you won't accept "complete security", and live.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Tyranny has to be implemented incrementally. Nazi Germany changed in the same way. One little individual liberty by one. It's the old Frog in the pot analogy. Because of that I say the U.S. is self righteous regarding its history. Not that we have a clean past. What I mean is that if the same thing were to happen here the people wouldn't be outraged or speak up out of fear. Yes, there are some that are rebelling by opting out of the scanners, but still flying. A real rebelling would be a boycott of flying effecting the bottom line, protests etc., however, I don't see that. The reality is while most people are upset they are really more concerned about celebrity news.
I would be willing to be that if we were to have another major terrorist attack and the government started to round up Arabs/Persians the masses would be silent. Don't believe me? Just ask the Japanese Americans from the 1940's. Yes they weren't gassed etc., but they were denied their liberties for a long period of time. I guess it sucks if you are part of said ethnic classification group.
I know I might be invoking Godwin's law, but the Nazi analogy does apply here. My Grandmother immigrated from Germany to the U.S. in the 1920's. She went back to Germany for a last visit in 1935. She was outspoken against the Nazis among family and friends, however, I am sure it fell upon dead ears as being over-reactionary etc.
Maybe we could just realize that we cannot control everything in the world of 6 billion plus people.
Honestly, I worry more about my kids living in a failed civilization and being exposed to hunger, war; maybe torture and frequent violent crime over the course of years. I worry about them having their very souls worn down by evil and misery than I worry about them dying in a plane crash. The latter is quick. The former is a very real possability if fear motivates all our decisions.
Being strong doesn't just mean subjecting ourselves to all kinds of silly crap to stay safe. Some of that is OK, but being strong also means realizing that occasionally some of us will get picked off from the herd. We want that risk minimized and shared in a fair and equitable way, but we cannot 100% eliminate it.
A good example is 911. Not only did the people in the planes die, but thousands more in buildings. We put some locks on the cockpit doors and we now have a flying public and flight crew unwilling to negotiate with hijackers. It is much less likely that a plane would be used in this way again. It didn't cost much to get lots of benefit.
I'd really like to see some good statistical analysis of how many incidents these scanners could reasonably be expected to prevent, crossed with how many people trips are made each year, etc., etc. and digest that into a % decrease in your overall chance of death for the average person. I bet it goes out quite a few decimal places.
Nation-states ARE terrorists.
Where's the source for this news item?
I can't think of a faster way to shut down New York City. The traffic is always so bad you can't drive, so everyone takes the subway to work, home, grocery shopping... There is no way people would wait in line to be scanned, if they did you'd have millions of people who suddenly had 1+ hours added to their already long commute, you would make traffic worse, so the delay would affect everyone whether they drove or took the train.
You don't even have to go through a metal detector to get on the subway - maybe they'll start that first. A part of me isn't even opposed to metal detectors on subways (besides the delay it would cause), because disarming criminals on subways would probably cut down on other crimes, and make subways safer for women, and people carrying cash or laptops (so long as they don't make you take your laptop out, or show if you're carrying something valuable).
There is no way they're going to use body scanners in places they don't even use metal detectors now.
then you better start molesting the government.
That's exactly what the government is trying to push you into doing.... retaliation.
All the DHS goons are trying to create job security for themselves and are also on a quest to more and more power.
They know if they push the American public hard enough, hard enough then sooner or later some fringe idiot(s) will be driven to the point of pushing back and doing something stupid, then DHS will say "Look, we told you so... domestic terrorism!" and use that to justify the furtherance of their goals. Even though the DHS was supposed to be created to protect us from foreign terrorists, and while they may be doing some of hat, it's become painfully obvious that they are primarily targeting us citizens. All the evidence in the public to that effect has become overwhelming. All the govt goons really want to do is to put gold stars on their report cards, not necessarily catch terrorists. Catching real terrorists is hard and dangerous work, DHS has found a much easier way to get their gold stars and that is to push reasonable people so hard that one of them cracks and then use that as a propaganda tool.
A sealed chamber with a chemical sniffer to smell the explosives that a body scanner won't see. A dog can sniff out explosives, and with modern equipment it should be easy to do the same. The sensor can self-test/calibrate before each check. The body scanners are over-kill.
I have been shrugging off the Big Brother alarmists over the last few months but man it is hard not to see that the current administration is seeing how far they can push it on us. It is slightly terrifying.
On a side note, a lot of this is caused by law enforcement being ordered to see everyone as a terrorist instead of profiling them and using common sense. When they look for a serial killer they look for loner white males because you know what? Almost all serial killers are loner white males. Don't harass the potential victims because you are afraid of harassing the potential terrorists.
In a nutshell, the Muslim community feels that no one respects them.
They look around and see all this prosperity around the World except in their countries (Indonesia has come a long way since the book was written, btw).
The author also points out that the Muslim community really needs to have a hard look at themselves and the leaders they insist on backing. The need to stop this horseshit that America and Israel is keeping them down.
What we the US can do? Stop fucking with them. Stop overthrowing their Governments, for one. Stop "projecting power" for another - especially in the Muslim World.
Let's face it, the only group that's indiscriminately targeting American civilians in mass transportation are radicalized Muslims. Someone will probably mention McVeigh or go through the last few decades to come up with a list of a half dozen white guys who were "terrorists". They weren't terrorists. All of them had specific targets - people or Government buildings - in order to take those targets out: they were murderers. They were NOT targeting groups of Americans for the sake of creating terror.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
It's because your secret departments made those nutjobs, trained those nutjobs, funded, supplied and empowered those nutjobs. Also invading and bombing their countries doesn't help.
Want a recent example of what happens? Try Northern Ireland. Locked in bombings, killings and other DAILY terrorist activites for decades. Look at the difference between the daily life in the UK in the height of the IRA's activites and how oppressive the USA has become.
One thing that particularly irks me is that in the past two months, there have been more bombs in the North than terrorist actions against the USA, yet I can fly in and out of Belfast or anywhere in Northern Ireland a hell of a lot easier than the "Land of The Free", and I don't have to log my radiation exposure.
Maybe the USA got really pissed off about 9/11 because it was foreigners who did it instead of the traditional home grown, good ol' boys standard. Damned outsourcing. Tim McVeigh anybody?
Go on, mod this as troll all you like. The truth can hurt.
Outlaw travel, only naked people can be seen out side of their homes... only way to stop the biggest threat to our freedom
Very creative use of the word, "fuck."
If I remember correctly, there is a great scene in Scarface where Tony Montana talks to his "partner" in Columbia:
Colombian Drug Lord: "Fuck you!"
Tony answers: "No, Fuck You!"
We got incredible mileage out of that quote.
You also might want to try, "this fucking fucker, is fucking fucked!"
But that is none of my god-damned fucking business . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
is that those who get cancer from radiation exposure if these body scanners are more widely used, will be a number orders of magnitude greater than those killed by terrorists, if we had no security at all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The psychology behind somebody becoming "radicalized" is simpler than Ms. Napolitano believes. Subject an individual to sufficient levels of economic deprivation, social rejection, and/or government tyranny and he starts to think that violence is a reasonable option.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
There's plenty of controversy about the new full body scanners that the TSA is installing at airports, and plenty more about the way some TSA agents are handling those that choose to opt out.
The heart of the matter comes from the fact that the TSA often doesn't understand that it is in show business, not security business. A rational look at the threats facing travelers would indicate that intense scrutiny of a four ounce jar of mouthwash or aggressive frisking of a child is a misplaced use of resources. If the goal is to find dangerous items in cargo or track down Stinger missiles, this isn't going to help.
Instead, the mission appears to be twofold:
1. Reassure the public that the government is really trying and
2. Keep random bad actors off guard by frequently raising the bar on getting caught
The challenge with #1 is that if people believe they're going to get groped, or get cancer, or have to wait in line even longer on Thanksgiving, they cease to be on your side. Particularly once they realize how irrational it is to try to stop a threat after it's already been perpetrated. (Imagine the havoc if someone had a brassiere-based weapon...)
And the challenge of #2 is that the cost of raising the bar gets higher and higher.
Smart marketers know how to pivot. I think it's time to do that. Start marketing the idea that flying is safe, like driving, but it's not perfect, like driving. If someone is crazy enough to hurt themselves or spend their life in jail, we're not going to stop them, and even if we did, they'd just cause havoc somewhere else. So instead of spending billions of dollars a year in time and money pretending, let's just get back to work.
The current model doesn't scale.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/11/groping-for-a-marketing-solution-tsa-and-security-theater.html
This is very much like what Schneier has been saying for years, but nobody else really cared till things got sexual. Isn't that like our species ;-)
Schneier, from 2005:
Exactly two things have made airline travel safer since 9/11: reinforcement of cockpit doors, and passengers who now know that they may have to fight back. Everything else -- Secure Flight and Trusted Traveler included -- is security theater. We would all be a lot safer if, instead, we implemented enhanced baggage security -- both ensuring that a passenger's bags don't fly unless he does, and explosives screening for all baggage -- as well as background checks and increased screening for airport employees.
Then we could take all the money we save and apply it to intelligence, investigation and emergency response. These are security measures that pay dividends regardless of what the terrorists are planning next, whether it's the movie plot threat of the moment, or something entirely different.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
'I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.'
Gee, you don't think it could possibly have anything to do with invading their country and funding and arming the people who want to kill them, do you?
Naa... that can't possibly be it.
Technoli
Na Twzyf Jmy Nashr al-Rhsbyh La Slashdot.org Bldy. al-Hmd Llh Rb al-Almyn. al-md Slashdot.org. al-md Rabth Znjy Mthly al-Jns al-Mrykyh
Our nation of sniveling weenies will shut itself down for fear some "evildoers" will get us. Hell, most of the rest of the world has been living with this kind of crap forever but in the last few decades Americans have become so scared of their own shadows we'll cheerfully submit to "Big Brother". What happened to "nothing to fear but fear itself?" If the first settlers had been this chicken we'd never have got off the beaches of the Atlantic coast. No, we'd never have left Europe because sailing the ocean in a wooden ship is dangerous. And if there are any rabid Republicans here, don't try to put it all on Obama. The Bush administration used fear as a campaign tool.
Janet Napolitano's hubris is pretty strong. I don't think the body scanners are going to survive this whole TSA debacle. I actually think TSA is going to be curtailed and severely weakened. Already, public perception of them are as idiotic clowns that do absolutely nothing to secure out skies. They are a weak, freak show that is a tremendous burden on our tax dollars.
"Oh, and while we're on the topic, Middle Eastern nuts wouldn't have so much money to finance terror attacks if we weren't giving it to them for the goddamn oil. They wouldn't even have a reason to attack us if we weren't involved in their politics in the first place. Our post-oil energy policy is also our anti-terror policy."
While we're on the topic, most of our oil comes from Canada, South America, and yes, our very own US of A. It's a common misconception that we rely on the middle east for "most" or all of our oil, and you see it perpetuated every time Obama and other politicians talk about "our foreign dependence".
Our foreign policy was/is heavily influenced by communism, by the way...that's at least half the reason we got ourselves into such a mess. It wasn't just "oil", it was "commies getting oil."
Please help metamoderate.
Given the choice, I would choose to increase my own risk of blowing up in the air by terrorism than going through all this shit. So, how about offering this as a service?, we already choose to increase our risk of dying in an accident when we choose to use low cost airlines or buses, when we choose to travel by road instead of air, etc... and that's far more probable.
So far travelers haven't swapped the airport shuttle for the videoconferencing studio en masse. So far.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
The united states will clearly never be secured as long as there are people living there. Let's just deport EVERYONE back to the other countries, and the land of the free will be safe once it becomes the land of free space!
But unlike the 3 minutes at 30,000 feet, the radiation is lower power, designed to scatter off your skin.
That means that 3 minutes a 30,000 feet your entire body (insides included) is hit with the same amount of power: in a scanner only your surface area (skin) is hit with 3 minutes of radiation exposure at 30,000 feet in just under two seconds.
Assuming that the radiation needs to penetrate 1 mm or less to scatter, an average male's body surface area is 1.9 m^2 (165 lbs 5'9") making an exposure area of 0.0019 m^3
Likewise an average male weights about 75 kg (165 pounds) with an average conversion factor of 1.015 kg/l coming with a rough value of 70 l for an average male's volume.
A little math and you find out that (0.0019/70) the entire in machine dose is hitting only 1/36842 of your body, or about 0.0027% of your body.
Normalizing for exposure per second E = Rate(at 30000)*180(seconds), and E = Rate2(in machine)*2(seconds). Leads to Rate(at 30000)*180(seconds) = Rate2(in machine)*2(seconds). A little more math, an you realize that the rate of exposure is 90 times faster in the machine.
90 times faster exposure of only 0.0027% of your body means that the "only three minutes" argument is true, but misleading. Such things can only happen in a culture where most people are mathematically illiterate.
To make a mathematical analogy. Assume the exposure in the air is like having a match light each second. You feel the heat of one match for 180 seconds. Then standing in such a machine is like being exposed to 36841 matches being lit 90 time a second for 2 seconds. That's 3315690 matches per second for 2 seconds. It's a 3 million plus fold increase in exposure rate.
By the way, 1 million matches lit creates a fire column 3 to 5 meters in size over 10 meters tall. For the Americans, that's 10 to 16 feet wide and over 40 feet tall. I don't want to know how how big the fire column would be for a 3.3 million match lighting experiment.
I used to tear up with pride when I heard the national anthem, or Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA". The final line of the anthem, "the land of the free and the home of the brave", and Greenwood's line that "the flag still stands for freedom, and they can't take that away", are both now lies. We are not the land of the free, the flag doesn't stand for freedom, they did take it away, but most of all we are no longer the home of the brave. We are a nation of cowards, so afraid of the boogeyman of terrorism we are willing to sacrifice not just our rights but our very dignity, all in the forlorn hope of being safe.
The TSA has not stopped a single terrorist in the 9 years of its operation. The full-body scanners would not have detected any of the bomb plots of the last few years, including last year's Captain Underpants. It is a complete and total waste of time and money, and serves no purpose beyond enriching a handful of politically connected individuals.
Enough is enough. It's time we all refuse to subject ourselves to any security measures until sanity is restored. Don't show your ID at the airport, don't go through the metal detectors, don't even submit your carry ons for X-Ray inspection. The pendulum has swung too far in one direction, it is time we push it back where it belongs.
If everyone were to refuse to submit to these intrusions, they would be gone in a matter of days. The "powerful" who think themselves our masters are neither, and in their hearts they know it. The people still have the power in this country to stand up for what's right.
Who's with me?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Hmm, let's see....
Invade their country. (Check)
Bomb their country. (Check)
Kill thousands of their innocent civilians, men women and children. (Check)
Show no remorse for these acts. Indeed, be proud of them, and say the victims had it coming. (Check)
Tell the survivors that they are going to get the same. (Check)
How much research do you need? I thought America had drawn up this five-point-plan years ago.
The full transcript of the interview is here. She never said a thing about body scanners on trains or transit, nor was she asked. She merely said that "we have to be thinking" about surface transportation security. You can read into that whatever you want, but the headline implies a comment that she simply did not make.
\
Here's TFA: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/130549-next-step-for-body-scanners-could-be-trains-boats-and-the-metro-
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Seriously, is everyone who works for "Homeland Security" an idiot? Is there some maximum IQ you can have before you're unqualified?
Attacking a bus is completely different than attacking a plane.
Even if these measure were useful in defending a plane (which they are not) they wouldn't apply to a bus because any terrorist WOULD NOT GO THROUGH THEM and would, instead, drive next to the bus and blow up his car.
MAYBE they'd be useful in a subway. As long as the train never left the tunnels and all the access routes were sealed shut.
Which still leave the malls and the after Thanksgiving crowds there.
And that doesn't even cover things like a couple of snipers just shooting people in DC.
Those of us supporting the high-speed rail idea will now forget that entirely, TSA at railroads means rail loses my support.
Sad.
Did you know that NewYork City has 468 train stations, only 35 less than the total number of train stations in the rest of the country? And has a daily ridership of 5.1million people. Compare this with the airline industry which (from various sources) claim that as many as people fly in the United States each day.
Btw, in the US there are 14,951 airports as of 2008, including 5,146 with paved runways, and 9,805 with unpaved runways.
The problem here is that you have 5.1million people trying to make it through 468 train stations each day. That doesn't include people taking regional (like Amtrak) trains into NY and then transferring to local trains.
Can anybody imagine trying to scan all the passengers that go through 42nd Street? 58million per year... If I have to get to the subway station an hour ahead of my subway, I might as well take a cab, or walk.
Land of the free, home of the brave? Ha!
Land of the paranoid, home of the scared.
If I was a terrorist, the next step would be to set off a bomb (probably a suicide bomb) in the middle of the long lines being created by the slower but more invasive "security" measures. This would lead to screening lines to past through the final security point, which could then be attacked. At some point, hopefully, people will finally see the pointlessness of these "security" measures. I am not saying we should not take security measures, just not the ones we are doing now.
Different foreign policies, and better intelligence would be more effective I think.
"I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful." Oh gosh, that's a tough call... Invade their country? Kill their family, neighbors and friends? Install a corrupt puppet regime that tortures everyone in sight? Steal their land?
Can you imagine being Gate Raped by the sort of security employee who couldn't even get one of them ritzy fancy-pants TSA jobs at the airport?
At some point I think we really have to acknowledge that putting the cast of Jersey Shore in charge of the nation's security is like giving the lunatics the keys to the asylum and saying "Go mad!"
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
> promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized.
So are there non-radical terrorists?
>how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus
A list worth closer look IMHO:
* perceived or real cultural threats (see westernization, M. cartoons, women's rights,...)
* perceived or real economic injustice (imperialism in the 19th century, fallout from global economy and western oil interests)
* perceived or real political injustice (Israel-Palestine conflict)
* western promotion of dictators in action, freedom preaching in words
* religious dogma, religious extremism, resistance for change and progress
* demonization of the other religion; racism, antisemitism (all sides!)
* subculture to promote obedience to authority, to tell people what to think so they do not have to do it themselves (all sides!)
* masses of uneducated and economically disadvantaged people, without hope for a quality life, providing "cannon fodder"
* masses receptive to and fed by propaganda
* inability for compromise based on emotional barriers or entrenched political stance (e.g criticism of own failed policy or ideology, or critical view of allies, neighbors, own community)
* lack of patience, tolerance, adherence to the golden rule resulting in escalating responses on all sides
* emotions trumping rational thought
I know nobody actually RTFA anyway, but come on...
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/130549-next-step-for-body-scanners-could-be-trains-boats-and-the-metro-
Check the "am I reading bullshit on the internet meter".
1) Is this plausible? No, not financially, or politically.
2) Does this link to credible sources? No, it links to nothing.
When someone says something implausible, and doesn't source it on the internet, it's probably not true.
Methinks you misunderstand how this country works.
There's this thing called the "Constitution", you see, and it tells the government what it is allowed to do - and that if it's not told it can do it then it can't, and this "Constitution" thing goes so far as to end with (paraphrased) "No, really, you can't do what you're not allowed to, and here's a list of things we're really adamant about you not doing - and one of them is GOVERNMENT CANNOT SEARCH PEOPLE WITHOUT SPECIFIC CAUSE ARTICULATED TO A JUDGE WHO MUST ISSUE A SIGNED WARRANT."
D@mn straight we have the right to fly, take a train, ride a bus, or drive. If the Founding Fathers had envisioned something as intrusive & oppressive as licensed vehicular travel - much less being intimately assaulted to even be a passenger - they would have included the right to vehicular travel in the Bill Of Rights (which, BTW, has a catch-all "and any rights we didn't enumerate, yeah the government cannot infringe on those either").
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Aside from the fact that my 6'3" frame fits in Amtrak coach seats, the main reason I ride Amtrak is because it lacks the nonsense security hassle that airplane rides entail. Yes, I know Amtrak isn't practical for a lot of travel, but it works for most of mine. If Amtrak becomes as much of a hassle as airports then I'll start driving everywhere.
If you want to avoid full body scanners, please visit www.avoidfullbodyscanner.org to find the checkpoints where they are not used.
The TSA is the real terrorist organization. Not only does it daily engage in ever more intrusive searches, it has gotten into what essentially amounts to daily sexual assault on a grand scale. Then, it has the gall to tell the now quivering masses of passengers that these measures are required to keep out the terrorists. Ha! Those methods make them the terrorists!
SSC
This is the usual incoherent TSA power grab that makes no real sense. Under what threat model do we "need" any of this. If terrorists want to disrupt air travel, they don't have to go through screening, they could blow up the security line at Dulles Airport. Heck, they could probably blow up the taxi stand and achieve that goal. Such bombings at security checkpoints were and I think still are commonplace in Iraq. I am not sure that we need security checkpoints at airports period (the threat model they were set up for is gone); we sure don't need to expand them.
Here is my daily commute (from Baltimore to a government building in DC): light rail to train station, train to DC, walk to government building. Reverse in the PM. If they start scanning public transportation, that means at least 2 scans a day for me, even more if they start doing light rail. But it won't stop there, because the next vulnerable perimeter needs to be protected, so they'll surely start using these scanners in buildings and public spaces. Now we're up to multiple scans per day. Considering I travel between two very busy train stations, first of all, my commuting time increases significantly to account for the extra screening (which doesn't happen now at all, so any screening of any kind will impose a burden). Secondly, these devices that are supposedly safe (but everything I read indicates that actual exposure can far exceed what is considered 'standard'). Even at 'safe' levels, how many scans per day til you cross into dangerous territory? Don't forget that these scans are ineffective for any number of reasons, as are the alternative gropings. All this expense, frustration, and exposure for very little (if any) benefit (beyond subjugating the masses of course). Clearly there are forces at work here attempting to accomplish something -- but it ain't the safety and welfare of Americans.
We need to subsidise firearm ownership and training for our most vulnerable people: the poor. I'm considering setting up a charity that gives guns, ammo and range time to inner-city minorities so that they can protect themselves from terrorists. Seems like such an obvious thing, I wonder why the NRA doesn't reach out to the urban non-white populations and encourage them to exercise their 2nd amendment rights. Perhaps the NAACP could change that A from Advancement to Arming.
Blar.
Meny train station don't even have full time ticket agents and you have to buy them on the train and what the point when any dumb ass can just drive around the gates and maybe crash a train by having it hit his car?
That's OK, they'll stick up a big screen at the station so the other passengers can check that you're not carrying anything you shouldn't be. Of course you might have to go through the scanner a few times until they can all be sure.
If they hate us for our freedom.... does this all mean they are starting to like us?
(philosoraptor)
Reply to That ||
YOUR DOOR !
Read radical news here
The TSA seems to believe that they can protect us from every little threat, but they're responding to the last threat from our enemies, not the next one. They are the hysterical ones, jumping through every little hoop that our enemies set up. Their behavior is increasingly bizarre and insane. None of the people whose privacy they invade beyond reason will be a threat! If an actual threat emerges it will no doubt come down to us, the very people that the TSA holds in such contempt, the very people they fear, to stop it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
In China, they already have pre-nudie-scanner airport-like security at the train stations - at least for the longer distance trains like Hong Kong to Guangzhou or to Shenzhen. They don't have these in the Guangzhou Metro yet, though. I've seen these at long distance bus stations too (HK to GZ again, for example). They even have them at the entrances to certain museums, the Guangzhou Science Center (which is an amazing science museum), and other similar attractions. No taking off your shoes, though. You just pass your bags through the x-ray machine and walk through the metal detector just like at an airport, but no metal-detector wand and pat-down like at the airports.
The greedy airlines do not want the traveling public switching to Amtrak or the bus. The reason to grope/scan train passengers is purely in the comercial interest of the airlines.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
The reason might be, as others pointed out, that they would be completely useless. But then again, the US government has to support the failing car industry. And what better way of doing that, than to molest people, who want to use "unnatural" (public) forms of transportation.
Troll? Seriously? For commenting that terrorism derives from nations?
Here's the linky in case you wanted to read the story from The Hill that was referenced in the article: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/130549-next-step-for-body-scanners-could-be-trains-boats-and-the-metro-
the difference with planes is that you can slam them into any target you wish. they're essentially piloted cruise missiles. trains and buses and metro stations are different. while you can blow them up, kill people on them or whatever you can't slam them into an arbitrary target. in that respect a train and the metro are no different than your local mall or walmart, downtown or whatever. and i can't imagine we're going to body scan people going into walmart or any other location where there are lots of people in one place. or maybe we are? hope not.
david reuteler
We need more diversity in our terrorists. It's an experiment to see if oppressing americans will generate more Timothy McVeigh's.
Snipping in city get you caught. just snipe when the bus is going out of the city, and where you have multiple way to go out. By the time you have fired your bullet in the driver window, potentially starting an accident, and a pile-up on highways, you are already going away, and within minutes away from potential witness. And there is no camera to catch you. Rince and repeat for trains.
Correction to your math,
0.0019 m / 70 L = 0.0019m / 0.07m = 2.7%, or 1/36.8th
A lot of this talk focusses on Islamic terrorists, but they are only a part of the terrorists groups.
Terrorism is practices in lots of countries for lots of reasons. From the dutch Rara (against companies dealing with the apartheid regime in South Africa) to the recent greek anarchist terrorist and the american born Timothy McVeigh. What have they got in common? Nothing apart from the believe they can enforce their minority opinion on others with violence.
That is the heart of terrorism, the believe by an individual or a group that they can get their will imposed through violence because they can't get it done through any other means. It is the kid who throws a temper tantrum to get what he wants. But the world has 6 billion kids and so can't keep giving in.
Lots of weak minded people think that if only the US stops supporting Israel, the attacks would stop. Yes, very simple. To bad the current Islamic terrorists don't like pretty much everything about the US. Just being there is enough. As long as one infidel remains alive, it is an a front to Allah. Not the official Islam of course, but the view is common enough in religion. Some Christian groups believe all non-believers need to be killed before the messiah will lead them into heaven. Some might prefer not to wait it out.
And it ain't always religion. Timothy McVeigh simply wanted a different form of state and so little kids had to die. North Korea thinks that self-sufficiency is cool and millions get killed or do you think it ain't terrorism if your own people are doing it?
Terror attacks are everywhere, from the race riots (black vs black) in South Africa, the holocausts in Rwanda, to the IRA that is still fighting. Always there will be someone wanting to enforce their will on others.
What you going to do? Hide in your house hoping no one will take offense? I take offense and will terror kill you for you doing that... kinda defeats the purpose doesn't it? People who refuse to take part in wars are often targetted by those who wish conflict.
Yesterday arrests were made in Belgium on terror charges with people who want to establish Sharia law in Belgium. The group itself always seemed pretty harmless, but they are fundementally at odds with both Belgium life style AND the idea that if only you don't bother them, they won't bother you. Someone somewhere will come to you, to seek conflict because they fundementally believe their rights are of higher value then yours. And yes, this time it was muslims, but lets not forget that white europeans did it half a century ago in a far more extreme form called WW2. Might makes right. What are you going to do against this?
Make everyone equal. But many terrorists ARE well off. The shoe-bomber comes from a rich family, lived in the west, what more could be done? Osama Bin Laden belongs to one of the richest families in the world and lived in a strict Islamic nation. What more does he want? How much appeasement can you do to the kid throwing his weight around before you have to throw your own temper tanturm to enforce your will?
This is advanced thinking. You can see it with most people not getting any further then "lets give in on this obvious demand and not think about its full impact or that they want far far more".
For instance, stop supporting Israel. Apart from the clear anti-semites, does anyone really think Hamas will create a nation in which Christians and Jews and Muslims and Atheists can life next to each other? So we have Holocaust 2.0? Relocate everyone else? Then how does Hamas fund itself? Israel has no resources. What will Eqypt, Jordan and Syria think of it, all of them hate Islamic radicals with a passion. Do they want a fully armed radical Islamic nation on their front door?
But no, that is to advanced. The answer of appeasement to terrorists is like "what harm is it to wear that yellow star, why not just do it, so they will play nice from then on". Terrorists don't take just your finger.
Ask the Indians (Native Americans). Eit
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In other news, terrorists state admitted today that they are canceling their radioactive materials enrichment programs. "No need to irradiate the US with nuclear weapons anymore," they said. "They are now self-radiating."
Maybe it's time for us to stop being ashamed of our own bodies? Especially those of us who don't believe in any gods, why do we still support a taboo that didn't exist in many cultures before the spread of Christianity?
First it was the Planes, Now it's the Trains. I suppose next will be the luxury Buses then who knows whats next. to my understanding "they" as in the terrorists whole aim is to spread fear and distrust..
Terrorists 1
TSA 0
Vinaka Jo
Thank you. I just realized a minute ago the mistake of not converting l to m^3. Still, it's a lot more than than the exposure rate at 30,000 feet. 36.8*90 = 3312 times more per second.
Funny. I didn't know /. had a mirror...
Because YOUR post is the truly erroneous (hard right, but left and right get turned around in a mirror) outlook, and is stupid in the extreme.
The jihadists aim is to get Islam accepted everywhere.
The US's aim is to get US interests accepted everywhere.
Both sides use their poor to do the dirty work.
Panama, Philippines
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
they did their job so well, that the very same Taliban the CIA created is driving the US out of Afghanistan.
And the US protected Saudi's exported ( and still export ) their fundamentalists buying peace for their own air-conditioned dustheap.
Let's see train disruption, how simply can this be done?
Buy, rent, borrow, steal any car.
Drive to railroad crossing.
Park car on tracks, get out, walk away.
Screen passengers is going to prevent this, HOW?
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/130549-next-step-for-body-scanners-could-be-trains-boats-and-the-metro-
2019 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
A simple example. WWF -> Greenpeace -> Sea Shepherd Conservation Society -> ???
Terror itself is being afraid. If the WWF protests, the people it wants to change become afriad of the bad publicity that might happen. Greenpeace does this harder. From Whale Wars it is clear Japan is very afraid of their actions. Forms of terror. Although of course Japan itself also engages in terror tactics. Like deliberatly ramming a ship or using legal scare tactics with its large economic might.
What you see as radical depends on your own view points.
The list you give is incomplete but mostly fails because people will tend to see them as seperate items. Not able to see that a group might be fueled by more then one AND that different members of a group might have different and even conflicting motives.
You also miss greed, power, fun.
And masses of uneducated disadvantages? Then how do you explain the recent attacks by rich westernized muslims? Or non-muslim terrorists groups in western europe?
To simple a list.
Look at the origins of any protest group, why is it there. ALL the motives of ALL the people. From a believe that breathing is a crime against nature because it kills bacteria to people who just want something to do on a weekend. Once you begin to understand EVERY protest and counter-protest against whaling, you can begin to look at bigger conflicts.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I have one at my front door. Just for my own security of course.
You never know when a terrorist slips something in your pocket.
I also bend over and check my ___ to see if there is anything inside that does not belong there.
As we all know terrorists will always find new ways of.... well.. you know.
Needless to say I check all my friends as well, since you can trust nobody.
Privacy is terrorism.
And if you don't like being scanned by the driver as you get on a bus then don't ride the bus, no one is making you.
What's that, you can't afford a car to get to work. Well too bad, we can't let the terrorists win, if you don't like America then you can get out. Just don't do it by trains, planes, or automobiles or in any public spaces. :)
Oh, and when you get there can you send us some foreign investment?
If you are a terrorist just go to your local airport and infiltrate the crowd waiting to go through the security scanner. You get bonus points if you knock out one or more of those stupid scanners. God it sounds like a video game. Grand Theft Terrorist anyone.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Wasn't it Wehner von Braun that on his death bed, said that American would see 4 great wars, each stripping Americans of their rights? The first being the war of drugs, limiting the import/export of controlled substances and paving the way for agencies like the DEA. Then the war on terror, which we are now seeing the ramifications of, followed in turn by a war on an asteroid and ultimately a faked alien invasion.
Apophis is going to make some interesting reading for me next year, and again in 2036 if I'm present.
I don't want to know how how big the fire column would be for a 3.3 million match lighting experiment
Mythbusters lit a drumcan with a million match heads in it, resulting in a column going over fifty feet tall. It's safe to assume three times as much would go well above that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poV6lc2b070
You tell those rich kids about the poor and about their deaths and about how their freedoms are ending at the end of a Western gun.
Get rid of the poor people and stop shooting them, then the sob stories go.
'The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?' says Napolitano. 'I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.'"
I'm no expert on human behavior, but maybe you ought to start with the psychology of exploitation and the abuse of basic human dignity?
She need only address her questions to a mirror.
When Barak Obama is defeated for re-election in Nov. 2012, Napolitano and here lap dog Pistole will be forced to resign.
End of story.
Listen closely too what they are really saying about safety.
I consistently hear how they want to make the traveling public "FEEL" safe.
Not what they should be saying and I want to hear is how they are "MAKING" the traveling public safe.
I am only of average inelegance and I consistently see holes in security that could easily be exploited or when logic is applied are ridicules and pointless.
When I think what a determined individual or group could do with the TSA's inept, inconsistent and arbitrary implantation of security procedures has convinced me never to fly again. I am more afraid of the draconian TSA and the quality of the aircraft's maintenance I am about to fly on then I am terrorists.
Much of what they do defies logic. Harassing pilots at check points is pointless. Pilots do not need a weapon to take over the plain they are already in control of. If the TSA really wanted to insure safety involving pilots a more appropriate security procedure for pilots would be a pre-flight breathalyzer and drug screening.
The TSA constantly takes the most intrusive and heavy handed cold war eastern block approach to safety.
The real reason for the intentionally excessive and intrusive rubdown is to punish you for not submitting an electronic strip search.
They TSA should consider the old saying "you catch more fly's with honey than you do with vinegar" when devising and implementing security procedures.
Lies about the scanners inability to save images don't help reassure the public. When the TSA claims that the images can not saved then over a hundred "un-savable" images are posted on the internet from a fredom of information act request. Adding even more discredit to the TSA stories about screeners using camera phones to take pictures of the images or getting caught masturbating in the booth don't help. How soon before images of celebrities start making the rounds?
If Government isn't telling the truth about saving images how can the traveling public believe the the statements about the safety and levels of the ionizing radiation used by the scanners?
The little I remember college physics is that ionizing radiation is not good and even at low levels over time the damage is cumulative.
Also, imagine the cumulative radiation for people who take the train every day. That's a whole lot more than the odd plane-flight...
"Napolitano added she hoped the US could get to a place in the future where Americans would not have to be as guarded against terrorist attacks as they are and that she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized."
Abolish the Department of Homeland Stupidity, imprison corrupt officials like you Ms. Napolitano, and let Americans have their country back. When people fear their government more than terrorists you have to begin to wonder who the REAL terrorists are.
Hope is the currency of fools
Ms. Napolitano has through this through, and has correctly concluded that making frightening (though false) statements like "[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through" will scare the majority into further stupidity and create even more sales of these body scanners, which will mean big money for those who own stock in the company (including the top-ranking members of the Department of Homeland Security).
She knows exactly what she is doing....making money at the cost of our personal sovereignty.
I find it surprising given all the "experts" supposedly on the whole terrorism issue, that we don't once hear official complaints of going too far.
One of the things I remember from my college class studying terrorist groups is that many terrorist groups have a goal of making the government crack down so hard that it alienates all the citizens and radicalizes otherwise normal citizens who are victimized from the increased government control.
Makes me question how much these "experts" have actually studied what they profess to be experts on.
...Napalitano. When she was the governor of our state, she had zero qualms about putting up the state's first statewide photo enforcement system to catch speeders anywhere they put a van or a fixed camera. SHE was the driving force behind it (along with lobbyists at the state capital, of course), and she sold it as a "revenue stream" and a "necessary safety measure that saves lives."
Well guess what happened when Jan Brewer ordered that the state's contract wouldn't be renewed... NOTHING! No carnage, no increased loss of life, nothing. It was all a lie for money and false security.(If you think Jan Brewer is a racist nutjob that is all about SB1070 and that's why she got elected, that's not the case, as you can see here.)
When Janet N. left Phoenix to go to DC as DHS secretary, I was immediately ecstatic - knowing that MAYBE the cameras could go away (which they eventually did, thank goodness), but I quickly after wondered if we'd dumped our state's problem on the entire country. It turned out that I was right. The woman could give a rat's butt about privacy, and as long as she's in power in DC, we'll be facing down the barrel of a surveillance nation all in the name of security (and revenue for lobbyists who provide it)... "If it keeps people in line, do it," is what her actions seem to speak... (which is odd, coming from such a "progressive" government.)
If Obama got rid of Janet Napalitano, this problem for Obama would quickly go away (until it wasn't a "problem" anymore after another massive terrorist attack).
That all is only necessary to defend our freedom! Oh wait...
You've got more chance of winning the lottery than being killed by a "terrorist".
You've got massively more chance of being killed by a car than being killed by a "terrorist".
But the state should now remove all your rights in the name of stopping "terrorism".
What a crock. Total, utter B.S.
This is all about turning the American people into passive sheeple.
They don't want to protect they just want to control.
Sure. Passengers may be scanned and groped, but what how are the complete rail systems, roadways, etc., going to be secured? Is the Federal Government going to enclose all of the railways, roadways, shipping channels?
Also, did the Feds forget that the toner bombs were not brought on board the airplanes by passengers?
Honestly, there are may other ways to destroy planes, trains, and automobiles that do not require you to be on board.
May I present, for your amusement and elucidation:
The "F" Word
Enjoy!
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
A disproportionate number of the people still willing to fly are people who don't know what faces them at the TSA gates. Today is a massive day for flying.
As they sit eating their turkey on Thursday, they'll complain about how they felt violated, or they'll hear others at the table complain.
Those poll numbers will be much lower on Friday.
At 30,000 feet aren't most people in a faraday cage?
It's all a secret plot by the CIA to make America into the worlds most powerful porn exporter. ;)
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Is this real life or are we all just playing Half Life 2?
(And it's all to treat the symptoms, rather than addressing the root causes of the disease.)
The problem is of course just how politically incorrect stating exactly what "the disease" is. We all know it, and as you say, it is a matter of time until there are no alternatives left.
You can't allow people to adhere to violent, barbaric ideologies. It's not tolerant, it's moronic. Insofar as this is part of a "mainstream" religion, that religion must be eradicated or contained - before your own front door anally rapes you anytime you try to go to work.
It's not all religions - not at all - in fact it's not limited to religion. When it comes to bombings (and genocides) a certain political persuasion follows that religion holding the top spot quite closely.
Terrorists have also said that they will continue to issue low-end attacks to annoy and disrupt the economy. Wouldn't it be better to just ignore all this and not embark on some sort of paranoid up-gunning? If we all just ignored them then maybe a few people would die. But here's the thing: a few people die all the time, that's life.
They have gone as far as to place Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin on the DHS-TSA joint Terror Watch List. Apparently these individuals had radical ideas about what freedom should be...which flies in the face of what the DemoRepubLiberTea party members truely want. power and money.
They are both utterly incompitent and have no place in American society.
I am truely ashamed.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
"Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
- Thomas Jefferson (paraphrasing Franklin)
"There ought to be limits to freedom." -George W. Bush
Likewise an average male should weigh about 75 kg (165 pounds) but is more likely to weigh double that in the US
There. Corrected that for you.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The TSA seems to care more about the appearance of doing something than actual effective security.
I wish they would stop and think about each of their security checks and ask themselves what is it really going to prevent. That careful inspection of your boarding pass before the screening. What does that accomplish? I print it on my computer!!! Do they not realize how absolutely trivial it would be for anyone to put anything they want on it? There is no check with any database to see if you are actually booked on the flight. Would a terrorist not think to put the same name as on their id, fake or not? And that stupid little security stamp they put on it. What does that do? I know they don't check it when you board the plane because I have used different boarding passes for security and boarding.
The other thing is hidden explosives. Can an explosive hidden in the space between a woman's breasts really bring down a plane? Could a bomb sniffing dog find explosives more effectively? If it's weapons they are looking for - what could someone do with a sharp knife or even a gun? They keep the cockpits locked now. Before 9/11 cockpits were wide open during flight. If someone pulls out a gun and starts shooting, the pilot can divert to the nearest airport and land. If these things could only end up killing a few people, it's not going to be something a terrorist is going to be too interested in, and it's not worth trying to prevent. They can be just as effective going out in the street and shooting people, and it will be much easier.
Fuck you, asshole. Slashdot doesnt want any stinking solutions. We want stuff we can whine about endlessly.
Let's see. They live under an oppressive government / invading force. They find themselves ecnomically fucked with no hope of advancing themselves or their family. They find their way of life and/or religion maligned as evil. Then one day they decide, "Fuck it. My life can't be any worse. Maybe I can make things better for the next generation by fighting what has fucked up my generation."
Posted as A/C because I am far more afraid of the American government than of any terrorists.
When was the last time you heard about an incident at the Tel Aviv Internationl Airport? And they don't even use the body scanners: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_International_Airport#Security_procedures
Best.
Novel.
Ever.
"We" (NATO) are already in Afghanistan. What we hope to accomplish there is beyond me, but USA is not entirely alone. Iraq was a massive mistake and a big fat lie, but it landed lots of jobs and resources for USA corporations, so it must be "good" for the "good guys".
What is surprising is the lack of uprising in the Middle East because of this. People there must really have hated Saddam anyways.. So the move was not a as big political suicide as it was economical..
Corporations can always move out of USA, so they will survive and all will be well, for huge megacorporations that is, not for us.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Given what sort of plane that a predator is - that's awfully cheap. A B-2 cost $737 million dollars, and I seriously doubt 1 B-2 could replace 55 predator drones.
Really, that's less than the US spends on an actual soldier on the ground. Much less.
Parallelization of the economy would lead to awesome efficiency gains, or so I've been told :-)
Trucks and cars are even easier to load with explosives and pilot into a target, as they have been. Remember Lebanon? The first World Trade Center Bombing? Oklahoma City?
Also, pilots figured out how to thwart hijackers right after 9/11: use the lock that was already on the cabin door. A 9/11 style attack will never happen again, the passengers won't allow it and the pilot won't open the door.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
I'd like to see that in the UK. 4 million tube travellers a day (two tube journeys each, to and from work) - scanners would cripple the system and the economy, never mind having to install them at every ingress point, over hundreds of stations. And building the secure viewing room.
Volumes are far larger, and income per passenger far lower. It's not economically viable, and people would say fuck-off to doubled fares to cover the costs of getting violated every day.
It's such a stupid idea ...
Janet Napolitano says tourists will continue to look for US vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary. '[Tourorrists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,' ... 'I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime.' Napolitano added she hoped the US could get to a place in the future where Americans would not have to be as guarded against tourists as they are and that she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a tourist becomes radicalized. 'The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of tourists and the risk of commoners having a vacation without getting anal probed?' .... 'I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a tourist will be helpful.'"
There, fixed it for you.
As Captain Picard said, The Line Must Be Drawn Here
http://nofurther.ytmnd.com/
get rid of islam = get rid of terrorism.
look at Europe how they are living.
Expect the US to live like Europe.
One thing the europeans failed to see is how the minorities in the middle east are living under islam. They have no rights and are always persecuted. Europe is on the same road of those minorities.
terrorism will never stop until you people accept their ideology which will never happen.
For those who mention that islam is peace, go read their book and their sahih boukhari.
And for the others, i'm speaking from a neutral point of view. Not a religous point of view(Christianity,hinduism, sikhism or others)
You do you protect the long security lines from terrorist attacks? Shouldn't we be afraid that we're crammed into a large group of people where ZERO checks have been performed. Any one off the street can stand in line carrying a bomb or canister of pesticide.
Instead of killing a couple hundred train or plane passengers they could take out a couple hundred annoyed people waiting in a densely packed line. Panic in those crowded situations seems to be nearly as dangerous as an attack itself. There are numerous cases where people were trampled to death trying to flee a crowded area.
having security checks to enter a line would be a recursive impossibility. this is an easily exploited weakness with no solution.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Oh, sure, deploy the same sorts of procedures at train stations, at bus stops, and truck stops. Go ahead. But once the terrorists realize it's as difficult to get on a bus as it is a plane, then the TSA at the airports won't be special anymore and will have to up the airport security theater to include CAT scans and "optional" cavity searches.
public nudity will still be kept illegal.
You know what actually secures things?
Guards! Armed guards, with weapons! What those are is up to you. Tasers? Guns? Batons? Pepper Spray? Okay!
Afraid someone will hijack a plane? Put a guard or two on it!
Afraid someone will hijack a train? Guard.
Afraid someone will hijack a bus? Guard!
A guard isn't invasive. A guard knows his home turf. A guard doesn't require an expert to run. A guard doesn't break the 4th amendment. A guard has really nothing better to do than people watch. In the event of a real emergency, a guard can help out.
A guard deters crime and hijinks, JUST BY BEING THERE.
Cost of a scanning machine= $100,000 plus technical support and technicians
Cost of a guard= 50,000 + healthcare plus support.
I daresay, hiring transport guards seems to me the best solution. It would create more jobs, stimulate the economy, and ACTUALLY deter terrorists, as well as common thieves, criminals and mischief makers.
how Janet Incompitano apparently can't even recall the Michael Fortier case where a train was intentionally derailed in her own state of Arizona,
Just as in that case, all it takes to cause a massive train wreck is to attach a little hunk of metal (called a derailluer, surprise, surprise) anywhere along the track and the train will jump the track.
With this line of crackpot reasoning from the authorities. How about banning firearms in America then? Any terrorism minded individuals that wants to crank up the body count Mumbai style, find themselves in a country filled to the brim with high calibre assault weapons available at relative ease. Just sayin'.
Michael really does "love" KITT
my post was hyperbole, not reality
i just wanted to add to the list of costs others are pointing out that so much intrusive screening has on our liberties, that it also has a cost on our health
without getting an exact millirad number and translating it into an actual statistically valid numerical risk value, i can say that the risk is real, however large or however small
therefore, radioation exposure must also be taken into consideration when weighing the pros and cons of this new intrusiveness and whether or not it is actually worth it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A little more math, an you realize that the rate of exposure is 90 times faster in the machine.
90 times faster exposure of only 0.0027% of your body means that the "only three minutes" argument is true, but misleading. Such things can only happen in a culture where most people are mathematically illiterate.
To make a mathematical analogy. Assume the exposure in the air is like having a match light each second. You feel the heat of one match for 180 seconds. Then standing in such a machine is like being exposed to 36841 matches being lit 90 time a second for 2 seconds. That's 3315690 matches per second for 2 seconds. It's a 3 million plus fold increase in exposure rate.
But I don't think exposure rate matters in this case. It seems that damage due to radiation is caused by the amount of radiation absorbed, not the rate of absorption. So while your match analogy is interesting and a bit scary to think about, I don't think you can use this to say that there's more damage being done to your body over this 2 second period compared with the 3 minute period. In both cases, your body has absorbed the same amount of radiation and the same amount of tissue damage has occurred.
The only argument I could see is that perhaps your body has more time to repair damaged tissue in that 3 minute period, whereas in the "onslaught" brought on during the 2 second period it does not. But I'm not sure if 3 minutes would allow for much to happen as far as tissue repair goes.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
By the way, 1 million matches lit creates a fire column 3 to 5 meters in size over 10 meters tall. For the Americans, that's 10 to 16 feet wide and over 40 feet tall. I don't want to know how how big the fire column would be for a 3.3 million match lighting experiment.
I'm assuming if I asked how you knew this, given your very literate post, you'd reply with some analysis of burn rates, and BTUs generated per match, but it would be VASTLY cooler if you knew this because you'd DONE IT BEFORE.
time to defend the Constitution as per 2nd Amendment .... crickets ...
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/11/24/national.opt.out.day/index.html?hpt=C1
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
DHS is a much greater threat to the freedom and security of the American people than any number of terrorist that have surfaced so far or who are ever likely to surface. This anal tyrannical behavior can only succeed when we the people say "oh, well this next extra annoyance isn't so bad. So I have to be scanned down to my privates to get on the city bus?" It is time to say "HELL NO" consistently and loudly. Otherwise expect more and more of the same. Of course most people have zero backbone and will go along with whatever until it is far too late to refuse or far too costly.
Hmmm, whatever could those crazy terrorists be so upset about? Could it be... that maybe people (particularly in Muslim countries) are getting radicalized because we keep bombing and invading their homelands? Maybe we could, you know, stop doing that. It would be a lot cheaper and easier than x-raying everything in sight. Seriously, Janet, maybe you could ask Captain Obvious to help you with this question.
except 1l is not 1m^3. it's one decimeter cubed...you're off by a factor of 1000 mate. so much for mathematical illiteracy.
Rule 34.
... if it weren't so sad. All of the same crowd that was A-OK with NSA wiretapping, deporting people to GTMO, waterboarding, imprisonment without trial, etc, etc is now drawing a line in the sand... over airport patdowns. And all the folks who couldn't stand any of that stuff during the Bush administration, are now perfectly fine with all the same stuff during the Obama administration (with some notable exceptions - Glenn Greenwald, take a bow).
This effort to do absolutely anything, no matter how expensive, degrading, anti-freedom, or silly, to protect ourselves from the highly unlikely threat of terrorism, is nuts. Oh, right, I guess we won't do absolutely anything - we certainly wouldn't consider, for example, cease invading and bombing random places all over the world. That would make too much sense.
Exactly. People like Cheney and Bush only get richer, and since they will never be held accountable for their actions, there will be others. The wars will continue, those who feel oppressed or occupied will fight back, and Haliburton and the body scanner manufacturers will continue to get rich.
Yes, I'll be the guy in front of you today getting groped, then dragged away for questioning. Will this post be worth it? No, because the vested interests are too powerful to stop, and anyway, you think the terrorists just hate us for our freedoms or some other Orwellian shit.
Lies about crimes
Oblig:
http://xkcd.com/605/
As you can see, by late next month you will have dozens of husbands.
I can tell you from working in a dosimetry lab that exposure to radioisotopes over a six month period is not equivalent to the same amount of exposure in one day.
We were developing those film badges that doctors wear, when we got an emergency call. A newly minted MD was flirting with a cute nurse to the point he had been warned by his superiors for lack of actually doing his job. When he saw the bosses coming around the corner, he ducked into a closet. A closet with a two foot by two foot sign saying "WARNING Radioisotopes". He got a full year's exposure in about three minutes.
I don't know if he survived, but once he started feeling bad, he stepped out, read the door, and started vomiting. Fortunately, he was in a hospital and had the good sense to be admitted immediately.
Intense short term exposure is not the same as exposure over time. Hence the match analogy.
Learn vicariously through others my friend. It's safer. Look up the mythbusters demonstration.
... it's contradicted by our actual experience. Your division of terrorists into "random individual weirdos" and "members of the army of a nation-state" is just radically wrong. To point out the most obvious example, Al Quaeda does not even remotely resemble either of those categories. As an organization, they're obviously not part of the first group. Nor are they affiliated with any particular nation. And given that they're not tied to any particular piece of soil, the strategy of invading their home countries is doomed to fail. Consider that some of the most popular operating grounds for Al Quaeda are places like Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen. These "nation-states" barely even have functioning governments or economies. How on earth are you going to make them "pay dearly" for anything? Even more importantly, how are you going to make it more costly to them than to us? Our experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia has shown that if anything, such interventions are way, way more costly to us than they are to the organizations we're trying to defeat (estimates of Iraq war costs alone, including such things as direct operational costs, replacement of damaged/destroyed/worn out equipment, veteran's disability costs, etc, etc, run north of a trillion dollars).
This idea that military force is the answer to our security problems is just ridiculous - we've been trying that for what, a dozen years? We've spent trillions of dollars and gotten uncountable numbers of people killed. And our security threat level is still at orange. We still need ludicrously invasive security measures before we can fly (and now, apparently, travel by train or bus). We're going to bankrupt ourselves doing this.
Maybe, just maybe, we should consider that all this bombing and invading is actually making the problem worse by radicalizing people who otherwise wouldn't really even be thinking much about the US at all.
'I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.' Is she serious? These people are starting to become a parody of themselves. I wonder how many more foreign countries we have to enter and set up military bases in before someone else retaliates against us. The 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian. We have military bases inside of the muslim holy land in Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden cited this as his reasoning behind the attacks. I don't understand where the gray area is coming from here. We need to get rid of our standing army - the only think it has given us are openly crooked politicians who are bought by corporations competing for government contracts, and the rest of the world absolutely hating us. So mad right now.
... of what we spend on keeping the Middle East subjugated, we could have done a Manhattan Project style crash program to become energy independent. But it turns out that there's a lot of money in it for the likes of Lockheed Martin and ExxonMobil to do what we're doing.
You insensitive clod!
Welcome comrade. Please place the brain scanner securely on your head. Happy thoughts! If this were an episode of the Simpsons, you would go down to the Re-Neducation center, where Ned Flanders is in charge of enforced happiness. Just relax, and let the hooks do the work. SMILE!!! Instead intrusive scanners or much closer than comfort groping, they can do cranial scans to see if you are thinking in a manner that is non-detrimental to the government. The video cameras will inform us of your movements, and the audits of your purchases will inform us of what you have in your possession at any given time. Failure to cooperate will of course implicate you in various levels of offence, and your incarceration can be limited so long as you have the GPS attached to your leg, and the drug administration and remote-control incapacitation system attached to your arm (both only removable by authorities). Even in the book 1984, some of this stuff didn't exist, and wasn't as obtrusive. Some viewed 1984 as a warning of the worst possible circumstances. Reality can actually get worse than 1984. Welcome to the future, comrade. SMILE!
... that for a lot of people who had their home and family blown up, the job was done by remote control (via Predators or whatever). So there's literally no one TO hate but the faceless US military in general.
CHERTOFF GROUP MAKES MONEY OFF THESE SCANNERS their lies and lobbyists have bribed away your "representation".... again. dont let these SCUM make a single penny more off terrorism, fear, your taxes or their politican lap dogs, these scanners DO NOT make you safer, cause CANCER, and waste your time and money: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/fear_pays_chertoff_n_787711.html
How many terrorists per year has the TSA caught?
Since the only number of catches I've seen is zero, maybe we should change their budget to $xxx per terrorist caught. I bet they would become more interested in workable plans than in things that just make it look like they are doing something.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Many many amtrak stations are unmanned and have no agents or workers. A train pulls up in the middle of farmland or wilderness to a tiny little shack of a building with some seats, a vending machine and a few lights and the person gets on the train.
You can put all the body scanners you want at the manned stations with agents on duty but you wont do much to help the fact that the bad guys could just ride a few hundred miles down the line and hop on the train in the middle of nowhere without scans and little to no security other than the train crews own vigilance
I knew I'd slept a long time last night, and hibernating through the winter has always felt like a really good idea, but is it April already?
Really, WTF are they smoking? Where can I get drugs that good?
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
I'm sorry, but having read through this, with all of it's commentary, I am coming to the understanding more and more of just how short sighted people as a whole are.
The government, for allowing the type(s) of invasive scrutiny being used today to "guard our borders", is just as ineffectual as posting a sign reading "Terrorists Keep Out".
Add to that a populace who, for some reason (probably the media), believes that one needs guns, knives or explosives to commandeer a craft such as an airplane, train, boat or bus and you have problems. I was raised in a very military oriented family with most of the males in my family, including myself, serving in Special Operations details of various branches. Most of the men in my family could wreak havoc with only their bare hands, given any type of weapon including shoe strings, belts, cloth in any form, soda cans, seat belts, seat belt buckles etc, and they could easily do more than make a few people have a very bad day.
Adding to this, the determination with which extremists show in sacrificing their lives to achieve a goal, you get a situation and a weapon that no amount of x-ray machines, pat downs, metal detectors or any other mechanical means could detect.
This is all a function of what *could* be considered mass hysteria fed by the media, the government along with its corporate allies are all benefiting from this this and the only recourse is to stand as one and state "We will not lie down and allow you to do this to us."
The next steps we shall see, will be the transit companies requiring criminal history reports and credit checks before being allowed to purchase a ticket. The precedent is already in place where corporations require you to submit to a criminal history evaluation and credit survey as terms of employment.
Don't forget: having your home country/province/town/ invaded and or bombed. That's another pretty powerful motivator. So Janet, how about asking Barack to stop doing all that stuff?
After which, TSA really gets to grope -- full cavity searches for everyone.
Napolitano said she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized
Maybe having their family wiped out by a drone attack, their country invaded, generally bombed back into the stone age etc might have something to do with it?
Nah, they just hate you for your freedoms.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/
"The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."
Then again, a president saying the same thing this generation would be seen as aiding the terrorists...
They really think ordinary citizens standing up for their god-given rights and for the guarantees made to them by the Constitution, are the extremists?
How about these fascist power-hungry elite who think they can rapescan and strip-search the populace at will?
When the police arrest someone for a felony, they can't strip-search him like this. What the fuck makes the TSA think they can get away with it? They are a completely extra-legal organization, that should be dismantled.
I actually think the label "terrorist organization" is not too strong for the TSA. They've certainly done far more harm to the fabric of America than any bunch of ragtag extremist foreigners ever did.
Sure, "most" of our oil is sourced within North America. But some very significant fraction comes from elsewhere. Around 40% of our consumption is from domestic sources, another 15-20% is from elsewhere in North America. The rest comes from elsewhere in the world - some from stable, friendly places (Norway, the UK), some from relatively friendly but not so stable places (e.g. Nigeria), and some from not-so-friendly but relatively stable places (e.g. Venezuela), and some from places that are both unstable and less than completely friendly (e.g. various middle east locations). So, yeah, "most" of our oil is domestically sourced. But we're still sending money by the supertanker load to a bunch of places we'd probably rather not be sending it. And we most certainly are dependent on it, as our economy would rapidly go into a tailspin if the overseas spigots were shut off.
"There is little wonder we're now dealing with bureaucrats who have a mandate to "protect" us but lack the understanding to actually do a good job at it and the inability to realize the fact."
I don't accept this for a second. What you are describing is WILLFUL ignorance. I've seen this in action. People at all levels in (and outside) the organization deliberately ignoring the obvious. And going to great lengths to do so.
It's security theater. It's obvious. The purpose is CYA (for various reasons). But most people in Homeland Security, in the media or the travelling public do not want to admit it. That's frustrating.
And it has real implications for privacy rights.
TSA vastly over-reacts to minor problems, shuts down Atlanta, for instance, and thus screws up air transport throughout the world.
It doesn't take much thought to see how to surreptitiously spray nitrates on a lot of luggage of people entering the airport. Presto, TSA does the terrorist's job of hurting the world economically and making all of their govs less legitimate.
TSA are truly brilliant people.
Allow everyone to carry concealed weapons anywhere anytime, problem solved. Think about it 9/11 would never have happened had this been the case.
And the rail-ties also were generally made of that same material too.
On the other hand, rails themselves and the train wheels that rolled over them were made of steel.
A combination that could set of a significant shower of sparks should a train be forced to reduce speed rather fast - like for example should the locomotive crew notice an obstacle ahead.
So, the whole thing sounds more like a backup plan to me - get the train to crash OR burn.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
What's that in burning libraries of congress? Come on - let's use normal units here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CX9Agzeh-c
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
Stripping Americans of their rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Fondling my wife and daughter because we want to fly to Hawaii for vacation. How's that for a start?
I'm the kind of guy that believes in starting as low-key as possible, but there are already reports of flyers punching and head-butting TSA agents. How long will it be until Americans revolt against TSA en masse?
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
We had bomb dogs in Iraq. They were much cheaper, quicker and more effective than scanners for detecting hidden explosives. DARPA even has a challenge to come up with a better scanner than a dog's nose. But the DHS and TSA aren't concerned about effectiveness. They have taken the money from the companies that produce the scanners. http://washingtonexaminer.com/nation/2010/11/naked-scanners-lobbyists-join-war-terror This has everything to do with $$$ and nothing to do with actual threats. No one got rich off of breeding and training bomb dogs.
I am seeing that now, the terrorists, have indeed won. Thank you US government.
Why worry about body scanners and the handsy TSA?? Lets all just go naked that will fix the problem!
When we said we wanted TSA employees to be trained better, this is not what we meant!
They're just probing the system. This alone's enough to accomplish their objective of terrorising the populace, because of knee-jerk fucktards like yourself, Janet, the ones who actually carry out the work of terrorising innocent civilians with your mandatory pedophilia/rape queue at the airport.
You should be tried for war crimes. There is a war on terror, after all.
but let's be realistic. The first retard -- and there will be many -- the first retard who lets his child handle his gun, resulting in accidental death... or the first retard who accidentally shoots his friend while showing him/her his "cool" new toy... will create such a media circus that public opinion will come crashing down
Except that it's been happening for decades - at least since Florida broke the ice on non-discretionary CCW (Carrying Concealed Weapon) licensing. And that just hasn't been the effect.
It turns out that people with guns are even better at kid-proofing their houses with respect to guns (and safety-training their older children) than they are for other thing (like power tools, poisons, and kitchen cutlery). Fatal toddler accidents with legally-owned guns are only a handfull per year, far less likely than dying from tipping over a tricycle, falling into a swimming pool, or even drowning from falling head-down into a full bucket and being unable to get back out. And even if there WERE a couple extra cases buried in the law-of-small-numbers noise, armed citizens cause such a drastic reduction in violent crime that increased CCW produces an enormous reduction in kid fatalities.
And the anti-gunners TRIED to create exactly the media circus that you mentioned. But it didn't work. Instead it set up a crowd of straight-men for the pro-gunners to get the truth out. These days they don't even TRY it with the media, and confine their hand-wringing and bogus child-death stats (counting teenage gangsters - and some in their 30s - as "kids") to occasional preaching-to-the-choir staged events.
As man-centuries of CCW have accumulated over the years, along with the data on its effect of LOWERING injury and death rates, progressively more states have gone shall-issue. And you don't hear about it - or the feared toddler bloodbath - in the national media.
Of course it doesn't hurt that Nadja Adolf caught the Million Mom March getting free rent of a whole floor from a San Francisco hospital, and teamed with Jim March (yes, the one now with Black Box Voting) to get 'em kicked out - and also cut off from the funds from Oakland Children's Hospital that they had been using to bus people to Sacramento for their lobbying demonstration. Pulling them off the government teat left 'em so cash strapped that they had fire most of their staff and merge into another anti-gun organization.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"the land of the free and the home of the brave"
Former home of the brave. Nitpicking I know, but didn't the loss of American freedom start about 500 years ago with the Indian wars?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
You believe that urban myth that everybody carried guns in the Old West? ... "Dodge City, 1878. The sign warns visitors to check their guns."
Actually they were quite common. (You needed them for a number of things - including to kill your own horse if it fell over with you on it and panicked.) And the crime rate per capita was far lower in the "Wild West" than in east coast cities, both at the time and compared to the much higher urban crime rate in gun-banned modernity.
Dodge City was atypical. It was under control of the Earp Gang - Wyatt Earp, his brothers, and Doc Holiday. Also known as the "Pimp Gang", they monopolized the local brothels, bars, and gambling halls, and instituted an in-town gun ban to help keep the citizens under their thumbs.
The town had the railhead which was a major target of cattle drives and was "powered" mostly by the money from the cowboys' payoffs, spent in the Earp's monopolized entertainment complex. It withered when the railroads moved the railhead to another town (because the corruption in Dodge and the cowboys' aversion to it made it more profitable to drive the cattle elsewhere - even if the trip was longer - and avoid the problems.)
There are people in the West who have a family tradition of urinating on Wyat Earp's grave when they're in the area. Making that gangster a culture hero was perhaps Hollywood's most egregious distortion of the history of the west.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
By the way, 1 million matches lit creates a fire column 3 to 5 meters in size over 10 meters tall. For the Americans, that's 10 to 16 feet wide and over 40 feet tall. I don't want to know how how big the fire column would be for a 3.3 million match lighting experiment.
Maybe you should make a video of that, post it online, and send it to the Mythbusters. See how, after confirming (or busting) your fireball claim, they can scale it up to your requested 3.3 millon matches. Sounds like fun!
When we were teenagers, we liked putting things on the railroad tracks. Started with pennies, then GI Joe in his jeep, then a cardboard box, cinder blocks, etc. I can state unequivocally that it really is 'hard to stop a train' - the locomotive always obliterated everything in its path without missing a beat.
There was a junkyard next to the rail line, so one time we dragged a discarded washing machine onto the tracks. The Florida Zephyr was probably doing 50 or 60 MPH when it impacted the washer. I don't really understand the nuances of kinetic energy transfer, but it was truly amazing to see the washer propelled into the sky for about the length of a football field. The train just barreled along down the track...
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Think about what you(american) did to arabs, then you know why. Are you treated them kindly? Being terrorist or dead like indians, those are their only choices. The arabs won't bother flying to another continent and carrying out a suicide attack to the people they don't even know unless they do hate you. You know how to being a friend, do you?
Napolitano added she hoped the US could get to a place in the future where Americans would not have to be as guarded against terrorist attacks
Getting "to" a place implies that the place that you wish to be is not here. This is a step forward.
It is also the deathknell for Napolitano's career in politics, because it implies that the here and now is not the best possible state in the best of all possible worlds.
as they are and that she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized.
Perhaps try looking at how a politically disaffected person becomes radicalised into an radical politically disaffected person, and then further radicalised into a political protester and so on, eventually leading to them becoming a terrorist. Or does that raise too many politically awkward questions?
Hint : the second largest factor in the continuing shut-down of the Irish terrorism problem has been the political actions to bring the political wings of the Republican movement into the conventional political process. But the more important factor has been the continuing erosion of the basis for Republican sentiment by the subsumption of both Britain and Ireland into the Greater Europe, coupled with the Irish (people and government) saying "we don't care if you want to politically unite with us ; we don't want to politically unite with you." That has steadily undermined the basis of the fight, leaving the politically-minded members of the Republicans no choice for retaining some degree of power but to leave terrorism behind and (re-)enter conventional politics.
(Yes there are also a number of pathological specimens on either side. That's what the police are for.)
I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.
Well 'Duh!'
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Your government seesm happy enough to spend money it doesn't have and then make more paper money when it runs out of the money it didn't have, so it's possible that there will be an increase in scanners across your country.
But you know what? I, for one, will not even consider visiting the US as it currently stands, because I'm not interested in being treated like crap for no reason at all.
Tourism to the US is declining due to this treatment above the already ridiculous fingerprint and iris scanning.
And then you have Janet Napolitano publicly wondering about the "psychology" of terrorists. I suppose that it didn't occur to her to, you know, just ask them.
It seems like the terrorists have already won.
P.S. You want Afghanistan to stop being a hotbed of stone age fanaticism? Invite the Chinese to police the place. The Chinese would do to Afghanistan what they did to Tibet and Xingjiang; introduce draconian laws applying to native traditions, enforce them by mass arrests and bring in tens of millions of Chinese immigrants. I don't think the muslim fanatics are people you can negotiate with and they are never going to surrender as long as their cause is half way popular, so you either need to do the modern equivalent of ethnic cleansing/genocide or get out.
Oh so true! And further to this point, Janet Napolitano says "I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful." Gee, Janet, do you think forcing your citizenry to live in constant fear while they're being x-rayed, poked, prodded, and humiliated, all while having their last vestiges of privacy, dignity, and autonomy destroyed, might just cause more than a few someones to become terrorists?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
So Napolitano is looking into a methodology for predicting who will become radicalized before they've actually broken any laws. So she can preemptively strike at someone who is still technically innocent. Nice. Now if PKD could just come back and sue her for stealing the plot of Minority Report.
This makes me think of Total Recall.
http://bigpicture.posterous.com/miss-tsa-2011-pinup-calendar
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?