Posted on 01/04/2010 11:55:52 PM PST by goldstategop
If the government prohibits airline passengers from getting out of their seats during the last hour of a flight, I hereby announce that I will get out of my seat either to escort someone who needs to use the lavatory or because I do. I understand that I may be arrested, but I am willing to make this a cause celebre.
Aside from a genetic incapacity to be directed by irrationality, I will make this protest on behalf of fellow passengers who are in pain because of this idiotic rule. What are diabetics, for example, supposed to do? And considering the fact that "the last hour of a flight" is always more than an hour, often considerably more -- given the frequent delays in approaching airports and given the approximately 15-20 minutes between landing and passengers actually disembarking.
I am not prepared to obey rules that hurt the innocent while doing nothing to prevent terrorism.
When exactly will airline passengers be permitted to relieve themselves? Seatbelt signs are now illuminated meaning passengers are not allowed out of their seats -- for at least the half hour it takes to leave the gate and achieve optimum altitude. And on many planes, those signs are (often pointlessly) illuminated for much of the flight after that as well.
Therefore, if passengers are not allowed to get up during the last hour, that would mean that on a two-hour flight, passengers would be fortunate to have a total of 20 minutes when they could stand to stretch, get a book or go to the lavatory.
Furthermore, since passengers are also not allowed to "congregate" outside the lavatories, passengers will actually have to compete with one another in order to get to the bathroom. The slower ones, or the ones seated furthest from the lavatories, may not have any chance to go to the bathroom in a two-hour or longer flight.
These useless, dignity-robbing, rules could have been averted if available technologies and a more intelligent approach to catching terrorists had been adopted.
One such technology is full-body scanning.
According to Robert Poole, adviser to the White House and Congress on airport security following 9-11, the explosives "which the terrorist concealed in his underwear would have been detected had he been required to pass through one of the 15 millimeter-wave body-scanners now in use at Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport)."
And Charlotte Bryan, a former top TSA and FAA official, told CNN that a body scanner could have stopped Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, terror suspect on Northwest 253.
The major objection to the scanner comes from the ACLU and from libertarians on "privacy" grounds. This objection led the House of Representatives to ban full body scans. That the ban was led by a Republican, Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz, who continues to defend his opposition to body scanning, only shows that the left has no monopoly on foolishness.
But it was House Democrats who overwhelmingly voted to ban body scans. Only a fifth of the Democrats in the House voted against the ban while two-thirds of the Republicans voted against it.
The ACLU, which can almost always be depended on to say something foolish and advocate a position that harms society, calls the process "virtual strip search." And Chaffetz declared, "I just think it's too invasive. Nobody needs to see my kids -- I have a son and two daughters -- and see my wife naked in order to secure an airplane!"
So, the leftist and libertarian opposition centered on the issue of privacy. And the conservative opposition -- to conservatives' credit, the smallest of the opposing groups -- centered on "nudity."
It is difficult to say which one is more idiotic. Both illustrate what happens when dogma supersedes common sense.
What privacy are we even talking about? I cherish my privacy, but anyone who actually looks at the scans made by the whole body scanner cannot seriously talk of either privacy or nudity. They are indeed "virtual" images, meaning no skin is shown and the human figure looks metallic.
The ACLU and Rep. Chaffetz have read too many Superman comics -- they imagine the superhero's "X-ray vision." But that is not possible. There is no skin shown. So how can there be "nudity"?
I willingly relinquish whatever "privacy" I lose by being scanned for the even more precious value of staying alive.
Those who think that TSA employees will be leering at naked bodies have a little too much sex on their minds. Same-sex TSA employees will be looking at metallic-like images of thousands of bodies that pass through airport security. Look on the Internet at those images and then tell me that they are "nude." A necrophiliac would be bored.
As a conservative, I am embarrassed by people who put thousands of lives in danger under the guise of protecting their wives and daughters from appearing "naked."
So until my government does something intelligent -- like screening for dangerous people, not dangerous weapons (as Israel so successfully does) -- to protect this frequent flyer, I will not play the pretend game of "do something" that prohibits me from relieving myself on the grounds that terrorists only blow up planes after going to the bathroom during the last hour of a flight.
I will surrender a lot of things to stay alive. But I will not surrender my intelligence. That and being told when to urinate are the real losses of dignity, not a full body scan.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
I don’t care one way of the other, but I remember traveling with my oldest daughter solo on a small plane. She was 1 at the time, and in the 20 minute descent, where we couldn’t leave our seats, she decided to unload a beast into her diaper. People were literally gagging around us, but we couldn’t leave our seat. I hope they all enjoy another 40 minutes of that courtesy of some other guy’s kid.
The body scan looks not for chemicals but for objects.
That cartoon says it all for me.
Pretty soon it wont take to long before a person could reach their lifetime body dosage from penetrating radiation just from all the sorts of airport body scans.
Would it be easier, less inconvenient, to just bow to is-SLIME, and they will do away with all the screening.
it is my understanding that the body scanners are tuned to higher density objects, which is why they can ‘see’ thru lower- density clothing. I doubt they would detect powdered underwear.
Do people ever complain to their doctors about the invasion of privacy when they examine various parts of their body usually covered by clothing and underwear? No? Why not? Because they are choosing to allow this indignity for the safety of their health.
So why wouldn’t people flying not want to do the same to protect their lives?
Maybe TSA should hire doctors to look at the screening images.
LOVE it!
It uses long-wavelength radio waves, so it's more analogous to ultrasound, so yes it is "like" X-rays in that it penetrates clothing, but uses much safer radiation to do so. and the way it "detects" the explosive is to allow you to "see" in the computer generated image that the passenger has a strange item taped to his groin.
Actual detection of the explosive itself is done by chemical instruments that can identify very tiny amounts of specific chemicals. You step into a booth that pulls a volume of air around you, and said air is fed to the instrument. If the person has on their body (or has handled) an explosive compound, at least a few molecules WILL be in that air, and will be detected.
Both technologies should be used, but they ain't cheap.
the comparison of a doctor to the TSA isn’t working for me.
If I am sick and go to a doctor, it is obvious to me anyway, that the doctor will need to examine me and I do not consider it an indignity.
I go to the airport and someone rent a cop with an IQ of 50 does not have a need to strip search me for no reason. Same as the cop on the street. We can be safe without being strip searched on planes.
1. Stop all people from muslim countries from flying to the US
2. Kick out all non-citizens, especially muslims from the US
3. screen all foreign travelers and we think they are muslim, deny entry
4. profile remaining travelers to see if any muslims slipped through
That should be a good starting list for being safe - no need to take off my shoes, get strip searched, not go to the bathroom, etc.
As Mark Steyn pointed out, when we do things like this we hand victory to the terrorists. They are controlling our lives.
I’ve wondered about that. Is there any possibility that full-body scans by X-ray might be a cause of sterility or birth defects among frequent-flyer men or women? How long before there are law suits charging such?
I’m more worried about female agents fainting when I go through.
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