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Female Passengers Say They Were Targeted For TSA Body Scanners
wiedzmin writes "TSA agents in Dallas singled out female passengers to undergo screening in a body scanner, according to complaints filed by several women who said they felt the screeners intentionally targeted them to view their bodies. Allegedly, women with 'cute bodies' were directed through the body scanners up to three times over by female agents, who appeared to be acting on a request from male agents viewing the scans in a separate room. Apparently this was done because the scans were 'blurry,' possibly due to autofocus problems with agents' smartphone cameras."
After hearing the claims, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced plans to introduce legislation that would require the presence of "passenger advocates" at airports to deal with complaints like these.
it is humans who can be dishonest which hold positions in Politics, Military, Religion and of course the Tits Sex & Ass authority.
People are surprised that when you take marginally skilled, semi-officious private sector workers and give them civil service protection behavior that was an instant firable offense becomes something you have to endure with a smile...
Because what we need is not less invasive and less humiliating scanners, but additional people on the payroll so that all this useless technology can continue to have nearly zero impact on actual flight safety.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
when you hire the unemployable and give them a badge. Tough nuts people. Bend over and take it.
Don't get me wrong she looks good but at a busy airport terminal I'm willing to bet there are at least a dozen women that are far more attractive.
> require presence of passenger advocates.
Translation: throw more money (down the drain) at the problem.
How about we just dispense with the whole Security Theater sham?
Unless these passenger advocates report to someone outside the TSA, I fail to see how this will solve anything.
capcha: taxable. lol
But who is going to watch the passenger advocates to make sure that they are doing their jobs correctly?
After hearing the claims, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced plans to introduce legislation that would require the presence of "passenger advocates" at airports to deal with complaints like these.
Passenger advocates, eh? How about plain removing the scanners. That'd be some Passenger advocacy right there.
Pictures don't need to be so shapely to determine if they're carrying something deadly.
Folks, you can ask not to go through the scanners. Just say "OPT OUT". You get the pat down, of course, but from my experience, it seems to bother them more than it bothers me. And it sends a message.
I've never trusted TSA to verify the safety of those machines. I'll take the grope rather than trust an unregulated scanner that bombards my body with who knows what power and type of radio or ionizing radiation.
... by throwing more money and resources at it, right?
Who is going to keep an eye on the passenger advocates?
"So nat'ralists observe, a flea Hath smaller fleas that on him prey, And these have smaller fleas that bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum."
Who decided the women were cute? We need pictures...
Nice try, unless you are flying out of Australia to the United States. More to follow, I'm sure.
I deeply apologize for the vulgar heading but I am ashamed to think that these thugs in the TSA are part of the same department as the Coast Guard. This is an obvious abuse of power from these "rent a cops" that are under the impression that they have power over the private citizen. Just a Coastie speaking his mind.
There were reports in europe about airport screeners doing the same thing not only to women, but to religious minorities. In turn people are corrupt, and when you take people who get 4 hours of training(give or take a little bit), and give them any type of authority. Bad things happen, like abuse of power.
Om, nomnomnom...
Since you'd have a better chance of seeing some foreign object on a chick with a slim body. Fat chicks might have layers that hide the contraband, so they may as well scan the hot ones and increase their chances of catching something.
Plus you have to figure it's more likely that a slim, hot chick is a drug mule than a fat chick, because if the fat chick was a cokehead she wouldn't be fat.
Damn, I have been underestimating the TSA guys all along, they got it all figured out!
Senator Charles Schumer brought us SOAPA didn't he?
After hearing the claims, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced plans to introduce legislation that would require the presence of "passenger advocates" at airports to deal with complaints like these.
No, no, no!
Just stop with the scans!
The correct solution to this problem isn't to add more and more layers of complexity on top. It's to simply accept that this whole thing was a bad idea and drop it.
It's like some bizarro world where the obvious answer is starting everybody in the face but nobody wants to reach for it, so they try to find ways around it.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
How is the TSA screening [i]not[/i] in violation of this. Being forced to go through machines that essentially strip you naked is well outside the bounds of 'reasonable' by the definition of anyone but a politician it seems.
I love going to the USA, but your government really isn't making this a pleasant experience.
What we need is to make sure the pat down remains an option. I get that every time they want to send me through the scanner. I just go through the opt out line that lets me get patted down. A guy with blue gloves on lightly touches me to see if I have a suicide vest on or whatever and then lets me go through. I assure you he enjoys the process no more then me. Which is how it should be.
I'd rather not get bombarded by radiation in their scanner or have nude photos or whatever in their storage system.
What are the women afraid of here? They get patted down by a women. Think she's going to enjoy touching you any more then the guy that pats me down? Think again. The pat down is the solution to this...
And if enough people opt out of the stupid scanner then they'll stop doing it. And I don't think the pat downs are sustainable if everyone opts out which means they should start only doing it for some but not everyone. They can say they do it "randomly" if that makes the PC people happy but they're fools if they don't make a point of patting people down on watch lists.
We don't need advocates. We just need to make as annoying for the government to be annoying as it is for everyone else. If a TSA guy has to stand there and pat down every person that gets on the plane personally... then they'll be forced to adopt irritating practices.
In the meantime, it doesn't bother me. Any one man or women that has a problem with someone of the same sex doing a pat down has issues. And frankly, as a man, I really wouldn't care if a women did it. I grasp it's different for women and maybe they need someone special... I'm just over it. So long as it's isn't a chimp that rips my sack off I'll be fine.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
He is also a humongous, publicity seeking prick. (And yes he is my Senator.) He may be right about this, though, even though I generally do not trust him to do anything but draw attention to himself.
This 2008 piece has always been hilarious; but I had hoped that it would not prove prophetic...
Way to take the typical govt stance that the answer to any complaint about too much govt is... more government! He just took a complaint about the TSA's overwhelming presense and turned it into an arguement to hire more TSA workers.
Pics or it didn't happen.
[ducks under table]
Which could be a more serious and useful statement than just a crude one-off remark. We are talking about TSA agents abusing their image-taking capabilities. I've been told that the machines have been modified to not store images, but is that verified? On the other hand, annecdotes and allegations are, well, just that, at least until more solid information is available.
This is just another example of money being wasted. TSA's security is often a joke, but it continues to grow, spend money, and perform questionable acts. The very fact that they need advocates for passengers indicates that their actions are questionable. If they are forced to hire advocates, then they will have to spend more money on that... and pass that expense on to the passenger.
Also, if the advocates are not third party, then they are almost never going to say anything against the TSA's actions. They won't be good at defending passengers from the TSA's actions if they are part of the TSA.
While I like the idea that the senator is trying to do something, I wish his actions would limit the TSA's behavior, instead of spending more money on something that shouldn't necessary if the TSA were able to act in a civilized manner.
A few Middle Eastern men show up at a Florida flight school with one blurting out that he didn't need to know how to land. All sorts of information about them makes it to the FBI, but the FBI does nothing. Later they fly a plane into a building.
Instead of removing the incompetent people and practices at the FBI you go against the goals of your party for small, cheap government by creating the white elephant of the Department Of Homeland security......and.....you screw over the freedoms of your fellow Americans by forcing them to be groped or nuked to get on a plan.
Will the "advocates" use baseball bats to "address" errant TSA agents? Because that's about the only thing that will stop these pervs.
What good is an advocate after people have been exposed and their pictures uploaded to youporn?
What's wrong with the software that they must go through 3x before they get a usable image? And what about the extra dosages of radiation?
I assume being on a plane slamming into the side of a building isn't pleasant either.
Not that the TSA has a chance in hell of preventing that from happening again.
Pics or it didn't happen
I'm sure that IT security folks made billions of dollars making sure the electronic copies of the soft-tissue scans were not kept in the scanners themselves.
But then the person (and knowing how security works... probably an ex-military) reviewing the image whips out their cellphone, and wow.
I'm not very surprised that most smartphones have difficulty autofocusing on on a soft tissue scan.
As a former screener, I have always been candid about what is wrong with the TSA, its policies, practices and personnel. I know the people at the TSA and most of them are pretty much exactly as most people assume/presume. However, there is one thing that female screeners don't do and that's "act at the request of male screeners." That pure paranoia here. There is simply NO WAY it is happening at the request of male screeners. That said, I also know there is a large portion of homosexuals (both male and female) working for the TSA. They are largely the same demographic that occupy the pedestrian ranks of other "security professional organizations." So if the rate of "targeting cute bodied females" is unusually higher than other groups, then it is likely done for their own reasons, not at the request of others.
... would be a print key ;-)
They've already done it, by locking the cabin door. The cheapest and most effective fix to the problem possible.
At my home city airport, we still have the normal meta detectors and non-mandatory pat-downs. Why? Couldn't a terrorist just drive to my city and fly from there? This whole premise makes the entire current system worthless.
Did you just self-comment yourself into irrelevancy in a single post? Impressive.
Why don't we just not use these worthless, expensive, pieces of shit in our airports anymore? Seems like it might be a simpler solution to the problem.
Have two sections where women will be viewed only by women and men only by men and if they want they can have a unisex section for political correctness .
Just like Rest rooms .
To the tune of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall"
We don't need no radiation
We don't need no forced control
No blatant fascists in the airport
Agent leave those tits alone
Hey Agent! Leave those tits alone
All in all you're just another brick in the wall
All in all you're just another brick in the wall
If you don't show us your tits, you can't get on the airplane!
How can you get on the airplane if you don't show us your tits?!
who's gonna wanna look at a MAN'S body on the scanner's monitors?? DUH!
Our solution to a broken bureaucracy: add more bureaucracy.
Each of these consumer advocates will entail hiring two more people to manage the paperwork at the home office.
You, the consumer, pay for it all in higher taxes.
Thank you, suckers, for working real jobs so many of our fellow citizens can get hired to these do-nothing positions and paid more than the minimum wage their incompetent performance deserves.
There isn't a problem with the ridiculous security requirements, we just need to add another layer of bureaucracy!
My thoughts on reading this were "Duh"!! I mean, who wants to look at a fat guy's junk, that is 98% hidden anyway by his beer guy...when you can look at some hot chick under her clothes?
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out....next obvious case study please!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
When asked about the complaints, the TSA released a statement to CBS saying that scanners at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, as well as at the Love Field airport, had been upgraded so that they now showed only a generic body outline, rather than a detailed image.
“All of our millimeter wave technology units including those in Dallas have been upgraded with additional privacy enhancements that no longer display passenger-specific images,” the TSA said in a statement. “To further ensure passenger privacy and anonymity, a privacy filter was applied to blur all images.”
That makes no sense. If you only show a generic body outline, there'd be no need to blur the image.
Speaking as an expat frequent flyer currently not having to deal with TSA except for flights home to America, and as someone who has been flying on business for close to 20 years, I consider TSA to be the biggest corporate insider boondoggle/jobs program in history. For an infinitesmal increase in actual security, we pay billions in labor costs and no-bid buddy-buddy contracts for full-body scanners that will probably end up creating the biggest class action personal liability lawsuit in American history when it turns out these things are killing us.
The whole apparatus should be junked. Will it? You make the call ....
A relative of mine used to be a customs official. He jokes about how he would pick cute passengers from the Green Line for further inspection. No strip searches or anything. Just an excuse to spend time in their presence. Now that's what he told publicly...
For those who view low resolution body profile scanning as an invasion of personal space (I know I do and it's nothing to do with paranoia, it's just me wanting to maintain my personal space. If someone wants to take a blurry image of me home to masturbate over, that's their issue not mine): stop flying. There are other ways to get around.
For those who have a problem with staff members of the opposite gender viewing their scan images: demand that someone of the same gender processes you through (or simply refuse to be scanned, as is your right; however you may not be able to fly if nobody is available to pat you down because they're too busy drooling over the size 0 who just went through...)
Lastly, I would suggest that gate guards be prohibited from carrying their mobile phones on the floor. Period. There are company phone switchboards they can be reached through should the need arise; leave your mobiles at home and you'll find that you closed an avenue for getting sued, right there!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
...but I'll give it a pass, like I did since 2009, the last time I visited the USA. Please do not get me wrong: I enjoyed my time in Washington DC a lot! It was great, but getting there and getting back home involved truly unpleasant encounters with TSA officers. And I am not too easily frightened of security checks, because I had no issues with the security procedures at Ben Gurion Airport. But there I had the impression I was talking with (not just interrogated by) intelligent humans, and not morons with too much power.
BTW, the same conference was held in Seoul last year, and it was a blast.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
While it's not applicable in all situations (like if you have to fly, or you go overseas, which means any other travel ridiculous), I've personally come to the conclusion that not flying is really my only response to all of this TSA nonsense. I figure if I protest, I'll end up on a no fly list, which is completely maintained with absolutely no oversight whatsoever. Therefore, I drive everywhere I can, even if it means taking a few days to get to a place that might have taken a few hours. I really have come to hate airports to the point where this is pretty much my first choice of travel (anything but flying).
Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
Raise your hand if you are surprised by this news? What? Nobody? I didn't think so.
Entry level requirement is a GED. An hour-long training session on "professionalism" isn't going to turn a bunch of HS dropouts into ethical, responsible people if they weren't already there.
(Which is to say that i don't mean to paint every TSA employee with the same brush - it's just that the bad apples have more power to "make a difference" than the good ones do. Some of these people are just good folks who are trying to keep people safe and earn a decent living. It's not their fault the entire premise of their agency is flawed and their leadership is more interested in CYA than in actual safety.)
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Pics or it didn't happen.
After hearing the claims, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced plans to introduce legislation that would require the presence of "passenger advocates" at airports to deal with complaints like these.
Typical Chuck U. response: the cure for problems in a power-drunk federal bureaucracy is... MORE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY!
Sometimes I'm really ashamed to be a New Yorker.
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
I agree with the other poster who replied to this. There are no decent women. If they are good looking, they are crazy. If they are fugly, then there's a chance they have a brain, but by the time you find out, you're really not interested. It's a no win situation and what I've discovered after 20 years of dating, is that I'm happier by myself.
Frankly, the sex isn't worth the effort to acquire it. If everything was that much work, nothing in the world would ever get done. Much, much simpler and more effective to pay for services when you're horny, get it over with, and then get back to what you're doing (i.e. work or hobby). If your hobby *is* women, then fine, maybe you're one of those people that prefer the agony.
Now, don't think of me as misogynist, I get along fine with my female co-workers, and I'm very much the gentleman. I've simply made the decision that I'm not going through the "pursuit" process anymore, because the goal isn't worth the effort.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
If you were doing profiling, you'd never pick me. I'm a white guy who doesn't get enough sun, and I sound like I'm from central Ohio. Yet absolutely every time I depart through the Columbus airport, I'm asked to be scanned. I don't get it. No other airport has done this to me. Only Columbus. Also, my wife gets asked every time too. Same place. Do they have some kind of quota for locals so they can balance out the profiling?
Anyhow, I always politely ask to opt out, "I'm sorry; I would like to opt out, please," and when I'm being patted down, I chit-chat with the TSA agent. Since I'm not especially body-conscious, the pat-down doesn't bother me. I'm also pretty good at behaving in a compliant manner when I want to. There's a trick to acting slightly confused but quick to follow explicit orders that makes authority figures feel they have control, and that mollifies them. The pat-down always goes smoothly and efficiently. I suspect when they get belligerent patrons, they drag their feet.
...what you're saying is if I go buy a fat suit, I'll never have to go through the body scanners?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
How about letting the airlines themselves be the passenger advocates? They're the ones with the financial incentive to get security under control, not some new federal agency, or worse yet, some new division of TSA with the same bosses. Plant some airline employees next to the radiation machines all day long for a while, and maybe some of them will talk to their superiors in the airlines and get the industry to start lobbying to end the TSA.
My security theater strategy is to just chat up the initial intake guy who looks at my ID. I'm friendly, polite, and they just wave me through with no extra security check needed. If they ever do pick me for the scanner, I plan to take the pat down, and talk about cancer clusters already detected, and radiation levels being higher than advertised from the scanners.
I think the pat down is just as atrocious as the scanner, and I fly a lot less now than I did before these new procedures got implemented, but the reality is you really can't drive everywhere. I'm not going to refuse both the scanner and the pat down, but I'm definitely not going to willingly take on more radiation exposure than I absolutely have to.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Still can't even be confidant of that basic safety measure
Me: I am sorry officer, I will not step into the scanner.
TSA: In that case you will have to get a pat down.
Me: Ok, I will take a pat down, (points to female TSA officer) but only if she does it.
TSA: You can't do that sir.
Me: Yes I can, she has my consent, you do not. If you are trying to violate my civil liberties, it will be on my terms and I am going to enjoy it. Don't be alarmed if I have an erection.
TSA: Move along.
You beat me to it. Great Minds and all that.
This is why we can't go to Mars - because now we need Watchers to Watch the Watchers.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
To get their heads out of their asses. We don't need the TSA. They are not a real authoritative group yet they have police like powers. Why is that? The "give up your freedoms to fight terrorism time is past" 11 years of this crap is well more than enough. Hell reinforcing and locking the cockpit door will do more alone than the TSA. In the time of the TSA how many terrorist attacks on planes have been stopped? If you argue the point that there have been none since the TSA began monitoring airports and the like, I'll remind you that pre-9/11 there were none as well. There was no TSA then.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
I'll be the judge of "cute" bodies..
I have seen other similar abuses of the TSA system. If you get ticket taker at the check-in hassles you and you don't merely bend over and take it, they will put on your ticket to single you out for "enhanced security". If the airline screws up and you end up stuck overnight at your connecting city, then when they actually get you on a flight the next day, you are automatically singled out for "Enhanced Security" because you "made changes to your travel plans within 24 hours of the travel time". Granted you are more likely to want to bring a bomb on an airplane after such an event.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
when i was in the states a couple of months ago me and some other passengers where selected to do a body scan
there where a couple of young nice looking women also there and the police officer was making bets with his collega if the woman was wearing a tampon or not and
if her breasts where natural or not
we still have the normal meta detectors
Detectors that detect detectors?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
I wish I had some mod points, because this should be +5 Insightful! Locking the cabin doors would have prevented 9/11 and will prevent further 9/11s from happening should someone try again. The most anyone could do now given pre-9/11 security measures combined with a locked cabin door is to try to blow up the plane. That's a bad outcome, but an unlikely one, and one that's really no less likely with post-9/11 security measures.
I guess installing and using locks on the cabin doors was TOO simple a solution. It didn't spend enough money or generate enough visibility to let the politicians say that they were doing something.
... Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), is on the case!
I feel better already in the knowledge that airports will be ran safer and more efficient....
HaHaHaHaHa!
Go Chuck! Go!
TSA is a fucking comedy of errors. these buffoons need to be put out of work. yes of course we need proper security at airports. get a better system going (something like what israel has, their efficacy has been remarked upon in positive lights many times now) ... the point is: what we have now is a fucking national disgrace. clean this shit up. now more than ever.
postscript: i'm sure we could donate the transport goons' salaries to starving children in Africa or something.
Why isn't this being treated as a crime? It has all the characteristics of a sexual assault. People are being forced into situations, including specific body positions, where they can *and actually are* being used against their will for the sexual gratification of others. That the perpetrators are on the clock and doing this in the course of their professional duties aggravates it as an offense, but doesn't affect the sexual nature of this type of assault.
What is the difference between this, and putting up a hidden bathroom camera, besides the concealment of the bathroom device? Or from peeping into the windows of these women at their homes or offices?
http://www.random-good-stuff.com/2010/12/02/tsa-pin-up-girls-calendar/
Honestly, give guys the ability to arbitrarily strip-search whomever they want, we can't act all that surprised that some of them are abusing it.
Have gnu, will travel.
As a guy, I've never had a problem with a pat down, but I've only had your garden variety.
I've only taken one flight from the US since the TSA appeared on the scene.
I went through the metal detector (the body scanner had a sign: "out of order"), collected my stuff, and had almost left the security area when someone called me back. He said he was worried I was hiding things in my baggy trousers (they were essentially flares), so his colleague gave me a pat-down search as well.
I get a "pat down" search about once a month. They're a relatively common requirement for entry to some concerts and nightclubs in London. They're checking for weapons, so the bouncer typically pats my pockets, checks around my waist, then checks my boots. If I'm wearing flares they sometimes think to check the legs -- just brushing down with their hands. The impression I've always had is that they're checking my clothes rather than my body.
The TSA person's search was in no way a "pat down". It was a thorough body search -- I'd never had anything like it before. He rubbed his hands down my legs with significant pressure, kept me standing in an uncomfortable position (arms raised throughout -- even though it was supposedly only my baggy trousers that were a concern). He made a very thorough check around my groin, including sweeping his fingers in the spaces around (including underneath) my genitals. Every time anyone's touched my like that before, it was for sex. Does that make it sexual assault? It was awful.
If I was given a search like that in the EU I'd walk away and make a fuss -- but in the EU I'm confident of my rights, and my citizenship. But what could I have done on my way home after a business trip to the USA?
Something I can do is not return in a hurry.
Anyone remember this? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/practical-travel-safety-issues/1147497-tso-saying-heads-up-got-cutie-you.html
Basically, a pilot got to hear his own daughter being flagged for screening. I remember reading a more detailed news article, where the pilot's /fatherly/ reaction was better documented. I can't find that article now, but needless to say, he wasn't pleased.
I refuse to believe, until I see some pics to back up the anecdotal evidence.
Female Passengers Say ...
As much as I love bashing the TSA, could we please get some statistics to back this up first, and then deal with it properly rather than just whining? I want to get the problem solved, but "I feel like some crime has been committed against me" is even weaker than the standard RIAA logic...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
they are unnecessary and expensive. Get rid of them.
Just what we need, more government to deal with too much government. How about TSA agents who are working in the back room are not allowed to have cell phones and have that law punishable by automatic termination and 90 days in jail. That would solve the possible problem of cell phone cameras overnight.
I wish I had some mod points, because this should be +5 Insightful! Locking the cabin doors would have prevented 9/11 and will prevent further 9/11s from happening should someone try again.
I disagree. In fact the locking cabin doors worked against the passengers of united 93. The problem wasn't locking cabin doors it was the 'response to hijacking' protocol. Pre-9/11 we gave the plane to the terrorist once they held a box cutter to the flight attendants throat, let them carry out their demands, which was usually to fly to cuba or something. Post and even during 9/11 we don't give up the plane at all costs, because if we do we're all dead via flying into a stationary object.
The problem and solution of 9/11 was taken care of on 9/11. (source:http://www.google.com/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=passengers+tackle+man&pbx=1&oq=passengers+tackle+man&aq=f&aqi=g-v1&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=9064l12364l0l12571l21l13l0l8l8l1l205l1763l0.12.1l21l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=a40723af4d2b94e4&biw=1680&bih=926) All this TSA security is wasted money and loss to freedoms.
Are you fsking kidding me? You do know what that is lawyer-speak for, right? LAWYERS! The TSA has gotten so out of control you need to have a lawyer on hand to FLY IN AN AIRPLANE.
You do know that in the old USSR, you weren't strip-searched when you flew, right? We went through all that anti-commie BS for all those decades just so we can turn the USA into a psycho version of Stalinist Russia?
Count me out.
The system is working as intended. The whole point of TSA is to bother people, not to increase security. A few years from now, noboby will oppose legislation that lets everybody except a certain ethnic group bypass the scanners. and ... Godwin anyone?
Why do you have a steering wheel down your troos, Captain Jack?
It's my wife. She's driving me nuts.
Post the Wired link to every Senator and Congressman's FB page and Twitter account.
Sit back.
Watch the hilarity ensue.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
then let me see under your blouse. Sorry, ma'am. Have to check everyone. That isn't fat or a dude.
Why are many Americans misspelling Gandhi as Ghandi? Is it some sort of disorder or very sloppy attitude?
Will they write Obama as Ofama?
Is to dispense with this false security "theatre" altogether, since it does nothing to prevent terrorist attacks or increase flight safety.
I love living in the US, but my government really isn't making this a pleasant experience.
That is, opt out... of airline travel completely. Unless going across oceans, I don't need to be getting on airplanes since they started x-raying people. My car will go everywhere I want to go. If they want me to fly, they're going to have to cut the crap and make it pleasant again. That means killing the TSA and the accompanying idiocy of security screens with long lines and machines that may give you cancer, as well as people touching people where that would normally start a fight.
Going to 'Vegas from Virginia next month, and I'm driving.
So they only show generic images (stick-figures), but those images are blurred to ensure passenger privacy?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The correct solution to this problem isn't to add more and more layers of complexity on top
Haven't you heard? The solution to 'bad government' is always 'more bad government'.
The US Federal Government makes Microsoft Windows, with is bad security design and a bunch of bolt-on parts to work around that, look downright elegant in comparison.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Did you read the article? The door was open. You can't clam you can't be confident in a security feature when that feature isn't used.
Or Great Britain. Which is why for my trip to Europe next year, I will not be flying through LHR.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
In that case, the terrorists had already seized control. Once they have control of the plane, locking the cabin doors makes no sense (from a passenger perspective as opposed to from the terrorists' perspective).
The locks should be engaged before passengers board. Then, if hijackers threaten to kill people if the pilots don't unlock the door, the pilots should be under strict orders to land at the nearest airport (having radioed the situation in, of course). The pilots would be further told they are not to open the doors under any circumstances no matter how many people get killed.
This one item would reduce a terrorist's options. They could kill everyone on the plane save the pilots or try to smuggle a bomb on-board and blow up the plane. Still, that would be one plane's worth of casualties at most. They wouldn't be able to ram the plane into anything to increase the casualties.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
instead of banning useless technology that is absolutely intrusive to our persons, we're just going to spend more money hiring more people to sit around and do nothing.
what the hell would an "advocate" do? politely tell me that refusing a backscatter scan is indicative of terrorist activities and that i will be under suspicion indefinitely? yea, like i need someone to tell me that.
I was at DFW at Christmas with my girlfriend and watching the security line ahead of me. They had a regular metal detector and the nudie scanner going and were directing some people to one and some to the other. And every single hot woman got sent to the nudie scanner, where only about a third of the total people were being sent there. I pointed this out to my girlfriend, who noticed it was the case.
I'm male and not good looking at all, but was flattered to be sent there myself.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Yeah, sure YOU are fine with it. But what about a blurry picture of your mom / daughter / sister / wife nude. Do you really think that having a uneducated government goon snicker at their body should be a requirement for being allowed to travel ? Because not flying is not a real option, they are moving into buses and trains and traffic stops, as well as mobile scanning units.
We are forced to undress for the government, while at the same time an entire country shudders violently at the sight of a nipple on TV and nudity is repressed everywhere with shame, jail terms and lifetime "Sex Offender" sticker for everyone else. Do you not see anything abnormal here ?
Freedom is also about choosing who we undress for.
You can't clam you can't be confident in a security feature when that feature isn't used.
Let's say we can't be confident in a security feature when we can't be confident the feature will be used.
Anybody remembers that scene from the Sting (1973) when Johny Hooker (Robert Redford) tucks money in Mottola pants and says Ain't no hard guy in the world gonna frisk ya there.?
You should be able to ask for a print of your scan to take with you. Like roller coasters.
At least it's a break for the watchers. A job where you look at body outlines of mostly fat people all day must be very depressing.
Who detects the detectors? The meta detectors, apparently.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/patdown.asp
Or Great Britain. Which is why for my trip to Europe next year, I will not be flying through LHR.
They've been removed from Heathrow now (at least T5, the BA one). I believe Manchester is the only ones left.
I've also had MMW scans at DME in Moscow, and Erez on the Gaza/Israel border.
Obviously always opt out in the U.S.
I am changing jobs to work for a new US startup. I am very excited about the job, except for having to travel to the US for training and business meetings. The thought of having to deal with constant surveillance as well as the 'security' theater makes me very uncomfortable.
Before 9/11 I enjoyed traveling to the US very much. This all changed when I saw the sheer over-reaction when I took my kids (4 and 6 at the time) to Orlando. Being Dutch, they did not speak a word of English at that age. On arrival of the flight, groggy after nine hours in a plane, they were shouted at to take off their shoes. My youngest almost fell over while taking his shoes off and leaned against the post of the scanner. 4 years old... The security goons went crazy, how dare you touch their scanner! The yelling and screaming really made for a great start of our vacation.. This incident has changed my mind about the US forever.
The definition of terrorism is trying to change society by inflicting fear. The muslims on 9/11 did this on one horrible day. The US government is doing it every day, ever since.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
As I understand it, only the X-ray systems have been removed (except in Manchester). The L3 and Smiths detection (millimeter wave) scanners are still very much authorized for use at LHR. So if they aren't in place at the moment, I'd be very surprised if they aren't there by next fall. Given recent comments by the UK transportation minister, I have zero faith in the UK becoming a place I will willingly travel to or through again by air unless several conservative party members of the UK government are ejected en masse in a landslide election, are tried before the Hague, and are forced to finish out the remainder of their lives in a hard labor camp for their crimes against humanity to serve as an example for other political leaders that would act against the public interest for their own political (and usually economic) gains.
That's the level of political upheaval that would be required to convince the sorts of mental defectives who would mandate forcible on-camera strip-searches as a prerequisite for travel that such actions are uncivilized and unjustifiable, no matter the perceived risks or rewards.
In other words, I'm not holding my breath.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Heathrow Terminal 3 doesn't have them any more as far as I could see, and they got rid of the shoe scanners too.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
As I understand it, only the X-ray systems have been removed (except in Manchester). The L3 and Smiths detection (millimeter wave) scanners are still very much authorized for use at LHR.
There isn't one at T5-South (where I normally pass through -- nearer the lounge), as it used to be a radiation booth. I'm fairly sure it's been removed from T5 north too.
Personally I'm fine with making everyone passing through, or working at, or in charge of (up to the politicians), to be naked. Assuming they increase the temperature first. I'm not fine with recalibrated machines whose sole purpose is to fire an unknown quantity of ionising radiation at you.
or it didn't happen
Only in the Bush era could a treasury-looting boondoggle this bad actually go all the way to implementation.
These machines can be defeated by any illiterate petty criminal. Hello... body cavities?
Every actually respectable expert is on record against them, from Bruce Schneier to El Al's former head of security.
This is not just garden variety incompetence. The program was so wildly and thoroughly stupid that it goes beyond negligence into prima facie malicious intent. The bigs from the vendors and the feds on the procurement side should see prison on the grounds of corruption alone. It's no different than selling the army a billion dollars worth of non-working guns or vehicles to pocket the profits. God willing, someday we'll watch the trials on CSpan.
That's leaving aside the laugh-till-you-cry repugnant aspects of what they actually did - which is, let's not sugar coat it, take nude photographs of thousands and thousands of children.
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