Posted on 07/25/2010 7:28:29 AM PDT by Texas Peartree
I travel a lot for work. It has been that way for the past dozen years and will not change any time soon. Although I have probably been to just about every major city in the US, I had not been to Boston in decades until I went on a family vacation this past week.
Flying into Boston was fine, but flying out of Boston's Logan's airport was a shock. For the first time I encountered the body scanners that are being adopted soon nationwide. In essence, you are pushed toward a black screen, told to put your hands above your head (like a criminal, and forcing females to unintentionally arch their backs to the delight of Security) and a minimum wage official in nearby room checks your naked body for weapons.
Me: Um, I'd rather go through that regular metal detector (pointing).
Security peon: Are you refusing to go through the body scanner?
Me: Well, I just don't feel like you and I are in a place in our relationship where we are ready to see each other naked.
Security peon: Are you refusing?
Me: Sort of, and so is my 14 year old son and my 13 year old son.
We ended up getting a rigorous pat-down, and a lecture on how airport security are trained professionals who have taken an oath not to discuss what is seen on the body scans. I am not a privacy extremist, but the Guardian newspaper rightly points out that these machines break all sorts of child pornography laws. Yet, parents sent their teenage daughters into these scanners like sheep to the slaughter. Why?
Isn't part of being a human that we get to decide when and whom we share ourselves with?
Within the first few weeks of these machines being adopted...
(Excerpt) Read more at corybirenbaum.blogspot.com ...
Sounds like you ran into my cencus worker!
This would be one of the reasons I’m driving 18 hours on my next vacation instead of dealing with the airport.
“Sounds like you ran into my cencus worker!”
I suppose most people are willing to get pushed around, but if everyone requested a pat-down instead, we could force them to take away these machines that are such an attack on our rights.
The security peon probably enjoyed the “rigorous pat-down” of your sons more than the peep show.
They’ve got one at BWI. It was only being used for one of the lines, and after I saw what it was, I jumped into the other line with the regular metal detector, while the other people simply went in like sheep to the slaughter, thinking nothing of it.
Easy fix, don’t fly!!!
“Easy fix, don’t fly!!!”
My job is to visit customers. I cannot drive weekly from Houston to New York and Seattle. If I accept this, then I would need to quit my job.
Or fly privately, if you can.
Much more pleasant.
Public nudity is only safe in heaven.
I thought those scanners were run by IRS agents?
Just had the same thing happen in a trip this summer. I was directed through the metal scanner but the rest of my family including my teenage daughter had to go through the full body scan. They make you stand in an awkward position and if you don’t do it right they get very rude. Then they make you stand on two footprints for several seconds (someone will have to tell me why that is). I used to love to fly but it’s getting to the point that it is not worth it anymore.
They need to pull the Arabs and Muzzies out of the lines and search/grill them. And stop violating the privacy of all others at airports. If necessary ban Arabs and Muzzies from flying altogether. They can just take one of their magic carpets.
So, you “sexualized” the body scanner, presumed the “security peons” to be perverts, pedophiles, and unprofessional...and opted for the rigorous body pat down for yourself and your teens? Well played! Having developed training vids for TSA, I can assure you, you’re not as sexy, hot, witty, or special as you think you are. (I’ll bet you’re insufferable at restaurants.)
You want to insist all these “professionals” don’t get a giggle out of scanning folks that’s fine, how do you address the harm these scans can do to the human body. Give me the government quote on that!
Let’s all remember that Boston’s Logan Airport is where three of the four jumbo jets hijacked on 9/11 took off. If these procedures had been used on 9/11, it probably never would have happened.
Having said that, it’s impossible to justify an invasion of privacy that goes this far. Ordinary pat-downs, luggage scans and searches, and a metal detector should continue to be sufficient.
I did the same thing at BWI two weeks ago Tuesday (twice that day, first flight was cancelled so back to the check-in area). Just dropped off my stuff on the belt, walked past the body scanner line and through the metal detector.
There’s a company that makes little radio-opaque badges for ladies to put over their dark parts. They slip into underwear and can be removed and shown to the guards.
It’s absurd that we have to do this. I don’t blame the TSA; I have too many friends who work for FEMA or the TSA. I blame the Muslims.
“So, you “sexualized” the body scanner, presumed the “security peons” to be perverts, pedophiles, and unprofessional...and opted for the rigorous body pat down for yourself and your teens? Well played! Having developed training vids for TSA, I can assure you, you’re not as sexy, hot, witty, or special as you think you are. (I’ll bet you’re insufferable at restaurants.)”
And I bet you’d have made a good little Nazi. You must delight in stealing people’s dignity without increasing their safety one bit. Does the power to watch naked people get you hot? Hmmm, men in a little room alone looking at pictures of naked people. How could I sexualize that?
Or maybe two.
“Let’s all remember that Boston’s Logan Airport is where three of the four jumbo jets hijacked on 9/11 took off. If these procedures had been used on 9/11, it probably never would have happened.”
I am sensitive to that, but this argument does not ring true. The hijackers carried on box cutters in their carry-on bags. The body scanners would not have stopped that one iota.
I have an idea for a product: Underwear with messages written on them in dye that will show up on scanners. Only the operators gazing at your nakedness would see the message.
Use your imagination what the message says. “Pervert” is what sprung to mind.
Maybe it’s been done already?
Good post.
Also if you do not want a body scan you can still be "patted down." I find a "pat down" more intrusive than a body scan. Of even greater importance is the nature of explosive and in particular plastique. You can make a bomb that does not have any metal in it. It would not be detected by the metal detectors. If I am on a plane it would be my preference that every damn person including the crew go through a body scan!
“If I am on a plane it would be my preference that every damn person including the crew go through a body scan!”
Why? Statistically, there is almost zero chance there is an issue to find. If you are that scared of the crew and pilot, perhaps you should never fly, or eave your house. It is paranoia to scan a 5 year old boy or a 75 year old woman. Make distinctions to focus our efforts where needed.
You want to insist all these ?professionals? don?t get a giggle out of scanning folks that?s fine, how do you address the harm these scans can do to the human body. Give me the government quote on that!
Conversely, there are those who have to live with their own contrived fears and mental “rackets”. They nurse them like little pets so that their fears have a payoff (whatever that is). So you ca
n go start a new thread about airport scanners and radiation - you might just be right! (...and isn’t that ultimately the game? “Being right!”)
The Brits caught a couple with a liquid explosive trying to board a jet to the United States. It was in the babies bottle. They were willing to kill themselves and baby. Scan everybody and give extra attention to the individuals that fit the profile of terrorists.
You are lucky they did not take you into another room and do a really invasive search. My response to you would have been, Sir, you do have the option of a strip search. Would you prefer that?
You raised the charge that these people are perverts or child molestors. That is a very serious charge. Do you have anything to back it up? I think not. Based on that reckless charge, I am not inclined to accept any assesment of the airport security workers you have offered.
We are at war. Get used to it. Instead of holding up the line for everyone else, take a car next time. I’m tired of being held up in the airport security line by whinny people that want to challenge airport security.
How is that any different from the average porn model having a very good chance they will never encounter the particular person currently drooling at their photos on “hotnakedbabes.com” ??
If I wanted myself or my family to parade nude in front of Government officials, at LEAST give me the right to MOON them !!
You are jumping subjects.
What does the “FAIL” mean. Did you just wave your magic wand?
People have mailed anthrax using the US mail. So when you next mail a letter or a bill, perhaps the local mail carrier should check your naked body for a suspicious powder. It makes as much sense as what we do at Logan airport.
Furthermore, the next time you file your taxes, they should probe your anus since people faced with pirate ships in the 1600s often hid their diamonds there.
You are now starting to go off the deep end. I'm getting an image of just exactly what your body looks like. Trying to figure out though for sure if you are male of female to confirm the mental scan I have taken.
Take a bus and STFU. lol
This thread is full of the most rediculas posts I have read on FR. My faith in FR is restored with your post that gets it exactly correct.
“I’m getting an image of just exactly what your body looks like. Trying to figure out though for sure if you are male of female to confirm the mental scan I have taken.”
Put your pants back on and start thinking. How can it be ok that our government has a right to take images of American citizens naked? How can it be ok when the only “crime” they have committed is trying to catch a flight? I do not mean to go off the deep end, but you do seem to have a totalitarian bent of mind that makes you susceptible to accepting whatever the authority tells you. That’s all I meant about you being a likely good Nazi and a weak personality. Make sense?
“Take a bus and STFU. lol”
Really? And when they start this at bus terminals and train stations??? Honestly, the American Founders would be ashamed of most Americans today and what they will accept.
Yep. TSA Worker Assaults Colleague For Joking About His Genitals During Body Scanner Training
Arrested TSA worker asked girl to be his ’sex slave’
Well played! Having developed training vids for TSA, I can assure you, you’re not as sexy, hot, witty, or special as you think you are.
Neither are those chronically unemployed individuals who work at TSA.
(I’ll bet you’re insufferable at restaurants.)
I don't get stip searched at restaurants.
Sometimes we put something out for discussion and we end up being very wrong. That's OK. That is what FR is about, an open learning discussion.
The best advise that can be offered to you is to let it go.
So you're part of the problem, eh?
And you're part of the problem too, I see.
“Is flying a ‘right’?”
No, but the right against unreasonable search and seizure is enshrined in our Constitution. AND 35 years ago our Supreme Court invented a right to privacy. That is why the ACLU (whom I usually hate) is suing over these machines.
Is there any evidence that the TSA workers actually “enjoy” the screening process or that they are perverts?
Why is it ok to smear a whole group of admittedly unpopular people like this?
I’m sure that for every attractive passenger there are dozens and dozens of nasty ones and they’re not really getting their jollies seeing digitized shadow outlines.
I think I saw in the constitution (the new one, not the old outdated one) that flying is a right. I think it also mentions some people shall be given special priviledges when going through airport security when they choose to fly rather than take their own car.
LOL...there are little jerks everywhere aren’t there?
When the TSA first staffed up a lot of those ‘security peons’ were veterans who wanted to do something constructive after 911.
I hate the screening process and drive if I can, but taking personal and defamatory attacks on the TSA like that is overboard and reveals more about the author than the TSA.
When you go to the cafeteria at work, or a fast food restaurant, you may have the pleasure of getting a free plastic knife. They also sell boxes of them at the supermarket. As issued, it's useful only for spreading margarine on your mass-produced biscuit. But it can be sharpened, then stashed in the crotch of your underwear, or tucked under a woman's breast in her bra. Then, produced and held to the throat of a stewardess, it can make a very convincing little cut to gain entry to the cockpit.
I'll stress again that I do not support full-body scans.
I adamantly oppose full-body scans.
But we have to eliminate all threats, not just the ones that can be picked up by luggage scans and metal detectors. Rely too heavily on luggage scans and metal detectors, and the terrorists will find a way around them.
Some people get aroused by the power of secretly or anonymously viewing naked people who have no choice. The compulsion is an added bonus to them. I am not saying all TSA people are bad, that is certainly not my opinion. I am saying that we should not give our privacy up to a government who refused to first do the easy things, such as profile. Grandma in a wheelchair is not a threat. Giving a government worker (on par with the people who administer driving tests in terms of qualifications) the right to view her naked makes no sense. How can this be controversial?
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