Posted on 11/19/2010 5:21:30 PM PST by SubGeniusX
***There are alot of links in the article so I suggest clicking through to it***
Things are happening so fast that I don't know if I should bother. But here are some links and observations.
The head of the Allied Pilots Association is telling its members to avoid both the full body scanners and the patdowns.
This first-hand report, from a man who refused to fly rather than subject himself to a full-body scan or an enhanced patdown, has been making the rounds. (The TSA is now investigating him.) It reminds me of Penn Jillette's story from 2002.
A woman has a horrific story of opting-out of the full body scanners. More stories: this one about the TSA patting down a screaming toddler. And here's Dave Barry's encounter (also this NPR interview).
Sadly, I agree with this: It is no accident that women have been complaining about being pulled out of line because of their big breasts, having their bodies commented on by TSA officials, and getting inappropriate touching when selected for pat-downs for nearly 10 years now, but just this week it went viral. It is no accident that CAIR identified Islamic head scarves (hijab) as an automatic trigger for extra screenings in January, but just this week it went viral. What was different?
Suddenly an able-bodied white man is the one who was complaining.
Seems that once you enter airport security, you need to be subjected to it -- whether you decide to fly or not.
...
Michael Chertoff, former Department of Homeland Security secretary, has been touting the full-body scanners, while at the same time maintaining a financial interest in the company that makes them.
(Excerpt) Read more at schneier.com ...
These were the stats that I found most interesting:
A typical dental X-ray exposes the patient to about 2 millirems of radiation. According to one widely cited estimate, exposing each of 10,000 people to one rem (that is, 1,000 millirems) of radiation will likely lead to 8 excess cancer deaths. Using our assumption of linearity, that means that exposure to the 2 millirems of a typical dental X-ray would lead an individual to have an increased risk of dying from cancer of 16 hundred-thousandths of one percent. Given that very small risk, it is easy to see why most rational people would choose to undergo dental X-rays every few years to protect their teeth.
More importantly for our purposes, assuming that the radiation in a backscatter X-ray is about a hundredth the dose of a dental X-ray, we find that a backscatter X-ray increases the odds of dying from cancer by about 16 ten millionths of one percent. That suggests that for every billion passengers screened with backscatter radiation, about 16 will die from cancer as a result.
Given that there will be 600 million airplane passengers per year, that makes the machines deadlier than the terrorists.
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According to the Cornell study, roughly 130 inconvenienced travelers died every three months as a result of additional traffic fatalities brought on by substituting ground transit for air transit. That's the equivalent of four fully-loaded Boeing 737s crashing each year.
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November 24 is National Opt Out Day. Doing this just before the Thanksgiving holiday is sure to clog up airports. Jeffrey Goldberg suggests that men wear kilts, commando style if possible.
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TSA will only touch Muslim women in the head and neck area.
Did Imam Obamah get recent actionable intell about a plan attack or attacks and knows a successful terrorist attack on his watch, after reaching out to the muslim world will destroy his administration and him personally?
I find it very odd that the public wasn’t given notice about this. Or at least I hadn’t heard they were going to do this and I was the news everyday.
Unannounced changes in public crowd control. Reminiscent of the old Soviet Union. Or any dictatorship.
Welcome to the USSA . . . comrade.
Interesting report. A few years back, I was tasked to evaluate candidates for body scanners for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. After manufacturer demos, two candidates were the Provision, a millimeter wave system, and the Rapdiscan, a backscatter x-ray device. These are the two systems being placed in use by the TSA.
In order to get feedback from real users, we took a trip to Colorado Springs where both systems were in place. The Rapidscan system was being used at a very sensitive Defense Department installation. The airmen in charge of security were not happy with it. It was temperamental, gave uneven results, had a poor display and otherwise suffered from poor design decisions. We eliminated it from further consideration on the spot.
The provision was in use in a courthouse. The sheriff’s deputies were pleased with it, confident in its ability to detect contraband trying to penetrate the court rooms, and happy that the replacement of the magnetometers resulted in far fewer pat downs. Plus, no complaints. Win, Win.
So why did the TSA choose to go with an inferior system with possible health issues? Could it have anything to do with Chertoff’s association with Rapidscan? I can’t think of any other reason.
I believe that the millimeter wave system is a great improvement over magnetometers and could have gained public acceptance. But, the hamfisted decisions of the TSA have made this impossible. The morons are in charge, of this there is no doubt.
So, for the unwilling amongst us, we are patted down in a fashion that is almost worse than being actually arrested.
So, your choice is to either have your naked body prepared for possible internet display or have some stranger feel you up.
One other thing, what would stop some enterprising pornographer(s) from saving those pictures and working with a porno buddy to notate our names and addresses?
And, do the very same thing to our children?
That’s what I thought. I won’t be flying as long as this policy is in place. My guess is, if this isn’t stopped, this will be implemented in other places as well. I think it is being done on purpose and not for the reason they are saying. Take away someone’s rights and dignity, there is nothing left. Get us use to being pushed around like cattle.
It’s not just your own scan that’s a danger. What about every scan while you’re waiting in line?
Don’t dental assistants leave the room when they take an Xray?
We need to find out who makes these back-scatter machines and sic some dogs (i.e., class action lawyers) on ‘em!
“deputies were pleased with it, confident in its ability to detect contraband”
What do the deputies see on their screens?
Its a false color image, with certain materials colored to catch the attention of the operator. the skin has a neutral background color that is difficult to see and all that is produced is a ghost image anyway. the millimeter waves don’t penetrate the skin. Not very exciting, I’m afraid.
Sorry to disappoint.
See Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Three. Take away a person's dignity; quickest way to break them down.
I can believe that. This government sanctioned molestation definitely takes away human dignity.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
No disappointment here, sounds like it has potential. To be effective you need to eliminate any distracting background and highlight the material of interest. The people running these things aren’t Radiologists and even they miss things. I just think that were going too far and becoming a police state. If you build it they will find a need and convince some idiot politician that they are making things safer. BS.
In a military situation where your trying to prevent people from smuggling things in or out of a secure area it sounds like it would be very effective.
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