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A Peek At the National Opt-Out Day Numbers
Yesterday was a big travel day for Americans, and the organizers of National Opt-Out Day hoped to use it to highlight widespread, though not universal, dissatisfaction with stepped-up screening measures in US airports, by encouraging people selected for body screening to insist instead on the pat-down alternative. Reader Willtor writes with a story in the New York Times on the effect of the protest: "'39 people had opted out of the body scans in Atlanta by 5 p.m. In Los Angeles, 113 had. One had opted out in Charlotte, N.C. Boston seemed to have something of a mini-spike, with 300.' This is a tiny fraction of passengers, of course. But when I flew out of Boston this afternoon, they had opened a line that led to a traditional metal detector. When I flew out in June all lines went to the nudie scanners. Is it safe to be optimistic that we have been heard and policies have changed? I am not particularly concerned whether we get credit or whether it is reported that the protest fizzled. But it would be nice to know that some of the more invasive theatrics have become optional."
According to its organizers, meanwhile, the opt-out protest was a "rousing success." If you traveled yesterday by air, what was your impression?
It was arousing success ;)
They are switching to standard metal detectors until the furor dies down, then they will ramp up with the scanning and patting.
I expect the switch to resume after Thanksgiving when most travelers will be business travelers who can't afford to spend their time protesting.
Now, if the TSA is right about the necessity of these scanners and enhanced patdowns, this move to temporarily disable the scanners seems like a massive security problem.
Not only does the TSA not plan to make any changes in response to the scanner issue, they have said that they would like similar "security" for Amtrak and Greyhound. Next up, searches and scanners at malls. Folks, it's too late. We let them have their way for the pas 9 years or so, and they have grown too strong to stop.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I didn't see anyone getting a pat-down, "enhanced" or otherwise. Just the same old shoes-on-the-xray-belt routine as always.
egypt urnash minimal art.
This was entirely predictable. It's not easy to convince people to let other people--strangers of the same gender--touch them intimately as a form of protest.
It was also predictable that the media would spin it as a failure.
In fact, it probably helped speed security clearances on one of the busiest travel days of the year, because the TSA planned for a larger disruption. At least, that is what I would do, to be safe, and I'd imagine they did it.
The major media covers the story by repeating the TSA talking point that the majority of Americans support the scans. They base this on a Washington Post/ABC poll: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_11222010.html?sid=ST2009122902788
I do think you'd get different numbers if you polled at the airport.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
AAA numbers...
In 2000 6+ million traveled by air
After 2001 it was about 4m. It rebounded to 4.5-5m over next few years.
2008 you begin the slide down in air travel
This year is expected to be slightly more than last year, about 1.6m
Next year??
so 6+million => 1.6 million slide
I used to fly frequently (on average standard). Terrorism never would have stopped me. Maybe 10 flights in 2006. And I was good for the airlines. Only 1 small carry on, no luggage, and I even dressed to get through the metal detectors without causing slowdowns. But now, no way. I will not be paying to be treated as if I was in prison. It doesn't make me feel safer to be xrayed and groped.
I may actually need to travel from Chicago to San Francisco early next year and I'm actually looking at AmTrak. 3 days on a hotel on wheels - sounds better than xrays and molestation...
BTW: New Hampshire has a motto "Live Free or Die". They should change it. We have created our of prisons and the terrorists are laughing...
It's hard to opt-out if the thing you're opting out of is roped off and not used.
This was a brilliant move by an organization that is not known for its brilliance, ever. Somebody at the TSA is sipping champagne and laughing today at pulling the rug out from underneath the protesters' feet.
The scanners will be back online within days, and then it will be more of the same from the gestapo. But the protest? FAIL. All of the mainstream stories show this to be a non-issue, and now the "protest" numbers back this up in the TSA's world of spin. We got played.
Comply citizen.
Read this.
Opt-outers (presumably of any TSA procedure on any mode of transport) are tagged "domestic extremists" whose data will be referred to the Extremism and Radicalization Branch, Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division.
you had me at #!
I've completely opted out of flying commercially since 2001. That's a protest that allows me to vote with my wallet. It has transferred tens of thousands of dollars away from the airlines, and I expect that trend to continue. In the interim, I've very much enjoyed driving about the nation, traveled internationally via cruise ship (though that is now beginning to suffer similar indignities as commercial passenger service), and learned that "luxury" train travel in the US appears to be something descended from Torquemada's collection of techniques.
The first car ride I took (that I can recall) was in 1959; like many American males, I've had a vibrant interest in cars since very early on. I've owned quite a number of them across the years. From that perspective, most of today's vehicles are amazingly well made, comfortable, handle extremely well, and are stupendously reliable - truly a joy for me to drive. That, combined with a lifelong passion for photography, and I have to say driving is something I've happily rediscovered over the last decade. Occasionally I rent a higher end vehicle that I would not normally have the opportunity to drive for a cross-country run; I can't even begin to tell you how much fun that can be if you actually enjoy driving. Large portions of the American west, particularly around the Rockies, still offer driving challenges worth taking on... it gets considerably more tedious, road-wise, as you get closer to the coasts (55 in what is essentially a supercar is kind of annoying), but on the other hand, the photo ops become quite numerous, so I sort of change objectives as I go.
I would suggest that if driving is an option you can consider, this is a much more effective -- and fun -- way to protest the approach taken by the government and the airlines. Like it or not, money is the longest, strongest lever you can apply in this society. Writing "TSA sucks" on yourself or going to the checkpoint in a kilt, sans underwear... these things don't really accomplish much, other than get you your ten minutes of infamy.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
There is nothing ironic about it at all. It is simply proof that even the TSA doesn't believe their own bullshit regarding the importance of said scanners for the purpose they claim. The scanners are already serving their purpose, which is to generate lots of cash and kickbacks. On the one hand they are claiming it keeps things super secure, and on the other the authorities are looking into the possibility a teen stowed away on a plane from North Carolina to Logan. I mean, which is it? These procedures are super important and keep us all safe, or these procedures may well have not even been able to keep some random teen from stowing away on a plane?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
No bombs on that plane!
And no tigers in my room, thanks to my tiger-repelling pebble.
The numbers don't account for people who, like myself, decided to just not fly at all. I go to Las Vegas a few times a year, and while it used to be fun to fly I have decided to drive instead because of all the TSA nonsense.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Flying nude doesn't protect you from a suicide bomber that packed his asshole with explosives.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The protest was a success well before yesterday. The goal of such civic participation in government is to raise public awareness. The head of the TSA had to think about this, and talk about it in the national media. This enlivened the public debate. That is the exact definition of victory.
If one wants to muse about more concrete short-term victories, consider the lines at the airports yesterday. I have flown on the day before Thanksgiving -- it is not pretty. According to reports, yesterday went significantly more smoothly than in the past. Think about the cause/effect. I suspect the TSA decided they had to stage a good show of efficiency yesterday to defuse the opt-out protest. They put on extra staff and gave rousing pep talks -- and; the airports sucked a little bit less yesterday than they would have otherwise. That is a nice outcome. The protest changed the behavior of our government for a day.
Did this one effort to organize civic participation go exactly as designed and solve the whole problem in one shot? Of course not. Decentralized civic displays -- almost by definition -- cannot work like that.
Civic management of government is a process, and this was a fine step. Much like our debates here in these forums are part of the process. It is the road to a better society. An endless and engaging road winding through an increasingly healthy societal system.
Or more viscerally: It is like using a spray bottle of water to train a puppy; we're going to have to do it more than once before the government learns not to poop on the carpet.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I can at least see the reasons that some people are willing to twist themselves into unreasonable knots for security. I can't understand why anyone would do the same for worthless security theater, which aptly describes everything the TSA does.
Remember: The TSA has never caught a single terrorist. The TSA has never foiled a single terrorist plot. Tests succeed in getting weapons past them more than half the time. But they've made sure people can't get "bombs" in inside water bottles... by putting all the suspected "bombs" into a trash bin 5 feet from the line. Meanwhile, at El Al you won't star in your own porn or be groped and they don't care if you bring a bottle of water or shampoo, yet no flight out of El Al has ever been hijacked in more than half a century.
The real litmus test for this is whether you'd support a nasty, middle-Eastern looking guy with a thick beard and a white prayer cap, if he chooses to opt out. I know it's all just security theatre and so on, but I'd like to see the reaction of the folks who opt out on principle if they end up in this situation, and have to board the plane with this dude who also opted out.
Let's cut to the chase already.
What they really want is for every house to have a scanner like that on the entrance, so you are scanned and/or patted down every time you enter and exit your house and every other building (and of-course every mode of transportation as well, including the buses, planes, trains and automobiles, yachts and ships and dirigibles and even you bikes.)
This is actually very amusing to me, as I was born in the USSR and one of our best satirists ever (Zhvanetsky) had a few monologues, where he described the soviet experiences in a half-imaginary way
Here is one of the monologues (my translation):
As usually, you are going somewhere, the face as usually is facing forward; The back of the head has no clue.
All of a sudden from behind:
- Continue moving!
- I am continuing.
- So go as you are going.
- I am going as I am going.
- Take a little to the right.
- Will take... taking.
- Don't talk!
- I am silent.
- Stand there, don't look back!
- Standing. Not looking. Letting something pass on the left. What is that behind me?
- DO NOT LOOK BACK!
- Not looking.
- OK, you are free to go!
- Yes, I am free!
here is another one, please don't get on my case for the translation style, it's difficult to translate something well anyway, and to make it even remotely funny while doing so is just ... very hard and I was trying to keep to the way the monologue was read, which was with leaving many of the necessary verbs out of the text on purpose, to create an 'air' of the idea that not every word needs to be spelled out for the listener.
Turnstiles.
At the end of every street need to set up turnstiles. Obviously, you can walk this and that way, as much as you want, but this is pure lack of responsibility - going wherever you want. So at the end of each street set up the turnstiles. Nothing special. They should let everybody through for now without any questions. Don't be afraid. Only the ricketting noise lets you know... And the security guards with sleeve insignia. Let them stand there and let everybody through. For now. Just their presense, just the steel stare... You are coming towards them - the face is burning up, you pass them - you back is burning up. And they are not asking anything... yet. This is the entire effect. And it's increasing the discipling. And at any moment you can lock everything up. Those with special commands have access to any house, etc.
By the perimeter of the plaza - until the security checkpoint. A man is walking along the fence, with the hands moving over the fence. Let's suppose three, four times he moves the hands over the fence - and into the security checkpoint, where NOBODY is stopping him, though the security guards are standing there of-course. Special paint on the fence, easy to check the fingerprints, this and that, etc. My god, nobody REALLY will be taking the fingerprints off the fence, don't worry about it. But in case there is some emergency... the fingerprints are right there and what are you going to do? For now of-course, let them go through without showing any papers. Though to have the papers on your person, that's for sure, just in case they mustc check, some emergency, etc. So obviously as you are coming closer towards the guard there, you already want to show something. To come through without showing - that's only to be suffering in doubt. In time you won't mind any of the checks. It will be a shame to walk around unchecked. All the more so - to come of a sudden and somewhere, as you do now. Or to yell - "my house is my castle" - that's just from internal immorality.
But IN the corridors you don't need to put security guards. For now. You have to start at the entrance, of-co
You can't handle the truth.
If on the busiest travel day of the year, the TSA felt it was more important to get people on the planes than to scan them like that, which means they know perfectly well the risk of a terror attack is not that great, and the scanners do fuckall to address the risk.
Now we just have to rub it in their faces.
so 6+million => 1.6 million slide/quote?
Please, p[ease, please, provide a reliable citation for those numbers.
My google-fu is not strong enough.
I promise to use the power wisely and email just about everybody I know with them if they are supportable.
You ask and I deliver,
AAA Thanksgiving travel chart
Let's hope it will be there for a while :)
I try not to bullshit and pull random stuff out of my ass... Good luck.
how fucked up is it when the nicest thing anyone has to say about the TSA is that they didn't fondle his daughter and let him have bottled water after they "examined it fairly closely". and you refer to these as "positive interactions"...
do not read this line twice.
The TSA has been lying about their numbers. First, they claimed 5 minute waits at LAX. Anyone who has ever been through LAX knows that's a complete lie. LAX has NEVER had a 5 minute wait-time. I flew out of there yesterday... the wait was an hour. I was there at 7am, and for the 15 minutes or so I was actually within view of the machines, there were 10 people that opted out (roughly 2/3rds of the people they actually tried to send through the machine). I STRONGLY doubt their numbers. Furthermore, out of the Minneapolis airport, they turned all the scanners off (I've heard they did that many places). At best, someone should be fired for lying to the public.
Oh, I also tried pointing out that their numbers were not correct, they wouldn't approve my comment.
Or everybody should have shown up with a large knife. What's the TSA going to do, then?
Confiscate everybody's large knife, and possibly cancel flights or shut down the airport, if they think some sort of potential organized attack is in progress. What do you think they would do, let everyone on board because everyone brought a knife?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It was going to be grand. I had worn my nicest boxers, with a button-fly to ensure no actual laws would be violated, even accidentally (giving a valid reason to jail me). No belt, loose-fitting jeans. When the man asked to to step into the scanner, I would politely accept, step inside and, when his back was turned, drop 'em.
"Oh-h say can you SEE, by the dawn's early LIGHT!..."
Amid the lengthy mouse-maze queue of holiday travelers, a few lightbulbs would come on as the irony began to sink in. Nervous TSA officials would move in. Maybe they'd react, pulling me aside by force, ordering me to shut my face and put my pants back on. Maybe I'd get through the whole thing before being tased into submisison.
"In the land of the FREE, and the home of the BRAVE!..." *dzzt!* *thud*
What really happened:
My gf and I show up at the Logan Airport security checkpoint. It was a ghost town. We present our boarding passes (not IDs); I swear I see a tumbleweed blow by. Every TSA lane is staffed, but where are the passengers? There are exactly two travelers ahead of us, in separate lanes, and nobody behind. They're gone by the time we get our shoes off and all our crap onto the conveyer. Dropping my pants for a handful of screeners and zero travelers suddenly doesn't seem worthwhile any more.
My gf (who is not particularly bothered by the body scan) steps into the scanner, and I get waved through the metal detector, despite there being two other open scanners and nobody behind us in line. Cheery TSA guy at the metal detector says he likes my t-shirt. If I was a bad guy, you'd have seen it on the news already, because this "screen" was a complete joke. Afterward, I realized I was so busy contemplating my own "security theater" performance that I left my laptop in its case inside my backpack. They didn't care. My gf had separately forgotten to unpack her big bag o' liquids. They didn't care.
Conclusions:
TSA's "solution" to both the holiday crush and the potential protests was to drop the theater act and just let everyone sail on through. To me, this speaks volumes about both their perceived effectiveness and value of the new "enhanced" security processes. I can't say to what extent the potential for protests was a factor in this, but if it was, this was a doubly-brilliant move on the part of the TSA. The best way to stop a protest cold is to take away its audience, and that is exactly what happened here. Meanwhile, everyday sheep travelers are probably marveling at how painless the process was today - on the busiest travel day of the year! - and making associations between this and the new body scanner procedure. Well played, TSA, well played.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.