National Opt-Out Day Called Against Invasive Body Scanners
wired.com
wired.com
John Pistole, TSA Administrator: "On the eve of a major national holiday and less than one year after al Qaida's failed attack last Christmas Day, it is irresponsible for a group to suggest travelers opt out of the very screening that could prevent an attack using non-metallic explosives." http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/11/12/131275949/protest...
That, to me, doesn't jive with their stance that body scanners aren't a big deal because you can opt out. To me, it confirms that opt-out "enhanced pat-downs" were introduced to intimidate people into being scanned.
He seems to be overlooking the possibility that things are getting so bad with the TSA that increasing numbers of travelers would rather take their chances with terrorists and underwear bombs than submit to the TSA's heavy-handed, dehumanizing procedures.
As an individual, you are powerless when you go through the security line. As a group, however, the American people have all of the power. Because this is both a democracy and a capitalist country (however flawed it may be), if there is an organized and concerted effort against the TSA policies, they simply cannot stand. Congress would not be able to oppose a unified voice of the people saying "this is not okay" and the airlines would not be able to tolerate a significant reduction in customers (and therefore would put pressure on the TSA to change its policies).
Gandhi organized a "day of prayer and fasting" which was basically a general strike of all of India. It was a wake-up call to the British. If somebody organized a "do not fly" day where no one flew, that would probably be a bigger wake-up call than opting out of the scan.
Sometimes you have to give up some temporary convenience or comfort to send a message to those in power that you don't agree. During the Montgomery bus boycott, people stopped using the bus and this was extremely inconvenient but they would rather not trade their dignity for convenience.
I wonder if that idea is still as powerful today.
An entire country would (and did) follow Gandhi. I don't think there is a single person in the US whom everyone would follow for a day. Especially if it meant shutting down all business travel during that day.
Currently, there are two major kinds of travelers, business and vacation. It will be difficult to curb vacation travel, since you want to go somewhere and you only have a week to do it.
Business travel would be possible to cut drastically. And it would be good for business too. "All" it would need (and I realize "all" encompasses a lot), would be much more excellent process and data integration and sharing. I don't mean adding the word "solution" to a Lotus notes sale. I mean systems that make it all but irrelevant whether your employee or vendor is on site or on the moon.
I'm not an enterprisy guy, so I know I've stated that in a clumsy and probably mistargeted way. But it does seem that if anyone, or any industry, could cut the need for travel and increase the value of services and products sold, the world would beat a path.
Maybe the cost/benefit lines didn't cross. Maybe we'll look back and have the TSA to thank for that crossing, and a better way to do global business.
Also, it's not sexual, so it can't possibly be sexual assault. Assault or battery is about the most you could claim.
You might consider it non-sexual, but try asking a rape victim instead. I most certainly consider someone touching my private parts a sexual assault; and the fact that it's institutionalized doesn't make it any less a scandal. Don't be under any illusions; people who enjoy this kind of thing will see it as an interesting alternative career choice to school janitor etc.
If the scanners become mandatory here in the UK for going to the US (they aren't on Virgin Atlantic flying out of Heathrow, last time I checked, a couple of weeks back), I'll probably have to quit my job, as I will no longer want to travel.
It's interesting how you consider any interaction with your "private parts" to be sexual in nature. If you lean against a table, are you having sex with it? Are you having sex with your underwear right now?? The agent isn't touching you sexually, so it's not sexual assault.
I honestly care less about the pats, if a dude or dudette wants to touch my balls and buttocks to make sure I'm not packing (pun intended), then go ahead. But to see them extend this same courtesy to grandmothers and little children is disgusting, unnecessary, and irresponsible.
It's a very slippery slope to climb without a safety-line mate. The minimal increase in security this new procedures allows is just too small in contrast to the vast damage it does towards people's liberties and towards avoiding precedents that could influence some Big Brother type of behavior.
This might sound awful, but a terrorist attack is most likely to be thwarted because some agents doing profiling decided to be extra careful with Muslims (and this is just an example, I'm not targeting Muslims in any way), than because we have xray machines that strip people naked.
I agree with your points, and I don't feel any safer for the new procedures. Indeed, I feel less safe, because the TSA's efforts are misdirected, and the TSA has demonstrated its disdain for me, my rights and my dignity.
A police officer conducts this type of pat-down when a person is arrested or is in the process of being arrested or detained because there is a sufficient threat indicator. What the TSA is doing is saying that either you get irradiated and people get to see you naked, or you're a potential terrorist/criminal.
Classic red herring. You couldn't sneak a pistol through security before 9/11, you couldn't do it after 9/11, and the NakedTron 5000 doesn't do a damn thing to change that.
Opt-Out Day is Nov 24th. The day before Thanksgiving. It's going to be packed and slow without people opting out. Make sure to remind the mad people that it's the TSA that's forcing you get a pat down.
It's best to just talk to them like a regular person and be nice about it. It'll make the pat down experience better for you and them. Just ask them to send the word upstream.
edit - Why was I voted down? Is someone suggesting that you should act like a douche bag to the staff?
Coming soon to a courtroom near you...
Attorney: Could you please tell the court in your own words about the events leading up to your termination from TSA?
Plaintiff: I refused to perform enhanced pat-down procedures on the grounds that this procedure constituted criminal sexual conduct. I was repeatedly reprimanded for my refusal to participate in illegal conduct and subsequently terminated for this...
I'm pretty sure that those low TSA people would LOVE to get a better job, but guess what they're there and that's the reality of it. In a better reality, we wouldn't have this security theater. However, we should focus our angry/energy towards solutions that will bring better results.
Besides, if they quit, there lines of people to take their place. The economy isn't that great and there's lots of people looking for jobs.
(I'm not saying let them keep their jobs and security theater. Just saying not need waste energy on being rude to them.)
It takes a lot of effort to match government sponsored indoctrination. If this works at all, it might lead to a lot more people waking up and saying 'no' to the bullshit constantly being shoved down their throats.
That we people can make an informed and visible decision before they encounter the TSA pressure.
Among web sites:
http://www.optoutday.com is probably the most notable.
http://wewontfly.com is another biggie.
http://www.imadethetsafeelmyresistance.com (disclosure: I made it) has gotten a bunch of traffic too.
There are lots of others. This whole thing has heated up a lot in the last week or two. And I suspect the next week or two are going to be a lot bigger.
BTW, the backscatter scanners might prove to be very unsafe.
When I went through SFO recently it took 1-2 minutes to go through the scanner. The slowness seemed to be a combination of the instructions given to the flyer for positioning themselves inside the device, the slowness of the device itself, and the slack in the line.
In any case, I remember thinking that a pat-down might actually be quicker.
And then there's the wonderful cost implications. The machines are already 20x more expensive than the magnetometer arches, as I understand it, so the total cost to make up the numbers (to get the speed back through parallelism) could be 40x or more, tens of millions for every decent-sized checkpoint.
Since I'm near the border, we're flying from Detroit to Fort Worth and then LA.. I am not looking forward to this flight.
I've already had dozens of medical x-rays in the past few months, and don't particularly want to get another dose, however low it may be.
On the other hand, opting out sounds really unpleasant. I especially don't want my wife potentially suffering that indignity at the hands of a male TSA agent (as some people have reported).
I don't think I have the balls to opt-out this time around.. I just want to survive the 48 hour trip intact, with all my luggage.. but this will likely be the last time I fly through the US.
Given your health concerns, opting out seems like the clear choice (though bear in mind I'm pulling from a sample size of only 2).
I understand pat-downs within the U.S. are by same-sex agents. This wouldn't be the kind of thing they would get wrong.
This is the real issue, but there has probably been alot of debate about this already? What made you take your current stance?
I went though the body scanner this Monday in Cincinnati, well aware of the fact that they can see your penis etc (and it was cold that day...). It didn't bother me that much, but it was much more time consuming than going through the old metal detectors, and I don't like the fact that this could be harmful (but I haven't researched how credible this is).
A quick search indicates there are over 87,000 flights daily in the US alone; that puts the number at over a quarter billion flights without a successful terrorist incident in the absence of these scanners.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18492185/
The only way to make an impact is to fly less, not to shift your flying dates around to avoid a given day.
1) I don't care about anyone seeing me naked, I've been working out for years, four times a week to look like I look now and if could walk butt naked everywhere I would. That doesn't mean that it's alright to look at other people's naked bodies, and sure as hell doesn't make right the possibility of a predator looking at naked children.
2) Regarding the scanner's radiation in no way is a healthy thing, and in the absence of actual proof stating if it's really negligible or if it poses a serious health risk, everyone should consider it dangerous. You're basically saying that it's OK to walk through that tight dark alley in the middle of a bad neighborhood at midnight because there's no proof that anyone has been killed or mugged there. I'd rather avoid that kind of situation unless completely necessary thank you very much.
You wanted a rational discussion so I'm giving you a rational answer (I have no emotional issue with the topic at hand). I don't care about people touching me or seeing me naked, and I do care (albeit very little) about the potential health risks. I find your comment on how seeing someone's body through X-rays is not a big deal, but seeing someone's luggage through X-ray is a violation of privacy, preposterous and honestly laughable. Tell me what the big difference between looking into your luggage and looking at your naked body is that makes the latter so unimportant in comparison to the former.
You made a comment for the sake of disagreeing (instead of saying anything of any value for the discussion) and then made some utterly incompetent remarks all the while calling people immature and basically saying their opinions have no value because you believe we're all cattle in the herd of the Anti-TSA fad. While I don't agree there was a necessity for down-votes, you're comments did add no value whatsoever so the people where in a way correct to do so. Next time if you're going to disagree do it politely and state facts and opinions instead of trying to come of as the better person.
I did not comment "for the sake of disagreeing," but rather because I strongly disagree with the prevailing group think going on. This policy was poorly presented to the public, but that does not excuse its butchering, nor the wholesale dismissal of the TSA.
I also think it's wrong to pile on a bunch of decent people working as TSA agents just because of a couple bad anecdotes that made the news. Further, I think the rationale behind the policy, ways to limit abuse, and the trade-offs should be the subject of discussion. Instead it's a bunch of "fuck the police" without consideration for those of us in favor of having secure airline flights.
I don't see how being searched for weapons and explosives before boarding an aircraft is a violation of privacy, and finding ways around a more thorough search does not mean a more thorough search shouldn't be implemented.
You are free to fly your own plane without such searches, or to drive, walk, take a train, etc - however if you get on a plane with other people you simply do not have a right to not be searched, any more than you do when entering a courthouse, having a private dinner with the President, or going to a nightclub. Those policies are implemented to counter real dangers and threats, and your right to privacy does not prevail here.
I just got off a flight from OAK-SEA without incident or encounter, a few helpful pointers, and plenty of courtesy.
Now I don't see where the general disdain relates to the TSA agents themselves, with the exceptions of a few posts stating that people that work as TSA agents would resign as a result of this policies, and I agree with you in that they aren't the ones that should have to deal with out unhappiness with the policies.
It's not that people think that they have a right to not be searched, it's that people think they have a right to not be treated in a way that demeans them and that violates some of the basic human rights they posses. There is no expectation of privacy on an airport, and as such you should be searched for dangerous artifacts and weapons, but that doesn't mean that you should be stripped by a machine or 'fondled' and 'groped' without a reason. There is no expectation of privacy while walking down the street or getting into a bus, and as such, but that doesn't give the right to anyone to take naked xray pictures of your person or to touch you in way you not deem appropriate.
You might get plenty or courtesy on behalf of the TSA agents, and that's great; however the fight is not with the agents themselves, it's with the policies that demand people to submit to potentially damaging irradiation or to a search procedure that proves to be invasive and with which you don't feel comfortable with.
I expect more from the HN crowd.
Someone want to fill us on on facts instead of speculation and fear mongering?
These machines cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, offer no additional security, and take naked pictures of you. There really isn't much to discuss.
Follow that up with "no discussion necessary" and you have mass hysteria.
So if we want to pretend everyone will adhere to a specific conception of the threat model, sure, spend a bunch of money and alienate the traveling public.
I'm guessing the same people critical of this policy criticized the previous one for being easy to circumvent.
What do you all suggest we do?
How much money do we need to spend to prevent these zero events from occurring in the next 9 years?
And how much did extra was spent on preventing the third of a million motor deaths that occurred during the same period?
There is a huge lack of rationality in the middle of this issue for far too many people. The spending and procedures are way out of proportion to the risks, quite apart from how poorly allocated the spending is. The guy who used to run the TSA (Chertoff) now works for the guys selling these machines.
What's irrational is to assume because nothing has happened in the last 8 years (successfully anyway) that our current measures are adequate for the next eight.
The irrational part isn't that we assume our current measures are adequate. The irrational part is the changes we're making have no rational basis, little public input, and any public objections are responded to with "we can't go into the details in public because it's too sensitive," which is a very non-democratic answer to something which affects so many people.
They are superior only in the very specific case of explosives or ceramic knives concealed under clothing.
Full-body scanners are waste of money, Israeli expert says
http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Full+body+scanners+waste+...
A leading Israeli airport security expert says the Canadian government has wasted millions of dollars to install "useless" imaging machines at airports across the country.
"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 told parliamentarians probing the state of aviation safety in Canada.
"That's why we haven't put them in our airport," Sela said, referring to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, which has some of the toughest security in the world.
Sela, former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority and a 30-year veteran in airport security and defence technology, helped design the security at Ben Gurion.
In a free society, people are being coerced to participate in a security procedure that violates their privacy. Don't want to go through the porno scanners? Okay, punk — have fun being aggressively groped in punishment.
You don't get to enact this kind of invasive, extreme policy on a whim. Extreme measures call for extreme circumstances and at this point, no one has made any sort of compelling case for the necessity of seeing the American public naked or grabbing them by the nuts.
No one asked for this. And no one gave permission for this, aside from bureaucrats with more agenda than sense.
Finally, anyone dedicated to destroying themselves and others with a nonmetallic explosive is simply going to shove it up their ass. No pat down can detect that. So what, beyond further terrorizing the public, is the point?
The terrorists groups are a bunch of amateurs. If you want to see real terror, call up some bureaucrats.
From a shitload of personal travel (I fly twice a month) I have found 95% of the TSA to be good humored and responsible. The situation today is fa better than it was when run by private companies.
Detecting metallic objects isn't really a violation of privacy. Neither is seeing an X-ray image of mundane baggage. This is your body, we're talking about. And I'm not aware of any previous policy that allowed TSA to cop a feel with such gratuitous abandon.
> If we were not, terrorists would regularly board aircraft with guns and ammo.
When "terrorists" and other boogeymen reach the airport with all their destructive goodies, our security apparatus has already failed.
Personally, I'd rather have someone see a black and white outline of my naked body than look through my luggage - the former has no meaning or value, the second is actually private. What you consider "mundane," I consider personal.
> When "terrorists" and other boogeymen reach the airport with all their destructive goodies, our security apparatus has already failed.
So - no wiretaps, no racial profiling, no country profiling, no searches, no detainment, no internet monitoring - I suppose we use love and psychic powers?
I've been trying to find the report. The closest I got to was one on "TSA's Cost and Performance Study of Private-Sector Airport Screening" which said there are methodological problems in the TSA's report on the cost of private security over TSA-base ones. It pointed out that a handful of airports (including SFO) use private security.
So, how has SFO compared to LAX?
By far better I mean the procedures are faster, better explained, and the operation is more professional.
My point is not to advocate government run security, but to point out that all this reactionary criticism of TSA is unjustified and it's crowdthink going on right now.
And every study report I've seen says that outside of a few things (secure doors, which the airlines fought against in the 1990s; and halting the practice of responding to hijacker demands), the overall security is not made better by this ever-increasing level of passenger scrutiny.
A few months ago we had security X. We now have security Y, which is more expensive and more intrusive. Is that change justifiable? The TSA has not really justified this, which is easy to see from the Government Accountability Office reports.
A decade ago we had security A. We now have security Y (still). The same argument holds - are flights more secure, and which security factors are beneficial and which are not? Quite clearly the secure doors and rejection of the policy to agree to hijacker demands are effective against a broad range of attacks meant to use airplanes as a directed weapon. This is a security change I would not drop.
But since the GAO has shown that it's as easy to smuggle in "bomb parts" into an airport during periods A and Y, there is quite clearly limited improvement in the effectiveness of preventing people from blowing up planes. Note that this is a different security threat than in the previous paragraph.
How here does this equal to a logical conclusion that we should drop all security checks? That only makes sense if you think that none of the security screenings work, which I quite clearly did not say.
Oh, and in your original post you said you "found 95% of the TSA to be good humored and responsible." If you deal with 3 TSA people each trip then every 5 trips you'll be dealing with a non-good humored or non-responsible TSA member. If in a 1990s-era airport you found that only 90% of the staff was the same, but you only needed to deal with a single magnetometer staff, then you would have problems only every 7 trips. More professional staff doesn't necessarily mean a better experience.
You have to say that, otherwise people will say "if that's what's needed to make flying safe then I'm willing to put up with it."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/american-air...
... a concern echoed by a group of UCSF biologists:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1268330...
I don't care much about the nakedness aspect, but I do resent security theater, which now apparently extends to physically intimidating "enhanced pat-downs" and making everyone remove belts, even at airports without backscatter imagers:
http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/2010/11/04/bel...
There is, but even is they weren't they still could easily be saved via a photograph. Also, I don't really care if anyone sees me naked anymore, but I bet most of the public does, and to violate the right to be covered in clothes of the people is irresponsible.
... or that harm is caused by scans.
It's an X-ray machine. It irradiates your body. Some experts say it's negligible, others say it's not negligible at all, some say it's not a big deal, and others say it is a big deal for regular travelers. I really don't care if it is/isn't harmful until it is scientifically proven it's not, in the meanwhile I'll choose to label said machine as a potential danger to my health.
There is a pathetic lack of rational discussion of factual policies and why such policies might be necessary, whether we like them or not.
You find pathetic that people want to discuss their opinion on the violation of their civil right because you disagree? You want actual facts? How about this: 1) There is some probability that you might be inflicting unnecessary damage on your body with this machines. 2) You're giving the TSA consent to see you naked, which not only is it a violation of your rights, but it's an awful precedent to set. 3) Various security experts have expressed their disdain of such measures because the small (if any) benefit to security they might offer is not commensurate to the inconvenience, potential health damage, and violation of rights that are being committed. 4) Not doing anything about it (not complaining) makes this sort of actions easier to justify in the future. 5) There are adults watching your children naked without a real need to do so nor your consent. 6) It freaking annoys the hell out of me and every one in the line.
Do you even want me to get started on the pat down policy? I mean I would expect that in a military base, a police station, the White House, or a drug deal, but in an airport and done to children, elderly women, and people whom might be extremely offended by it? Fuck no.
The real solution to this is profiling, plain and simple. Everybody knows this, but it's a career suicide for whomever sets it up. Imagine the articles: "Muslim man was unjustly groped at airport by slender blonde TSA agent. Man said 'she grabbed my penis...'"
The real irresponsibility here is the TSA claiming that an opt out day is irresponsible, when they could easily avoid it by not imposing their ridiculous and useless security standards. In the mean time, I'll keep shoving my shampoo bottles up my ass.