Posted on 11/08/2010 5:03:51 AM PST by IbJensen
HAVING been taught by nuns in grade school and later going through military boot camp, I have always disliked uniformed authorities shouting at me. So I was unhappy last week when some security screeners at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago started yelling.
“Opt out! We got an opt out!” one bellowed about me in a tone that people in my desert neighborhood in Tucson usually reserve for declaring, “Rattlesnake!”
Other screeners took up the “Opt out!” shout. I was marched from the metal detector lane to one of those nearby whole-body imagers, ordered to take everything out of my pockets, remove my belt and hold my possessions up high. Then I was required to stand still while I received a rough pat-down by a man whose résumé, I suspected, included experience at a state prison.
“Hold your pants up!” he ordered me.
What did I do to deserve this? Well, as I approached the checkpoints, I had two choices. One was a familiar lane with the metal detector, so I put my bag on that. To my right was a separate lane dominated with what the Transportation Security Administration initially called “whole-body imagers” but has now labeled “advanced imaging technology” units. Critics, of course, call them strip-search machines.
I don’t like these things, and not just because of privacy concerns or because of what some critics have asserted are radiation safety issues with some of the machines that use X-ray technology.
-snip-
You then strike a pose inside with your hands submissively held above your head, like some desperado cornered by the sheriff in a Western movie, while the see-through-clothes machine makes an image of your body.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Remember you can only take 10K at a time out of the USA without a customs declaration, which I never did get, and still don't, why on earth do we have to declare what we do with our own money?? Maybe they are afraid too many rich citizens are escaping? Who's going to pay the top 2% taxes? Just an idea to get your wallet out in the open?
This is all part of Hussein's totalitarian communist control program. Instead of searching muslims, they get to walk right on past without any scrutiny while law abiding tax paying american patriots are harassed to the point where they aren't allowed on flights anymore.
Big Brother police state is here but I doubt people expected it to come with sharia law and a muslim president.
pay back is a itch
If your unlucky enough to have to submit to it again....as soon as the touchy feely starts scream “GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF MY PRIVATES YOU PERVERT!”
I call those machines “porn-o-graphs.”
They are a huge waste of time and are very intrusive. But if some chick gets off on looking at my package who am I to deny her?
I deal with them weekly.
What the hell ever happened to “Trusted Traveler” we were promised right after 9/11?
It’s time for Congress to ban those things or at least force them to be set to show everything but the body.
If 10% of the travelers (or less) decided to “opt out” every single time, the entire system would grind to a halt. It’s called civil disobedience.
I have heard that some rumors were that Islamic terrorist females were going to have bombs in breast implants and that’s part of the reasoning for the free “jollies” for TSA perverts on women who Opt Out of the imager.
As a breast cancer survivor who has had reconstruction I suppose I’ll get a thorough “going over” when I fly next.
I know. My father who was in the navy was once escorting some foreign naval people from the War College on a trip to D.C. All kinds of foreigners, and who gets 'randomly' picked for a special search? Twice? You guessed it.
If the intent of these machines is to detect bombs, it will fail. There are ways to get bombs through even with these things undressing you. If you are trying to stop guns or knives, you have the passengers to do that. I won’t sit in my seat and die like a lamb to the slaughter.
The only real way to stop bombs is to sniff them out.
Are there any real tests to show that PETN or C4 cannot get through these machines?
Let’s see. What’s the FReeper response to this? Oh yeah.
If you aren’t doing anything wrong you don’t have to worry about anything. You used to have to pay extra to get a stranger to grab your genitals at the airport. They are doing this for the children! I’m afraid of bad people and whatever the government tells me will keep me safe I believe because I want to FEEEL safer. I’m so afraid of bad people, I don’t care what the government does to me! Trust government to keep you safe!
I have to admit this deters me from flying at all. Not just for myself, but for my kids. I wonder if our usual vacation destinatioon (Disney) notices a drop in business?
Call me prudish but I dont want my adolescent daughter and son groped or irradiated and viewed virtual naked. Maybe it’s just me....
Wonder how we would be treated if we flew in burka’s?
Flew to JFK from Rome last month. A man roamed the airplane from almost the moment we left the ground. Up and down, was chased out of business class a couple of times, chased out of the “kitchen area” a couple of times. As soon as we touched the ground at JFK, same guy was up and roaming around again, stewardesses yelling that if he did not sit down and buckle up he would be met at the gate by police. I’ll give you a clue, he wasn’t American (he had a red passport) and the woman he was travelling with was wearing a hajib.
The result of opting out of the nekkid scan were well publicized. I guess people didn’t read all about it.
Newark/Liberty does not have the nekkid scanner in every terminal yet. I was appalled to watch a woman getting the full ‘treatment’ right out in the open last week. I was embarrassed for her. She didn’t seem to mind at all.
She was Indian (dot not feathers) and perhaps didn’t quite understand that she had been singled out.
He said he got called aside for thorough searches almost every time he flew -- and he flew a lot.
On the other hand, I live in an area with very few Muslims (or at least few visible Muslims). The only time I ever see a Muslim is when I go to the airport -- it seems like a large percentage of the staff there are Muslims in full regalia. It gives me the creeps that working at an airport seems to be a primary goal of Muslim immigrants to this country.
I’ve “Opted out” of flying. I’m not going to put up with this crap. I’m tired of long lines, intrusive searches, excessive baggage charges, lost luggage, stolen luggage, and sitting with my knees jammed into the back of the seat in front of me. If I can’t get there by car, I’m not going.
Instilling fear is the new religion of the mooslims.
My son worked for such a company (I believe it was CLEAR).
Was very popular, but TSA forced it out of business.
We drive now, because my wife does not want to go through the scanners, we really enjoyed flying but now she feels violated,so we drive.
I don't fly weekly anymore, but semi-weekly is normal. I guess I've had better luck “opting-out” than others.
With two immediate family members felled by cancer, I'm not taking ANY kind of radiation more often than necessary. If I'm short on time, I go through the scanner. If I have time, I op-out.
Maybe I just have the look of an old business traveler road-dog, but none of my pat downs have been as bad as described here.
“This is all part of Hussein’s totalitarian communist control program.”
This started LOOOOONG before Hussein with Woodrow Wilson when he and the Rats in Congress passed laws to make the use of recreational drugs illegal and to institute the income tax.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.