Posted on 11/18/2010 9:20:10 AM PST by AlmaKing
I contacted my local state reps and senator in New Hampshire and expressed my concerns with the new TSA regulations - the body scan and patdown. I asked if there was anything that could be done at the state level.
I have two responses that I'd like to have the FR community comment on before I reply back. I know FR commenters make a lot of great suggestions, so I will forward those on to the reps.
I've kept the reps' names anonymous for now. I didn't seek their permission to post.
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First Response
Thanks for the inquiry. I read somewhere, and I'm still trying to find where, that some states have taken the first steps to stop this. We should also. When I find the information I will get back to you. The rules come down from the federal government, but sometimes states can opt out of having to require this of its citizens. That raises the question of leaving here on a plane, but then what happens when you return from another state?
I'll keep looking. Thanks for writing us.
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Second Response
Hi, All,
I know of one rep who is planning to introduce a bill to ban whole body scanners in NH until a public health official certifies that the radiation they emit is not, alone or cumulatively, harmful to human health. Because TSA and their activities are federal, as is the regulation of airports, I am think of introducing a concurrent resolution requesting TSA (and perhaps asking Congress to order TSA) to employ software on all its whole body scanners that converts the current realistic image (including genitalia) into one that shows the location of suspicious items on an idealized human body. Such software exists and is currently being tested on whole body scanners. Were it employed, the invasion of privacy issue would disappear, as would the need for sexually invasive pat-downs (except, of course, for those whose whole body scan revealed suspicious bulges).
Any thoughts?
Thanks, AK.
We already have a law. It’s called improper search and seizure.
Better to have the U.S. put forth a bill.
Even better to have AG sue Feds.
ObaMao's TSA is simply going to invoke the interstate commerce clause to override whatever restrictions you may pass in your state legislature.
Were a state such as ours (which actually has rather well-used flight lanes between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Harrisburg and more) to pass such a restriction, then they would have to come up with a more creative legal argument.
We already have a law. It’s called improper search and seizure.
Better to have the U.S. reps put forth a bill.
Even better to have AG sue Feds.
The latter is not bad, but useless when they exempt Muslim women from complete patdowns and cannot detect items in body cavities (or surgically implanted). Until they do that nothing is serious.
For the STATED goal...
Profiling works better that angering Grandmas.
"Just before they try to pat you down"
Ask them if they are or have ever been on the National Sex Offender Registry.
Ask them their sexual orientation.
Print this out and ask them to read it out loud and swear that they understand its meaning:
“Under 18 U.S. Code Section 2244, “ ‘sexual contact’ means the intentional touching, either directly or through the clothing, of the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh or buttocks of any person with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade.”
Tell them that if they break the law, they WILL be on the Register and living in a cardboard box.
I have flown into and out of NH. Manchester.
I’d say that we are Americans, dammit, and WE are not the enemy!
Tell the gov’t that we need to adopt the Israeli method of airline screening, which is to screen those who are an actual threat through the effective and realistic method of.....here it comes....too obvious for gov’t dolts to think of on their own....kind of un-PC for weak-kneed politicians....
PROFILING OF THOSE WHO FIT THE PATTERN OF THE TERRORIST THREAT!!!
We have Manchester (MHT) airport. Yes, we have flights going just about anywhere domestically. I travel to San Diego, Denver, Cary NC, New Orleans, etc. Most major airlines are here.
We ain’t that far behind. Come on now.
“While sympathetic to your views, are there actually any flights which originate and terminate in New Hampshire?”
Manchester. Big airport.
Good idea.
The Manchester airport is a very clean, modern facility with excellent security, plenty of offsite long-term parking areas with shuttles from the parking lots, and plenty of hotels and restaurants within 1.5 miles of the airport. There are also shuttles to and from the hotels near Manchester Airport. Check out the visitor information we collected about the Manchester Airport:"
Get your intuition reset and recalibrated.
What you can do is refuse and get everyone else to refuse and get everyone else to interfere with the arrests.
Do not pay.
Resist, rebel, repeal.
You can win in a day if you will not be moved and say the law is no law.
That is how laws change. They don’t change laws that are generally obeyed.
I think that Automated Threat Detection can work, it will not display a “nude” body. We’d need to be sure that the raw image stays in the machine and no human could see it.
I’ve seen such systems, they paint colored pixels on a generalized mannekin figure.
A step further would be to have a computer merely indicate “anomaly” and the scanned person would then get a secondary inspection (to include set, demeanor, appropriateness of responses, as well as pat downs). But I suspect the alarm rate would be high.
A machine really can’t do the job people can do. Machines won’t keep us safe.
It’s always irked me how Boston managed to get its name on the airport title. They’ve got Logan, they can stay down there. :)
You cannot depart MHT (manchester NH airport) and land at a destination in NH.
Unless you’re flying some small private plane
Maybe that kind of detection would work, but there’s the radiology aspect of this as well.
Even if they filter the end image you are still being scanned w/equipment that needs to be calibrated.
Radiologists check and calibrate their equipment all the time.
TSA so qualified? I doubt it.
So, when it’s working correctly your exposure is indeed minimal.
Problem is that when the clowns screw up the calibration, you may as well be sitting in a microwave oven, albeit on “low”.
U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, has sent a letter to the heads of more than 150 airports across the country, suggesting that they opt out of Transportation Security Administration screening.
Mica is in line to become chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
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