Posted on 11/21/2010 5:03:54 AM PST by DanMiller
The mainstream media ask all the wrong questions. A CBS survey concluded that:
Americans overwhelmingly approve of the use of full-body digital x-ray machines — a new technology in use at some airports in the U.S. Most, meanwhile, do not approve of racial or ethnic profiling — a practice not in place.The following questions apparently were not asked: “Have you or an immediate family member flown on a commercial airliner in the United States since November 1, 2010?” and “Do you or an immediate member of your family intend to fly on a commercial airliner in the United States in the near future? If not, have your plans been changed on account of recent changes in airport security procedures?”
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Surveys which fail to distinguish between respondents likely to have had some experience with the subject of the surveys or otherwise likely to have fact-based views are misleading and are more revealing about the perceptions of the folks conducting them than anything else.
Cue Captain Renault...
From the stories I’ve read recently, they’re not singling out anyone by race or ethnicity but by their health...those that have medical devices or appliances that show up on the scanner and then are presumed guilty until proven innocent. And how do they prove their innocence...whoopie...they get to show their colostomy or urosotmy bag, breast prothesis, etc. to the screener. It’s disgusting.
I’ve still not found any info on people wearing internal devices i.e. pacemakers, insuliin or other medicine pumps surgically implanted just below the skin. What’s happening to those folks...how do they prove what they are?
I have a device implanted in my back and hip called a spinal cord stimulator. I have a plastic card from the manufacturer that documents the device and I would show that to the screener thugs.
It is easy to say you approve of TSA pat downs if you do not travel by airplane.
Same applies to FR commentators who say they are not going to fly via airplane when it may have been 5 years since their last flight.
Similar here, ITB pump...but with the new invasive procedures, a poster yesterday said they’re saying the card isn’t enough (he had double hip replacements and tried to show the card.) If they couldn’t figure out the urosotmy bag was a medical appliance until they spilled urine all over the guy, what makes you think the card will suffice for an explanation. And the woman with the breast prothesis, why did she have to remove it?
I want some clear cut statements from the TSA regarding medical devices and appliances. Will the card be enough to get me past the pat down, they’re obviously going to see these things on scanners...or does that mean everyone with a medical appliance/device will need to be patted down?
You shouldn’t have to. We are flying Tuesday. I already hate it, I am just hopeful it goes OK for us.
I’m surprised we haven’t seen a father or husband find out where a “tsa” agent lives who molested their wife or child and beat hell out of them.
I’m not advocating this but would surely smile broadly if it did happen.
I haven’t flown in years but I go through security checkpoints at the airport about 3 times a year. I’ll complain.
RECORD EVERYTHING !
I just traveled. Through an airport that has scanners (Las Vegas), and was fully ready to be scanned if asked.
A scan doses you at the same level of radiation you will get from TWO MINUTES of cruising altitude flight on the jet you’re about to board.
I know the scanners don’t detect everything but I don’t care. I want them there. I want as much anti-bomb technology as possible. I want to arrive at my destination with my butt still firmly attached to the rest of my body... thank you.
My only worry in all this is that muzzies get an exemption. If muzzies get an exemption, I’m willing to join any anti-TSA, anti-Obama, anti-HS protest available.
So far, from what I understand, there is no muzzie exemption in place. To my mind, that’s the issue here. Is there a muzzie exemption, or isn’t there.
If there is no muzzie exemption, count me as a happy flier... fire up the scanner and I’ll walk right through with a smile on my face.
“Same applies to FR commentators who say they are not going to fly via airplane when it may have been 5 years since their last flight.”
Let me try and wrap my brain around this. If I haven’t flown in 5 years, it’s somehow... unacceptable for me to take a stand and say I’m not GOING to fly until this nonsense ends?
Personally, I haven’t flown since 9-11. I was, however, seriously considering flying across the country on a family visit. It won’t happen, now.
I hope every sane person in America takes this stand, air traffic comes to a halt and mass chaos ensues. Of course, that won’t happen because Leftists enjoy getting felt up by strangers... but I can always wish.
Same here. "PR" comes across as another self-righteous gnome.
We were planning a trip to Disney next Feb but it's off until this is over.
I also think that people are not aware of how vivid and personal the full-body scan is. I believe they think it is like an x-ray that shows bones and inner organs, when it is actually basically a nude photo.
Flew twice in the last year. AZ to VA and AZ to LA. Next trip, in the spring, to VA will be by automobile.
Two nights on the road each way and total expenses will probably be less than two plane tickets. And even idiot drivers along the way won't raise the blood pressure as much as TSA. (Maybe as a salute to TSA I'll drive in just my skivvies.)
Most General Aviation terminals, except at the largest airports, do NOT have screeners and leave it up to the plane owner to know whom their passengers are. Consider one could easily rent, or own, a large private jet, say a G-5, pack it full of explosives, put a full load of fuel aboard, and use it as a guided missile.
Also notice the “threat” now has moved away from someone hyjacking a plane to someone blowing one up with people on board. Suttle difference but nonetheless a move from looking for weapons with magnatomiters to now looking for plastic explosives with naked photos and strip searches. What a joke and just proves that government expands into any void open to it to expand its influence.
Well put. These administration braintrusts are poster children for the law of Unintended Consequences. (And that's a charitable analysis. ) In their zeal to appear "fair" and unbiased they've actually become hideously discriminatory--and in the most twisted and least possibly fruitful manner.
It is easy to say you approve of TSA pat downs if you do not travel by airplane.
The second should have been reported as “among those who were aware of the new...”
At very lease, set your cell phone to make an audio recording, press record as you send it through the scanner, and demand to be in the vicinity of your things when searched (ostensibly to avoid theft.)
consider the source ! cBS !
Anyone willing to go through a Big Brother scanner and who is stupid enough to believe Big Brother these days, would be wise to talk to an oncologist who knows about radiation. I’ve heard of four doctors that say “don’t” go through them.
It’s your health and, if you don’t care that in a few years you are diagnosed with cancer because of these machines, hey go for it.
“I’ll walk right through with a smile on my face” Can we assume you will walk right into the FEMA camps the same way?
Are you afraid to travel on the subway because they don’t use electronic strip search on every passenger? Do you realize trains are a more likely target for Muslim terrorists than planes? Are you aware of the TSA, in their entire history, of catching even one terrorist?
We are paying billions of dollars for ineffective security theater that is also conditioning the public to accept any indignity by the government in the name of “national security”.
TSA Unionization: A $30 Million Annual Gift to Union Bosses
redstate.com ^ | Nov 17, 2010
Posted on Sunday, November 21, 2010 9:49:06 AM by KeyLargo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2630840/posts
Don't fly. The cards mean nothing today -- you'll get the full inspection.
My late Dad had a pacemaker, and we were given such a wallet sized card.
As a hard core conservative, I agree with you. The federal government should be tiny, but its main task is security. I’m all for better scanners, even if the next advance isn’t perfect for everyone. All of this hullabaloo about going “nude” in this scanner is exaggerated tripe that I would expect from liberals. No one is nude. Not even close.
The hollerers routinely go to medical clinics for safety’s sake and go actually nude, not “nude.” Or they go into a damn gym locker room, for pete’s sake. Or a men’s urinal, where privacy is a joke and where many other people can watch a person perform a bodily function.
Conservatives are not doing themselves a favor de-fanging airline security. Because this is where is it headed. Some of the libertarian fringe have come right out an said here on this site.
Intensity isn't everything; wavelengths matter. And questions have been raised about DNA resonance effects of the millimeter-wave machines.
I know the scanners don’t detect everything but I don’t care. I want them there. I want as much anti-bomb technology as possible.
So presumably you won't mind when your plane is blown up by a body-cavity bomb which none of this will detect (maybe it can be disguised by adding packets of cocaine?), or a bomb carried by a Muslim under her burka somewhere below her shoulders where Obama says she cannot be patted down, right?
But if you're happy with this, then good on you.
The REAL problem is that NO one wants to call a spade a spade. Muslims want to rid the earth of infidels. That's YOU Dan baby! And me. To accomplish this goal they are willing to hijack airliners, fly them into populated buildings, plant roadside bombs, send young children into busy markets strapped with explosives to kill as many innocent people as possible, behead innocent Christians and jews, and even stone their own women to death after they've been raped!
These are EVIL people Dan. get with the program. And until every last Muslim is gone, NO Christian, Jew or innocent will be safe.
Just because the scanner doesn’t perform EVERY security function is not a logical argument for removing it from the quiver of countermeasures.
Not every FReeper agrees about the scanners, OK?
Everyone here agrees with you about the source of the problem being Muslim. The disagreement is how to ID them at the airport. And ID any paid, tricked or sympathetic person who may white, female, old, young, or non-Muslim without a record, and who STILL harbor weapons and/or explosives.
Because al Qaeda and other violent Muslims are always probing for ways for defeat security. Sending in the non-obvious is one of their later adaptations.
One FReeper on one of these threads said that, as part of profiling, Israelis interview everyone. Personally, I’d rather spend a minute going through a scanner, perfect or not.
I agree that CBS is not a very good source. However, Rasmussen is generally better and, as noted in the article, I found its poll question incomprehensible; I would not have been able to respond.
They want to demoralize all of us,
TSA apologists like you deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
We may all go marching into the camps together, but the fascists will shoot you too, even if you smile at them and ask for a kiss.
So presumably you won't mind when your plane is blown up by a body-cavity bomb which none of this will detect (maybe it can be disguised by adding packets of cocaine?), or a bomb carried by a Muslim under her burka somewhere below her shoulders where Obama says she cannot be patted down, right?You did NOT read what I wrote and you PRESUME to know what I think.
I wrote that I KNOW the scanners won't find everything but I want as much anti-bomb technology as I can get.
That does NOT mean I'd be happy with someone who figures out a way of thwarting that technology.
And I SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED that I am totally and completely opposed to any kind of exemption for muzzies.
So please read what I write before commenting on what you THINK I said.
Jerk.
Thank you, qwertypie, for your excellent post. I’m going to link to it in my replies in the future.
As a hard core conservative, I agree with you [that more anti-bomb technology is a good thing]. The federal government should be tiny, but its main task is security. I’m all for better scanners, even if the next advance isn’t perfect for everyone. All of this hullabaloo about going “nude” in this scanner is exaggerated tripe that I would expect from liberals. No one is nude. Not even close.-- qwertypie#29The hollerers routinely go to medical clinics for safety’s sake and go actually nude, not “nude.” Or they go into a damn gym locker room, for pete’s sake. Or a men’s urinal, where privacy is a joke and where many other people can watch a person perform a bodily function.
Conservatives are not doing themselves a favor de-fanging airline security. Because this is where is it headed. Some of the libertarian fringe have come right out an said here on this site.
You are actually comparing TSA mouth-breathers with doctors?
Seriously?
How about body cavity searches by the TSA, after all, doctors do rectal exams and TSA is only doing the poke and prod for our safety, and we do know that last year an assassin had a bomb up his backside and detonated it. . . .do it for SAFETY is the ultimate excuse for those that embrace the nanny state and abandon all claim to their civil rights.
Have a nice day.
It’s qwertypie#29 making the comment, not samtheman!
That's what TSA says. As you may know, they have lied before. Also, do you really imagine you could take a picture of an object, say a penny, in a plane by placing it on a film for 2 minutes. In contrast, you will surely get it (as a negative of a circle) if you place a penny on a film when you go behind the scanner (you can get far more considering how many pixels they get on their screens). They haven't given technical specs of the exposure to anyone outside government and prohibit TSA operators from wearing radiation badges.
Note also that comparing high energy cosmic radiation (typically gamma) to low energy X ray photons is comparing apples and oranges.
a) One cosmic ray photon will have equal energy as millions of soft X ray photons. Yet each of these photons may break a chemical bond if it strikes a molecule, hence even though you are exposed to the same energy from 1 cosmic ray (gamma) photon as from million X ray photons, the latter will break many more chemical bonds (each break is a possible mutations, e.g. if it is on the DNA molecule).
b) Soft X ray photons have much larger wavelength than cosmic ray photons, hence much greater cross section with interaction with molecules. Hence even one for one, each X ray photon has more chance of striking molecule than a gamma ray cosmic photon (because of greater cross section).
c) Each pixel they get on their screen is equivalent to at least one back-scattered X ray photon (along with damaged molecules from which it bounced back, plus all molecules for photons absorbed i.e. those that didn't bounce). Those images we have seen seem to have several millions pixels (1000x1000 is 1 million pixels), hence you will have tens or hundreds of millions damaged molecules after the scan. While many will be just water molecules, some will be proteins in your retina and some DNA in your skin cells, thus causing mutation, possibly cancerous.
d) Ask your doctor should pregnant womenm, children or elderly go through it? Ask also about eyesight damage. Doctors are already advising patients to opt out.
e) Experts on this technology are warning, based on quality and size of published images, that TSA's proclamations are at least one to two orders of magnitude understated (because of comparisons of apples and oranges and because of using volume rather than surface exposure units, which will superfically average the total absorbed radiation over all molecules in human body rather than just over molecules of the skin, making it thus appear as much lower average exposure per molecule; while cosmic gamma radiation will go through your entire body, mostly merely passing through due to low cross section, the soft X-ray photons from the scanners will either abosrb entirely or scatter inelastically from molecules, doing damage ether way).
OOps, I guess samtheman agrees with her.
I violently disagree.
Target the ones who actually do the bombing/throat slitting. Muslims.
Leave everyone else alone.
Target the ones who actually do the bombing/throat slitting. Muslims.And there are no muzzie converts. They all look exactly the way you expect them to look. (Boy are you stupid, and ultimately, dead.)
Here’s what a Professional Pilot’s website has to say about the scanners:
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/434370-tsa-pilots-exempt-scanners-pat-downs.html
AlQ boasted about all the blond Muz converts they were going to round up for missions and it hasn’t happened.
The only converts they get other than a very rare Adam Gadahn or that other Johnny Jihad are black Muzzies in prison.
I can’t believe that you think random invasive searches of normal non-Muz Americans including nuns, grandaperents, little children etc is somehow going to make us safter. I don’t see how anyone in their right might can make excuses for this.
“Conservatives are not doing themselves a favor de-fanging airline security.”
I’m going to have to disagree with you on that one. I cannot think of any meaningful study or historical model that justifies screening ALL passengers with these devices. Can you think of any study that justify indiscriminate use of this technology?
That would be similar to requiring chest x-rays on all individuals several times a year to determine if they had lung CA. Sure, occasionally you might detect someone with lung CA or some other abnormality through indiscriminate screening. But it is highly unlikely that your diagnostic yield would be any greater for 100% screening than for targeting screening. Furthermore, false positives could lead to further interventions that could actually increase morbidity (a lung biopsy for example). In addition, because of limited resources, you are also wasting time and money that could be more profitably spent diagnosing other conditions.
The illusion of security by providing wasteful and unproven techniques is no substitute for the actual provision of security. This makes us LESS safe and I trust you are not for that. This is not a libertarian rant, this is a call for the prudent and effective use of resources.
All of this hullabaloo about going “nude” in this scanner is exaggerated tripe that I would expect from liberals. No one is nude. Not even close.
And when I pee, or visit the doctor, no one takes my picture.
PS: Tripe is delicious.
The TSA are not highly trained medical professionals capable of determining that a medical device is what it is really claimed to be.
Not only that, what about HIPAA and medical privacy?
When my kids turned 18, they had to fill out forms for their doctors so the doctors would communicate with me.
Now these total strangers are privy to every strangers personal medical conditions? The passengers are being FORCED into telling the TSA agents about them.
Can't someone get the TSA on HIPAA violations?
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