Tobacco companies killed more people in the USA in 2001 than terrorists, by a considerable margin. So where did we spend our money? Invading Afghanistan(!), to punish a government (our former allies) who correctly concluded that they physically couldn't hand over the organizers.
So now we've been there for almost 10 years, and spent uncounted billions of dollars, and we can't catch them either.
Well said. And to make matters worse, by invading not just one, but two sovereign nations, we spent every bit of karma and good-will that 9/11 purchased for us until now even our allies don't like us, and we added gasoline to the fire in which the terrorists were being forged.
We already have gun registration in the U.S. if you want fully automatic weapons, or (in some states, at least) concealed carry. IMHO, even that's a violation of the 2nd Amendment, but since I don't sit on the Supreme Court, MHO doesn't really matter.
I'll be looking for you in the next airport security line, then.
You probably won't see me, at least until a little sanity is restored to airport (in)security. And if I do have to fly, you'll see me raising a ruckus if TSA steps over the line.
Most people don't feel it (at first) when their rights are taken away, because they're submissive to authority and have no desire to attract its wrath by rocking the boat.
There's nothing necessarily wrong with submitting to authority, as long as your submission is reasonable. For example, when my boss assigns me a task at work, I'll get it done because that's what I'm getting paid to do (provided, of course it's a legitimate task, and neither legally nor morally wrong). Someone who rejects authority just for the sake of rejecting authority isn't a striking a blow for freedom. They're just being a rebel without a clue.
As humiliations mount, they justify them by thinking, "Well, this is necessary to protect us from the terrorists."
Some do, but I'm not one of them. I've slowly been escalating my activism as I've seen rights being removed. I'm still a loudmouth here on/. as well as elsewhere on-line and to anyone who will listen IRL because let's face it, the government isn't going to change because one person wants them to. It will take a critical mass of activists to achieve any significant measure of change. I have already started writing letters to my Congressman and Senators about the airport searches, and I encourage anyone else who opposes the TSA scope-n-grope to do likewise.
Are your rights intact because you're standing up for them, or because you're not planning on using them anyway?
As I said, I've been making pretty good use of my 1st Amendment rights. I'm hoping I won't need to take the step of civil disobedience to stand up for my 4th Amendment rights, but if necessary, I will. As long as the airport searches were "reasonable", the 4th Amendment didn't apply, since it provides freedom from "unreasonable" searches. However, the courts have ruled that x-ray searches are not "reasonable" without due process, so the new x-ray backscatter searches or optional "enhanced pat-downs" are over the line, IMHO.
Ultimately, peoples' response to authority tends to depend upon the circumstances and to the request. This is a Good Thing. A fireman ordering you out of your house because it's on fire and about to explode isn't going to cause you to scream about your rights. OTOH, a TSA agent electronically strip-searching you should. Submitting to the fireman's authority but rejecting the TSA's doesn't make you a hypocrite; it makes you rational.
The $4,200 figure is misleading because it doesn't count the failed attacks...An attack that is attempted but fails costs more than money...Oddly, al Qaeda makes the same mistake: they keep trying to blow up airplanes, when there are many other targets of opportunity.
Well reasoned and well stated, but IMHO, you make one base assumption that is wrong which therefore makes all of your conclusions false: what constitutes a "failed" attack? From your post above, I suspect that you believe any attack that doesn't cause death and destruction is "failed". Unfortunately, you are thinking like a western soldier: "My mission is to destroy an airplane/factory/ammunition depot/government building/whatever. If the objective isn't destroyed, my mission failed" However, that isn't how a terrorist thinks. A terrorist's goal is to cause TERROR. Did the underwear bomber or the shoe bomber fail? Maybe some guy setting his skivvies on fire is not nearly as frightening as the images we all remember from 9/11, but he made the news, and he pointed out that, despite all of the security procedures implemented since 9/11, we are still vulnerable on an airplane. That, I believe, is not a failed attack; it is, rather, an attack that simply did not have as much impact as desired, but still keeps the American sheeple frightened.
The terrorists only gave us a little shove. The AC above was right: it is our own government that is propelling us headlong towards slavery in the name of "security". I'm much more afraid of my own government than I am of Al Qaeda, and no, it's not because I "have something to hide."
Being detained in an airport and threated with an $11,000 fine because you object to being nudie-scoped or groped by a thug with a badge -- in violation of the 4th Amendment, I might add -- isn't slavery?
We may not yet be under as much control as Washington wants, but we are certainly no longer a free society.
a) you're right, there's no threat, and lifting security precautions won't change a thing
b) you're wrong, there is a threat, and lifting security precautions means a weekly re-run of 9/11
If b) is true you're asking thousands of people to die just so you can have a little easier time at an airport. And, frankly, anyone reading the news knows perfectly well b) is true.
What you say isn't true, btw, you have the option of paying enough to charter a flight and avoid the continental U.S. altogether. The problem isn't what the sovereign united states do, the problem is that you are prepared to accept any amount of discomfort for a few bucks.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. You forgot option c): There is a threat, albeit not a statistically significant one, and the "security precautions" we are currently taking are little more than a sleight-of-hand intended to make the flying public feel (no pun intended) like the government is doing something to address their fears. If the threat were anywhere near as real as you imagined it to be, we would *still* have airplanes blowing up weekly. Remember the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber and Flight 93? Those were all thwarted by the actions of other passengers on the airplane, not the TSA. What we have right now is an out-of-control government bureaucracy trampling on our 4th Amendment rights, and still letting terrorists and entertainers smuggle contraband on board airplanes.
Regarding charter flights: c'mon, that's seriously disingenuous, not to mention one-sided. If you are that afraid of being blown up on an airliner, YOU could use charter flights rather than commercial airlines. "the problem is that you are prepared to violate others' civil rights for a few bucks." It's no less true when you say it than it is when I do. Just sayin. Furthermore, what you are saying isn't even true. TSA does require some screening, even for chartered aircraft, if the aircraft weighs more than 12,500 pounds (see here for details) and they were trying to expand that program to privately owned and operated aircraft in 2009, although that measure was dropped due to public outcry (see here and here). So no, you can't really take a charter flight without being screened, although for now you could fly in a private jet, if you can afford the cost (you probably can't, unless your last name is Pelosi, Clinton or Bush).
Please - I know US Citizens don't have a whole lot of power when it comes to running your country, and that most of the time it's run by powers far beyond your control - but if there's ANYTHING I could ask from you guys, it's to create enough of an outcry over issues such as this that BOTH parties take a negative stance to it...
I have already written my Representative, both of my Senators and the TSA. I am currently writing a letter to the airlines I frequently use, as well. While I am perhaps a little too cynical to think I've got much chance of changing policy, I'm at least taking an active role and doing what I can.
However, keep in mind that you, too, can help. First, don't visit -- not just "don't fly, but don't even visit -- the U.S. There are a lot of idiots saying this with the tone of, "If you don't like our policies, stay the **** out!", but that's not what I mean. If our country sees a significant decline in tourism, hopefully the decline in tourism revenues will help influence national policy. Next, also lobby your representatives and airlines. Finally, if there are places in the U.S. that you visit regularly -- or at least, that you are seriously considering visiting -- write to the airports servicing those areas and to the tourism boards and let them know that you will be traveling elsewhere, and why.
Sigh...yeah, I know. But there is something within me that simply cannot allow me to just stand there while a thug with a badge molests my child.
All of this TSA crap reminds me of Braveheart: "The problem with Scotland is that it is full of Scots..." You remember what the English tried to do about that, right? Things may not have turned out well for William Wallace, but you have to give him this: we still remember his name today.
"Get over yourselves" is intellectual dishonesty and laziness. It says, "I don't have a good response for your points, so rather than concede that you won the debate, I'm going to try to belittle and intimidate you." So, no, I WON'T "get over myself". I am furious that our government is ignoring the 4th Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches without due cause. I am livid that the American people are rolling over like good little sheep, and letting the government snap nude photos of men, women and children (children who they will arrest if they snap a nude photo of themselves and send it in an MMS to their BF/GF, by the way) and/or sexually assaulting as a pre-condition to boarding an airplane. I'm incensed that these policies were rolled out with little to no prior notification to the flying public, and if you balk at these procedures once you've entered the screening process, you can be confined by TSA and levied an $11,000 fine...not to mention that you could potentially be stranded in a city you were visiting on vacation with no realistic way to get home (Honolulu is one of the airports with this technology, so all of you screaming "You don't have to fly!" tell me how you'd get home from Honolulu after your ten days of leave from work is up?).
This is a very real, very disturbing, very important issue right now. If you aren't bothered by these policies, fine. If you are so afraid of the terrorist boogeyman that you are okay with the government stripping away all of your civil liberties, then that's your choice, I guess. But many better men and women than you died so that my family and I -- and you, for that matter -- have the right to say "No!" when the government wants to electronically strip-search and/or fondle me before I get on the airplane. That's not something I will give up without a fight.
It'd be a heck of a lot easier if everyone just consented to Isreali-style background checks, but I'm not ready to take away everyone's rights like that.
But you're okay with violating everyone's 4th Amendment rights to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure by having anyone with an airline ticket submit to either the TSA's "porno-scanners" or a grope^W"enhanced pat-down" from Officer Friendly?
...which only penetrate a few tenths of a millimeter into the skin. Consequently, nothing stored within any of areas of the human body "that are used primarily for the storage of liquid" will be visible to the body scanner.
Please try to keep up, here!
May I humbly suggest that perhaps before being snarky to others, you should try some critical thinking? Because clearly, you either haven't got the faintest idea what you are talking about or you are being deliberately obtuse.
If TSA hasn't caught anyone, how can you say that the method has worked? You can't. You can't point to a cost/benefit analysis or privacy impact analysis because TSA hasn't performed either of them. Furthermore, you can't even argue that TSA has prevented other terrorists from trying to hijack or blow up an airplane because there have been at least two other attempts since 9/11: the Underwear Bomber and the Shoe Bomber (google them). TSA didn't stop them -- other passengers and the flight attendants did.
So in light of the fact that there is no documented evidence showing that TSA has prevented any terrorist activity since 9/11 (or at the very least, that you neglected to cite any evidence showing that), and in light of the fact at least two other terrorists slipped by TSA and were caught by the passengers on the affected airplanes, your claim that TSA's methods have worked is dubious at best, and a flat-out lie at worst.
Grandma Mable gets scanned because the TSA isn't racist.
TSA may not be racist (but there is enough anecdotal evidence that there is an above average number of attractive, well-endowed females being pulled aside for additional screening to make one wonder how "random" the random screenings really are), but it certainly is fascist. Grandma Mable shouldn't get scanned unless TSA has intel or other probable cause to suggest she is trying to smuggle something through airport security. I, for one, am really effing tired of being treated like a criminal simply because I want to take my family on a vacation or because I *have* to fly somewhere for work.
Seriously, has reading comprehension fallen so far? Where in my post did I say that that was a good thing? All I said is that the way Japan treats suspects and criminals has, IMHO, a greater influence on crime rate than Japan's gun laws.
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?
Even Caucasians have run-ins with idiot cops sometimes. I'm white, and I was hassled for ID while standing barefoot and shirtless, with my hair soaking wet, in my carport (my GF had come by while I was in the shower, so I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and answered the door). That's not the only example, but it is the incident that annoyed me the most.
I saw an article discussing this, but I can't seem to find the link right now. About the best I can do is Bruce Schneier's article that discusses, among other things, the case against ionizing radiation in general.
...or become fap-fodder for the guy in the back room?
According to snopes.com, the story reported here is most likely satire. I couldn't find a reputable link anywhere else, so I'd say it hasn't happened yet, but I imagine it's only a matter of time.
Truth be told, I'm kind of baffled that there hasn't been an attack on train (or subway) infrastructure in the United States. The only two sensible explanations I can come up with are (1) all of the terrorists in the United States are woefully incompetent, and unable to get hold of a few pounds of commercial explosives; or (2) there just aren't very many terrorists looking to attack U.S. infrastructure. Either way, I'm sleeping pretty comfortably.
I imagine it has more to do with the fact that people aren't nearly as afraid of riding on a train as they are of flying on an airplane. h. Sapiens is a ground-based life form; flying isn't natural for us, and falling is a fear that most of us have from birth. IMHO, the concept of a train being attacked -- unless it's a subway, when claustrophobia might kick in -- just doesn't have the same fear factor as an airplane falling out of the sky. It *is* called TERRORism, after all.
Slashdot Mirror
Tobacco companies killed more people in the USA in 2001 than terrorists, by a considerable margin. So where did we spend our money? Invading Afghanistan(!), to punish a government (our former allies) who correctly concluded that they physically couldn't hand over the organizers. So now we've been there for almost 10 years, and spent uncounted billions of dollars, and we can't catch them either.
Well said. And to make matters worse, by invading not just one, but two sovereign nations, we spent every bit of karma and good-will that 9/11 purchased for us until now even our allies don't like us, and we added gasoline to the fire in which the terrorists were being forged.
Brilliant.
We already have gun registration in the U.S. if you want fully automatic weapons, or (in some states, at least) concealed carry. IMHO, even that's a violation of the 2nd Amendment, but since I don't sit on the Supreme Court, MHO doesn't really matter.
I'll be looking for you in the next airport security line, then.
You probably won't see me, at least until a little sanity is restored to airport (in)security. And if I do have to fly, you'll see me raising a ruckus if TSA steps over the line.
Most people don't feel it (at first) when their rights are taken away, because they're submissive to authority and have no desire to attract its wrath by rocking the boat.
There's nothing necessarily wrong with submitting to authority, as long as your submission is reasonable. For example, when my boss assigns me a task at work, I'll get it done because that's what I'm getting paid to do (provided, of course it's a legitimate task, and neither legally nor morally wrong). Someone who rejects authority just for the sake of rejecting authority isn't a striking a blow for freedom. They're just being a rebel without a clue.
As humiliations mount, they justify them by thinking, "Well, this is necessary to protect us from the terrorists."
Some do, but I'm not one of them. I've slowly been escalating my activism as I've seen rights being removed. I'm still a loudmouth here on /. as well as elsewhere on-line and to anyone who will listen IRL because let's face it, the government isn't going to change because one person wants them to. It will take a critical mass of activists to achieve any significant measure of change. I have already started writing letters to my Congressman and Senators about the airport searches, and I encourage anyone else who opposes the TSA scope-n-grope to do likewise.
Are your rights intact because you're standing up for them, or because you're not planning on using them anyway?
As I said, I've been making pretty good use of my 1st Amendment rights. I'm hoping I won't need to take the step of civil disobedience to stand up for my 4th Amendment rights, but if necessary, I will. As long as the airport searches were "reasonable", the 4th Amendment didn't apply, since it provides freedom from "unreasonable" searches. However, the courts have ruled that x-ray searches are not "reasonable" without due process, so the new x-ray backscatter searches or optional "enhanced pat-downs" are over the line, IMHO.
Ultimately, peoples' response to authority tends to depend upon the circumstances and to the request. This is a Good Thing. A fireman ordering you out of your house because it's on fire and about to explode isn't going to cause you to scream about your rights. OTOH, a TSA agent electronically strip-searching you should. Submitting to the fireman's authority but rejecting the TSA's doesn't make you a hypocrite; it makes you rational.
The $4,200 figure is misleading because it doesn't count the failed attacks...An attack that is attempted but fails costs more than money...Oddly, al Qaeda makes the same mistake: they keep trying to blow up airplanes, when there are many other targets of opportunity.
Well reasoned and well stated, but IMHO, you make one base assumption that is wrong which therefore makes all of your conclusions false: what constitutes a "failed" attack? From your post above, I suspect that you believe any attack that doesn't cause death and destruction is "failed". Unfortunately, you are thinking like a western soldier: "My mission is to destroy an airplane/factory/ammunition depot/government building/whatever. If the objective isn't destroyed, my mission failed" However, that isn't how a terrorist thinks. A terrorist's goal is to cause TERROR. Did the underwear bomber or the shoe bomber fail? Maybe some guy setting his skivvies on fire is not nearly as frightening as the images we all remember from 9/11, but he made the news, and he pointed out that, despite all of the security procedures implemented since 9/11, we are still vulnerable on an airplane. That, I believe, is not a failed attack; it is, rather, an attack that simply did not have as much impact as desired, but still keeps the American sheeple frightened.
The terrorists only gave us a little shove. The AC above was right: it is our own government that is propelling us headlong towards slavery in the name of "security". I'm much more afraid of my own government than I am of Al Qaeda, and no, it's not because I "have something to hide."
Being detained in an airport and threated with an $11,000 fine because you object to being nudie-scoped or groped by a thug with a badge -- in violation of the 4th Amendment, I might add -- isn't slavery?
We may not yet be under as much control as Washington wants, but we are certainly no longer a free society.
While I agree with you, I rather suspect publiclurker was paraphrasing Ben Franklin.
There's of course the tiny little issue :
a) you're right, there's no threat, and lifting security precautions won't change a thing b) you're wrong, there is a threat, and lifting security precautions means a weekly re-run of 9/11
If b) is true you're asking thousands of people to die just so you can have a little easier time at an airport. And, frankly, anyone reading the news knows perfectly well b) is true.
What you say isn't true, btw, you have the option of paying enough to charter a flight and avoid the continental U.S. altogether. The problem isn't what the sovereign united states do, the problem is that you are prepared to accept any amount of discomfort for a few bucks.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. You forgot option c): There is a threat, albeit not a statistically significant one, and the "security precautions" we are currently taking are little more than a sleight-of-hand intended to make the flying public feel (no pun intended) like the government is doing something to address their fears. If the threat were anywhere near as real as you imagined it to be, we would *still* have airplanes blowing up weekly. Remember the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber and Flight 93? Those were all thwarted by the actions of other passengers on the airplane, not the TSA. What we have right now is an out-of-control government bureaucracy trampling on our 4th Amendment rights, and still letting terrorists and entertainers smuggle contraband on board airplanes.
Regarding charter flights: c'mon, that's seriously disingenuous, not to mention one-sided. If you are that afraid of being blown up on an airliner, YOU could use charter flights rather than commercial airlines. "the problem is that you are prepared to violate others' civil rights for a few bucks." It's no less true when you say it than it is when I do. Just sayin. Furthermore, what you are saying isn't even true. TSA does require some screening, even for chartered aircraft, if the aircraft weighs more than 12,500 pounds (see here for details) and they were trying to expand that program to privately owned and operated aircraft in 2009, although that measure was dropped due to public outcry (see here and here). So no, you can't really take a charter flight without being screened, although for now you could fly in a private jet, if you can afford the cost (you probably can't, unless your last name is Pelosi, Clinton or Bush).
Please - I know US Citizens don't have a whole lot of power when it comes to running your country, and that most of the time it's run by powers far beyond your control - but if there's ANYTHING I could ask from you guys, it's to create enough of an outcry over issues such as this that BOTH parties take a negative stance to it...
I have already written my Representative, both of my Senators and the TSA. I am currently writing a letter to the airlines I frequently use, as well. While I am perhaps a little too cynical to think I've got much chance of changing policy, I'm at least taking an active role and doing what I can.
However, keep in mind that you, too, can help. First, don't visit -- not just "don't fly, but don't even visit -- the U.S. There are a lot of idiots saying this with the tone of, "If you don't like our policies, stay the **** out!", but that's not what I mean. If our country sees a significant decline in tourism, hopefully the decline in tourism revenues will help influence national policy. Next, also lobby your representatives and airlines. Finally, if there are places in the U.S. that you visit regularly -- or at least, that you are seriously considering visiting -- write to the airports servicing those areas and to the tourism boards and let them know that you will be traveling elsewhere, and why.
Sigh...yeah, I know. But there is something within me that simply cannot allow me to just stand there while a thug with a badge molests my child.
All of this TSA crap reminds me of Braveheart: "The problem with Scotland is that it is full of Scots..." You remember what the English tried to do about that, right? Things may not have turned out well for William Wallace, but you have to give him this: we still remember his name today.
LOL
"Get over yourselves" is intellectual dishonesty and laziness. It says, "I don't have a good response for your points, so rather than concede that you won the debate, I'm going to try to belittle and intimidate you." So, no, I WON'T "get over myself". I am furious that our government is ignoring the 4th Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches without due cause. I am livid that the American people are rolling over like good little sheep, and letting the government snap nude photos of men, women and children (children who they will arrest if they snap a nude photo of themselves and send it in an MMS to their BF/GF, by the way) and/or sexually assaulting as a pre-condition to boarding an airplane. I'm incensed that these policies were rolled out with little to no prior notification to the flying public, and if you balk at these procedures once you've entered the screening process, you can be confined by TSA and levied an $11,000 fine...not to mention that you could potentially be stranded in a city you were visiting on vacation with no realistic way to get home (Honolulu is one of the airports with this technology, so all of you screaming "You don't have to fly!" tell me how you'd get home from Honolulu after your ten days of leave from work is up?).
This is a very real, very disturbing, very important issue right now. If you aren't bothered by these policies, fine. If you are so afraid of the terrorist boogeyman that you are okay with the government stripping away all of your civil liberties, then that's your choice, I guess. But many better men and women than you died so that my family and I -- and you, for that matter -- have the right to say "No!" when the government wants to electronically strip-search and/or fondle me before I get on the airplane. That's not something I will give up without a fight.
It'd be a heck of a lot easier if everyone just consented to Isreali-style background checks, but I'm not ready to take away everyone's rights like that.
But you're okay with violating everyone's 4th Amendment rights to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure by having anyone with an airline ticket submit to either the TSA's "porno-scanners" or a grope^W"enhanced pat-down" from Officer Friendly?
That's why they've introduced the body scanners.
Please try to keep up, here!
May I humbly suggest that perhaps before being snarky to others, you should try some critical thinking? Because clearly, you either haven't got the faintest idea what you are talking about or you are being deliberately obtuse.
Have you had your head buried in the sand for the last couple of years? TSA didn't catch the shoe bomber -- the passengers and flight crew of the airplane did.
If TSA hasn't caught anyone, how can you say that the method has worked? You can't. You can't point to a cost/benefit analysis or privacy impact analysis because TSA hasn't performed either of them. Furthermore, you can't even argue that TSA has prevented other terrorists from trying to hijack or blow up an airplane because there have been at least two other attempts since 9/11: the Underwear Bomber and the Shoe Bomber (google them). TSA didn't stop them -- other passengers and the flight attendants did.
So in light of the fact that there is no documented evidence showing that TSA has prevented any terrorist activity since 9/11 (or at the very least, that you neglected to cite any evidence showing that), and in light of the fact at least two other terrorists slipped by TSA and were caught by the passengers on the affected airplanes, your claim that TSA's methods have worked is dubious at best, and a flat-out lie at worst.
So what? I consider a TSA thug groping my 'nads "unclean".
Grandma Mable gets scanned because the TSA isn't racist.
TSA may not be racist (but there is enough anecdotal evidence that there is an above average number of attractive, well-endowed females being pulled aside for additional screening to make one wonder how "random" the random screenings really are), but it certainly is fascist. Grandma Mable shouldn't get scanned unless TSA has intel or other probable cause to suggest she is trying to smuggle something through airport security. I, for one, am really effing tired of being treated like a criminal simply because I want to take my family on a vacation or because I *have* to fly somewhere for work.
Seriously, has reading comprehension fallen so far? Where in my post did I say that that was a good thing? All I said is that the way Japan treats suspects and criminals has, IMHO, a greater influence on crime rate than Japan's gun laws.
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?
I nominate you for President in 2012. I'd vote for you. Seriously.
Even Caucasians have run-ins with idiot cops sometimes. I'm white, and I was hassled for ID while standing barefoot and shirtless, with my hair soaking wet, in my carport (my GF had come by while I was in the shower, so I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and answered the door). That's not the only example, but it is the incident that annoyed me the most.
Otherwise, you are pretty much spot-on.
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.
Well...for now, anyway.
Have elderly parents who need medical supplies? They'll make you wet yourself.
abcnews.go.com: Thomas Sawyer
Small kids? They'll grope them while they scream for help, wondering why their parents aren't protecting them.
examiner.com
Cancer survivor? Have some more rads!
I saw an article discussing this, but I can't seem to find the link right now. About the best I can do is Bruce Schneier's article that discusses, among other things, the case against ionizing radiation in general.
...or become fap-fodder for the guy in the back room?
According to snopes.com, the story reported here is most likely satire. I couldn't find a reputable link anywhere else, so I'd say it hasn't happened yet, but I imagine it's only a matter of time.
HTH!
Truth be told, I'm kind of baffled that there hasn't been an attack on train (or subway) infrastructure in the United States. The only two sensible explanations I can come up with are (1) all of the terrorists in the United States are woefully incompetent, and unable to get hold of a few pounds of commercial explosives; or (2) there just aren't very many terrorists looking to attack U.S. infrastructure. Either way, I'm sleeping pretty comfortably.
I imagine it has more to do with the fact that people aren't nearly as afraid of riding on a train as they are of flying on an airplane. h. Sapiens is a ground-based life form; flying isn't natural for us, and falling is a fear that most of us have from birth. IMHO, the concept of a train being attacked -- unless it's a subway, when claustrophobia might kick in -- just doesn't have the same fear factor as an airplane falling out of the sky. It *is* called TERROR ism, after all.