As of last week the TSA will be implementing new pat-down methods for passengers who opt-out of the controversial back-scatter scanners. These new methods including using the palm of the hand to grope the breasts, hind-quarters, and crotch of the passenger. This is the same TSA I might add, that has caught a grand total of zero terrorists. I have no doubt in my mind that these invasive and wholly unnecessary procedures have been implemented entirely for the purpose of discouraging passengers from opting out of the back-scatter scanner.
However we have very good reason to avoid those scanners, a number of them in fact. Namely there is the fear that these scanners are not entirely safe. To quote a joint letter by Drs. John Sedat, Marc Shuman, David Agard, and Robert Shroud:
The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic
ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray. However, this
comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest Xrays
have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately
understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport
scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent
tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/vol, possibly by one to two
orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high.
Beyond the health concerns and the fact that these devices are used to create a nude image of your body (who needs privacy) is the fact that security experts say these devices are completely useless.
I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747,” – Rafi Sela former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority
Just remember that in the end, it’s all theater. Your choice to opt out is merely a form of audience participation in this silly choose-your-own-adventure game. They may call attention to “the opt-outee”, but hey, it’s part of the role you get to play. I’d rather be groped for a minute than doused with radiation in order to obtain an image of my naked body which has the potential to be stored. What a marvelous age we live in. Who needs the 4th amendment anyway?
oh, wait…..naked image body scanners are just a conspiracy theory…..go back to sleep sheeple…..your government is in control.
you really just used the word sheeple in a sentence in a non-ironic fashion didn’t you.
I’ve been through airport security multiple times, both pre and post 911, and I have never felt uncomfortable or at all violated in the way you describe. I think you might be exaggerating a little. Though I agree that patting someone down in that manner is border-line sexual harassment, but like I said, that has never happened to me. Airport security has always been more of an inconvenience than an “invasion of privacy” in my eyes. Do I like it? No, but the majority of people are willing to put up with for the illusion of safety and comfort it provides.
I wonder how uncomfortable a rape victim might have felt after this
http://pncminnesota.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/rape-survivor-devasted-by-tsa-enhanced-pat-down/
as well as the various people abused by the TSA in the name of national security
http://wewontfly.com/question-tsa-risk
The problem here is just that, this is the illusion of safety. It’s a dangerous slippery slope, it’s unnecessary, and it’s ineffective. You know what’s better than ridiculous useless measures to create the illusion of safety? Reasonable measures that increase actual safety.
I don’t think I’d go so far as to call them “ridiculous useless measures”. And in my experience, security guards have been nice (cranky yes, but with human decency) and would probably be more understanding, usually. But that’s just in my experience. Anyway, what “reasonable measures” did you have in mind? Oh and please do try and use more valid sources. The “pagan newswire collective” doesn’t at all sound like an expert in airport security, and a website titled “we won’t fly” is clearly going to be biased and therefore not a good source.
Thanks for your professional opinion, lucky for all of us you were here to deliver your website validity expertise. As for what measures should be taken, I’d point your attention to a recent TED talk by security technologist Bruce Scheiner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGd_M_CpeDI
beyond those abstractions I’d point out that most security measures are going to be utterly worthless. There’s no such thing as a perfectly secure system, the thing I find so interesting about security systems (my interests are more in computer and network security but this applies to physical security as well) is that all it takes to circumvent any security system is to be slightly more clever than the guy who designed it, even if it’s only for a moment.
Now we can strip every passenger naked and take CT images of them but all that proves useless if they stuff 2 pounds of C4 in their rectum. At which point we could perform mandatory cavity searches, but that will also prove useless if someone decides to do like this guy in Saudi Arabia did
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8276016.stm
and surgically place a bomb in his appendix (yeah like in the Dark Knight!). There’s literally no scanner or pat down we can perform in an airport to prevent that from happening. You cannot beat that level of ingenuity and determination. You simply can’t. It’s the very nature of security. So why aren’t bombs blowing up in the sky everywhere?
Well it’s because whether we like it or not terrorist attacks are insanely mind bogglingly rare. In the last 10 years there have been about 99.5 million commercial flights in this country, out of those flights there have been about 6 attempted hijackings, 4 of which were successful. In the terms of human lives, about 7 BILLION passengers have flown on those flights, the total number of passengers on those flights that were hijacked is 647.
Which means the odds of you being one of those passengers is about 1 in 10,000,000. Compare that to the odds of dying in a traffic accident (1 in 18,585), or the odds of getting breast cancer (1 in 9) or even the odds of getting struck by lightning (about 1 in 500,000).
Point being not only is trying to prevent an attack ultimately futile, the odds of there being an attack at all are insanely low. But if we want some reasonable security, take a leaf out of Tel Aviv airport’s book (the Israelis have some experience in these matters) and fill aiprorts with 3 simple things, body language analysts, metal detectors, and bomb sniffing dogs.
Being scared as a nation is silly, and lining the pockets of security company lobbyists is sillier.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. “
Like I said, sometimes the illusion of security is worth it. If people FEEL safe, there is less risk for widespread panic. I am not at all saying I like the outlandish security methods you mentioned and I honestly doubt anyone would submit to a cavity search just to get on a plane. I certainly wouldn’t. Do people have an irrational fear of terrorists? Yes. Should we just get rid of all our security methods? No.
Oh and the biting sarcasm was both rude and unnecessary. I wasn’t attacking you, I was simply politely giving a suggestion that you could simply choose to ignore. Geez.
“Those who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” – Ben Franklin.
True I could have chosen to ignore it, just as you could have chosen not to make asinine comments. Neither of us made that choice. Oh well.
I just saw we wrote the same quote LBF. Right on.
We might want to follow El AL’s example for aircraft security, but unfortunately, it involves profiling.
See: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/aug2003/nf20030825_5134_db039.htm