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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

Here's how it works:

  - x-ray machine: 30 seconds
  - full body scan: add 30 seconds
  - pat down: add 5 to 20 minutes

Do I think these policies and procedures are violations of my personal rights? Yes.

Am I willing to risk my job standing up for my beliefs? No.

I'm not even willing to risk being late for dinner. Given a choice, I always opt for the fastest, regardless of what I believe in. Even if I'm right, what do I win by missing my plane?

That's what they're counting on.

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My apologies and I wish no ill will or to cause flames, but your comment makes me sad and reminds me of "First they came..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

I only wish to be at least half as noble, brave and bold as some who have come before me.

And, I am grateful that our forefathers of the United States were willing to risk their LIVES (forget dinner or jobs) to stand up for what they believed in to make this country independent. Also, while I never really bought into the notion--rather the ideal, if it weren't for those who lost their lives in WWII we would all be speaking German or possibly be slaves or dead if we didn't fit the ideal of one man or group's belief is the perfect race.

I am just as guilty as I find your comment, as so far I have just sat by (but have at least talked about to whoever listens) as our freedoms are stripped away, but I realize my fault and hope to change it.

Sure, but do you honestly think that use of full body scanners before boarding flights is remotely linked to the threat of oppressive rulers targeting unpopular minorities? Or that the levels of bravery involved in missing your flight really compare with the people who died to stop dictators enslaving the human race? You can accept irritation whilst remaining committed to stand up to evil.

I realise that the levels of airport security might be verging on excessive (pilots don't exactly need to be carrying banned sharp items to seriously threaten passenger safety on board an aircraft anyway...), but for some reason I find the equivocation of freedom fighting and moaning about being mildly hassled at an airport more objectionable than the airport officials themselves. Coming across as paranoid and self-righteous* every time law enforcement comes up with any new directive detracts from legitimate criticism of more disturbing trends and behaviour.

If you're really afraid of the power of government then security personnel asking to see your genitals without asking you taking your clothes off ought to be the least of your concerns. A healthy majority of American citizens think the government has the right to take away people's _lives_ (should they be convicted of a capital crime).

*this isn't intended as a direct personal criticism either of you or the pilot; merely an observation of how it potentially appears to a large swathe of the general public. The "boy who cried wolf" analogy sounds more apt than any Godwin's-law-invoking slippery slope arguments.

My apologies and I wish no ill will or to cause flames, but your comment makes me sad and reminds me of "First they came..."

My comment makes me sad, too. I think my actions and beliefs today would probably disappoint the "10 years ago" instance of myself.

A little background...

The incident in question happened 4 weeks ago, when I had an extra 2 hours before my flight. Sure, I had plenty of time to stand up for what I believe in.

On Friday, I was running late because of traffic and crowds. If I had refused the naked machine, I would have missed my flight, and I would have missed Startup School.

Funny how strongly we believe in something until it's our turn to act. That's when we find out, for better or worse, who we really are.

1776: "Then it's agreed, gentlemen, in order to secure our rights as a free people, we will risk embarrassment, imprisonment, expropriation, bankruptcy, bodily harm, exile and hanging."

2010: "Of course I'll waive my rights. I don't want to miss my connecting flight."

Except that over years of flying I was never patted down, and since the naked scan has started, I've been through that more than the metal detector (6 times v. 2 times in the last two months). This thing was supposed to be used for additional screening, in place of more invasive searches, and now it's used in place of less invasive searches. I find it difficult to tolerate that I'm now expected to show somebody my bean bag in order to travel. In fact, if I were to drop my pants in the middle of the security line, I'd be arrested, but the TSA can drop my pants for me without recourse.

As you say though, fighting it just isn't worth it right now. The last thing I need is one if the geniuses that work security arresting me, even under false pretenses, because I won't consent to a strip search.

>In fact, if I were to drop my pants in the middle of the security line, I'd be arrested, but the TSA can drop my pants for me without recourse.

There is actually a hilarious idea buried here. An interesting way to protest full-body scans would be to walk through security naked to make the point about what is really happening in the machine. Done en masse, it could probably get some media attention. And to make it legal, you could probably just wear some minimal fleshtoned bits taped over the right parts, which is supposedly all the machine does to make it "legit" for TSA employees to watch.

The German Pirate Party organized a protest like that a while ago: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl...

What about your increased cancer risk due to daily (assuming you're a pilot) exposure to ionizing radiation? Does that matter to you? Remember that risk is proportional to cumulative radiation dose. I think it's perfectly reasonable for a pilot to refuse to be irradiated daily as a required condition of employment.

If you are not willing to risk anything for your beliefs, you do not deserve the benefit of your beliefs.

The pat down does not add 5 to 20 minutes. It's exactly the same secondary screening they give you if you set off the metal detector, performed by exactly the same person; if it took 20 minutes, the whole line would bottleneck.

My pat down did take 20 minutes. It was done by another person while the original person kept their original job. There was a backlog of people who refused to go through the "naked machine". And, yes, the whole line did bottleneck.

That's never happened to me. Sorry it happened to you. I invariably refuse the strip search.

My pat down and search of everything on me took a good 15 minutes. When standing in line they asked each one of us if we wanted the xrays or patdown (they installed it just days before) and I was horrified when the person in front of me said "Oh I don't care" and the person in front of them simply said "that line looks faster". I couldn't believe they were so willing to take whatever security measure was added. I can only imagine what they are going to do next.

On a moral level, I think it's excessive and abusive to use the backscatter machines and people should have the right to fly on airplanes without going through that process. On a personal level, I don't really care who sees me naked, much less faux-naked. And on a different personal level, getting into a confrontation with apathetic bureaucrats about my civil rights is never going to have any actual impact on my or anyone else's civil rights.

Normally, I'd agree with this. Here, I strongly disagree. Strip search opt-outs cost time and money. The fact that most people aren't opting out is what allows the TSA the fig leaf of "it's optional", a fig leaf that will eventually drop once people acclimatize themselves to the idea of minimum-wage-earning TSA agents handling nude pictures of them.

The time to force the issue over this (by making "optional" strip searches prohibitively expensive) is now.

Hey, if you want to DDoS the TSA sometime, I'm in. Get a bunch of people together on the same day and clog up a major airport (or, more ambitiously, all the major airports) by going through the opt-out line sounds effective. When it's just me and I don't personally care, it's a lot less convincing.

Hm. I'm flying to Philly at the end of the week; I'll give myself an extra 20 minutes or so. Thanks.

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